In November 1963, the crew of the Icelandic trawler Ísleifur II noticed a dark mass in the sky off the southern coast. Initially fearing a ship fire, they soon realised a volcano was erupting beneath the ocean. By morning, ash columns had formed a ridge, and within days a new island had emerged, eventually reaching 174 metres high and more than a kilometre long. Named Surtsey after the Norse fire giant Surtr, the island continued to erupt for two years.
Surtsey’s formation presented a rare scientific opportunity. According to Olga Kolbrún Vilmundardóttir of the Natural Science Institute of Iceland, such long-lasting islands appear only once every 3,000 to 5,000 years in the region. To preserve it as a natural laboratory, the Icelandic government placed Surtsey under formal protection in 1965, restricting access to researchers and a few supervised journalists. No sheep were allowed to graze, ensuring minimal human interference.
Scientists expected algae and mosses to be the first colonisers, but within a year, sea rocket plants washed ashore took root directly on volcanic rock. However, after a decade, only about ten plant species had established, and growth stalled. The turning point came in the early 1980s when black-backed gulls began nesting on the island. Their guano carried seeds that spread grasses, transforming bare rock into green areas. Pawel Wasowicz, director of botany at the institute, noted that contrary to Darwinian expectations, most seeds arrived not in fleshy fruits but in bird droppings.
Today, grey seals are the latest arrivals, using the volcanic rock as a haul-out site and further influencing biodiversity. Wasowicz emphasises that Surtsey shows ecosystem recovery does not follow a single predictable path but is shaped by multiple, often surprising forces. The island continues to serve as a living laboratory for studying natural colonisation and succession without human interference.
