A volcanic bowl with such good acoustics that Björk once performed here from a raft in the middle of the lake
~3,000- 6,500 yrs
Age (still debated)
270m
Across
55m
Deep
"Tub"
What Kerið means
The Story
Kerið looks like it should have been formed by a violent explosion — a near-perfect oval bowl with blood-red walls and an improbably turquoise lake at the bottom. Oddly, geologists have never found evidence of an explosive eruption here at all. The current best explanation is stranger and quieter: it was a cone volcano that simply emptied its magma chamber, then collapsed in on itself, leaving the crater you see today. Its red-orange color comes down to age — at only a few thousand years old, the iron-rich volcanic rock hasn't had time to weather down to Iceland's more typical black.
The lake itself has no visible stream feeding it. It's connected directly to the groundwater table, so its level rises and falls with underground water rather than with rain — locals sometimes joke that it tracks the ocean tides, though that's folklore, not fact.
A perfect natural amphitheater, and someone eventually noticed.
Fun Trivia
Things most visitors don't know
Björk performed a concert here in 1987 — from a raft floating in the middle of the lake, with the audience seated on the crater's sloped walls around her. The bowl shape carries sound remarkably well, and similar concerts happened again in 2004 and 2005.
Icelandic folklore places a dangerous water spirit in the lake. The nykur is said to appear as a beautiful gray horse with its hooves turned backward — the story goes that if you're tempted to climb on its back, it carries you straight into the water and drowns you.
It's one of the only Golden Circle stops that actually charges admission — a small fee that funds the paths and staircase, since the land itself is privately owned.
As You Walk Around
Easy to miss if you're not looking
Walk the full rim, not just the first viewpoint. The loop only takes about 15 minutes and the color and shape genuinely shift as you move around it.
The wooden staircase down to the water is worth the climb back up. Standing at lake level and looking up at the crater walls gives a real sense of scale that you don't get from above.
Keep your voice down for a second at the bottom and really listen. The acoustics that made this a real concert venue are noticeable even in casual conversation.