In recent years, I feel that Iceland has cooled down and the summers have also been colder and more rainy. This should not be surprising because the meteorologists who have predicted the consequences of „global warming“ have predicted this weather pattern due to changes in the Gulf Stream. Added to this are natural fluctuations that could explain why it has been colder the last two years than the years before. This is all an emotional assessment so it is best not to say anything further about this. But this cold weather has offered the possibility of recording under frozen lakes near the capital. Something that I have not been able to do since I acquired hydrophones, except by difficult trips to remote places up in the highlands. The only thing I have to strive for is to get suitable recording weather on the weekend so that I am less busy at work. The possibilities for getting good recordings therefore have a few hours a year.
The little experience I have with these recordings has told me that it is not enough to find icy water, drill a hole and record. I can get very different recordings by finding the right hydrophone location, such as depth and the gap between two hydrophones. Then the frost must be below -5°C and the frosty days must have lasted for more than 5 days. Whether there is a thick layer of snow on the surface or naked ice, windy or calm weather. Size and depth of the lake and the thickness of the ice.
For me, this is always a bit of an issue. I have always traveled alone and been very careful when traveling and avoided all risks. Traveling on ice of varying thickness where no one sees or knows about me is therefore unexciting.
It was like that when I arrived at Skorradalsvatn (lake) in the dark and -8°C frost on January 5, 2025. I just went a few meters out onto the ice and drilled two holes there. The ice turned out to be about 25cm thick and the depth under it was almost a metre. Even though it was calm, sounds from the ice could still be heard on the surface. Sounds that would have been much clearer in the wind earlier that day.
I had to start recording immediately if I was going to be able to record these sounds under the ice. If it gets calm for a few more hours the lake will get very quiet.
The sounds heard in the recording are heard just as well on the surface, except that they are heard much louder under the ice, plus all kinds of smaller details.
Since I was not far from land, the rumble of a car driving along a road about 100 metres away is also heard through the ground. Then you can hear the rumble of air traffic very well, which is probably because the ice on the lake acts like a membrane on a microphone. At the same time, I climbed out onto the ice to take pictures so that my footsteps could be clearly heard.
Quality open headphones are recommended while listening at low to mid volume. There are a lot of very powerful sounds in this recording that can easily damage your hearing and speakers. I therefore do not recommend high volume
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Some of the loudest pitch there seems to be have some distortion. I didn’t notice this until the recording was transfered to mp3. But this is not a problem on the original recording WAV 24bit/48Khz. Let’s just leave it like this
(256Kbps / 60Mb)
Recorder: Sound Devices MixPre6
Mics: Benthowave BII-7121
Pix: Canon EOS-R
Weather: Cludy, Calm, about -8°C
Location: 64.5137303,-21.4130149
HLJÓÐMYND - SOUNDIMAGE 