14.11.1963: Onboard the fishingvessel Ysleifur II were fisherman on watcht at 07.15 in the morning. They saw some black ashfilled eruptionvolumes coming right up from the sea. The submarine eruption had started.
15.11.1963: A new island was born: Surtsey
6.12.1963: Three french men from a french weekly magazine, managed to land on the island. They were just able to stay on the island for as long as 15 minutes then another powerful eruption forced them to leave the island.
The first twenty years of vegetation colonization and succession on Surtsey were characterized by invasion and spread of the coastal species Honkenya peploides,vLeymus arenarius and Mertensia maritima which formed a simple community on the unfertile, sandy substrate on the island.
Summer of 1964: Flies and Butterflied had arrived. Gulls and other birds had arrived before.
June 1965: The first vascular plants was to be found.
1965 Cakile arctica arrived (Away between 1981-86 and 88-94)
1968: Grey Lag Goose (anser anser) were seen on April 17th.
1968: Barnacle Goose (branta leucopsis) passed late in April .
1968: On May 28 a Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator) was swimming close to the shore.
1968: Redshanks (Tringa totanus) were seen. Most of these birds made
a stop-over on the island.
1968: oystercatchers (haematopus ostralegus) were repeatedly seen on the shores of the island during late April and early May.
1968: mosses became visible
1070: Lichens were first found on the Surtsey lava.
Summer 1972: Seals phoca vitulina, were observed on the beach
1970: Biological nitrogen fixation on Surtsey was recorded, when it was found in laboratory experiments that
microorgnisms in Surtsey soils showed the activity of nitrogenase, the enzyme which is necessary for all biological nitrogen fixation.
1974 great black-backed gull (Larus marinus)
started breeding on Surtsey,
1975: kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla)
1977:Juncus arcticus, Poa pratensis, Sagina procumbens, Atriplex...