September 2008: The small icelandic island Surtsey now belongs to the UNESCO world heritage list. Surtsey was built by a vulvanic eruption on the ground of the North Atlantic on 14th November 1963. It is situated about 30 km south of Iceland and belongs to the Westman Islands.
It has been legally protected from the beginning and plays a major role in long term studies on the process of colonisation of land by plants, animals and marine organisms.