Book excerpt: Mineral resources, vital for any society, have historically driven exploration in Iceland through three key phases. Early Icelandic settlers to America and Australia got hooked on gold exploration at the onset of the nineteenth century, and brought this knowledge back when they returned home. In the 1970s, Yugoslav geologist Slobodan Janković led a comprehensive exploration for economic resources, especially metals around large intrusions. The 1990s marked the third phase, linking geothermal systems to gold and metal deposition, exemplified by metal-rich scales in the Reykjanes peninsula. This book covers historical accounts, newspaper stories, and scientific results. The first chapters explore ore deposits in old volcanic centres, silicic bodies and young volcanic systems. The second section covers story-cases about gold, silver and other metals, and also includes a chapter focused on the Faeroe Islands, the nearby archipelago with a similar geology to Iceland.