<p>Iceland lies on the divergent boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates and experiences notable seismic and volcanic activity. The surficial soil stratigraphy in the South Iceland Seismic Zone is dominated by normally consolidated non-cohesive Holocene soils, that have commonly been formed in catastrophic events including glacial outburst floods and ash fall from volcanic eruptions. Following the 2008 M_w 6.3 Olfus Earthquake, liquefaction was observed in loosely compacted sand deposits at Arnarbaeli on the western bank of the Olfusa river. Arnarbaeli sand grains have a highly angular irregular shape with protruding thin-shaped wall features and interior voids of varied sizes and shapes. This study investigates the liquefaction susceptibility of Arnarbaeli sand employing direct simple shear tests. The test results were used to define curves of liquefaction resistance in a loose and moderately dense state. Compared with several well-documented research sands, Arnarbaeli sand shows a low resistance to liquefaction. Recent models are found to overestimate pore water pressure (PWP) buildup in moderately dense samples and underestimate it in loose ones for Arnarbaeli sand. Hence, a material-specific PWP prediction model was established, where the PWP buildup for a given strain energy ratio showed a reversed trend with respect to relative density as compared to that of Toyoura sand. This shift in behavior could be attributed to the different grain size distribution and grain surface characteristics of the two materials. The test results in this study can be utilized in element-scale calibration of constitutive material models, liquefaction prediction and soil-structure interaction analyses.</p>