As previously reported, our family journeyed to Iceland for a few days last week, a trip that made a huge impression on us all. One of the major elements of the country’s fascinating allure lies in its geology, which is unique to say the least.

Iceland sits astride the upper limit of the Mid-Atlantic ridge. That one fact almost solely drives every salient feature of the “Icelandic experience.” The Mid-Atlantic ridge forms the boundary between two tectonic plates: Europe and North America. When it comes to tectonic plates, in the U.S. we tend to focus on the West Coast, the boundary between North American and the Pacific plate, a region of earthquakes and mountain building, our little part of the Pacific Ocean “ring of fire”.

The rift between Europe and North America

The two plates interacting in California are colliding. The Pacific plate is ramming into America, forming what is called a subduction zone: the Pacific plate is diving underneath the American plate. It’s a tens of million years-old head on collision of titanic proportions. As it rams into us, and heads down into the earth’s crust, the Pacific plate pushes up stark, steep mountains (the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, for instance) and also forms extensive, and very active, earthquake faults. The energy involved in this continental wreckage is astronomically huge. When tectonic plates collide, the results are always dramatic. The Indian subcontinent is crashing into Asia. Result? The Himalayas. Africa ramming northwards into Europe? The Alps, Mt. Etna, the obliterating explosion in antiquity of the island Thera, which some think might have been the source of the legend of Atlantis.

Iceland, however, represents the opposite kind of tectonic interaction. Europe and North America are rushing away from each other at the breakneck speed of a centimeter/year, splitting open the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Magma streams up from the earth’s mantle, pushing each plate apart. For almost the entire length of the Atlantic rift this results in a long line of undersea mountains, a chain that stretches from the bottom of Africa and South America northward, it’s shape mirroring the puzzle pieces of Africa and South America, and of the matching outlines of Europe and North America.

Only at Iceland does this chain poke its head above the water and form a terra nova, a new piece of land capable of supporting flora and fauna. And people. Iceland is the result of an ages-long volcanic eruption that has continuously pushed up new land made of the lava from millions of years of volcanic activity.

To say “millions of years” makes it seem as if Iceland was really old. Not so. You want old land, consider the Appalachian Mountains. That is some of the oldest rock on the face of the earth, almost 4 billion years old. As part of the original supercontinent of Pangea, all of the continents have all existed, in one form or another, since the planet cooled and oceans formed. Change has come in the form of mountains, repeatedly thrust up by the continental fragments endlessly colliding and re-colliding.

Another view of the Mid-Atlantic Rift

Iceland on the other hand is only about 15-20 million years old, essentially a geological fetus compared to the hoary continents. This newness is evident in every aspect of the Icelandic landscape: lava fields that go on for miles and miles, some the ropy pahoehoe lava, but much of it the sharp, impossible to traverse, razor-sharp aa lava. Volcanoes dot the country side. Indeed, every mountain range is some form of volcano or volcano remnant. Volcanoes are the force that has created Iceland. In addition, the traveler frequently comes across geysers at the oddest places. The heat from the magma that made the island is never very far from the surface of the earth, providing geothermal energy that accounts for the overwhelming majority of the island’s electric power. It is this eternal struggle between heat and ice that defines Iceland.

The Disappearing Lake

The geology is primal, raw. Escarpments rise hundreds of feet all across the country. In such a place, you can literally stand with one foot on the European plate, the other on North America, though at many sites, this boundary may be a cliff hundreds of feet high. And harder to straddle.

With only a few million years to work, and at such an extreme north latitude, the flora and fauna is also limited. Trees exist, but most are stunted, and “forests” essentially nonexistent. It looks more like scrub land than trees. An Icelandic joke asks, “How does an Icelander whose lost in the woods find his way out?”. The answer is to stand up. The arctic fox is the only native mammal, though horses, mink and a few other species have been imported over the centuries since Vikings discovered the place. Icelandic horses are a special breed, stocky, long-haired and, I am told, a joy to ride. Not a horse person, I can only report that second-hand.

Gulfloss Waterfall

But far from being a drawback, it is the starkness and clarity that rules the countryside that truly sets the island nation apart. The air is of a purity not found anywhere else. The water is drinkable from every stream, just scooping it with your hands. Iceland juxtaposes majestic mountains, breath-taking waterfalls, geysers, volcanoes, mineral and hot springs, frozen lakes and a host of other geologic wonders. It is a place where the visitor continually holds his breath, in awe of the unadulterated power of nature.

© 2012 Chuck Puckett