Iceland: Land of Fire and Ice

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Iceland Land of Fire and Ice

• Sitting Astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

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The only place where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge rises
above sea level.
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The Mid-Atlantic Ridge (Divergent tectonic plate
boundary) attracts tourists.
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Volcanic Activity

• Volcanic eruptions are far more frequent on
  convergent tectonic plate boundaries (Cascade
  Mountain Range the Andes) than on divergent
  tectonic place boundaries (Iceland) however,
  eruptions do occur along divergent boundaries.
  Recently and eruption broke through the icecap in
  Iceland.

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Icelands Eruptions

• Ash and roughly thirty-story-tall lava fountains
  shoot from a half-mile-long (0.8-kilometer-long)
  rupture in the icy cap of southern Iceland's
  Eyjafjallajokull (pronounced AY-uh-full-ay-ho-kul)
  volcano early Sunday.
• The geology of Iceland, though, is anything but
  normal. The volcanic island lies just south of
  the Arctic Circle atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,
  where two tectonic plates are forever pulling
  apart. Magma from deep inside Earth rushes
  upward, filling the gaps and fueling Iceland's
  volcanic eruptions, which occur about once every
  five years.

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• From a different angle, Eyjafjallajökull's
  "lavafall" appears unobstructed by billowing
  steam, revealing the glowing yellow ribbon
  cascading down the rocky gorge on March 26, 2010.

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• Lava spraying high into the air draws crowds of
  tourists to Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano on
  March 27, 2010. When the eruption started on
  March 21, hundreds of people were evacuated from
  their homes, due to fears of flooding, which
  could have occurred, had the volcano's heat
  melted too much surrounding glacial ice.

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Cooling lava flows
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Tourists check out the cooling lava
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Comparison

• These eruptions tend to be much less violent and
  destructive than those of strato-volcanoes that
  form near convergent boundaries.
• 1980 when Mt. St. Helen erupted in the Cascade
  Mountains, nearly half of the mountain was blown
  away.
• In Iceland the magma comes up to fill in a gap
  created by the separating of the two tectonic
  plates.

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• Not far from Eyjafjallajokull glacier, the much
  larger Mýrdalsjökull glacier (check the map on
  the next slide) hides the fiery, gently sloping
  Katla volcano that lies under the ice.

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Eruptions on Iceland
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Krafla Volcano - Iceland
An incandescent basaltic lava flow winds its way
downslope from a vent at Krafla volcano in
Iceland in 1984. The flow originated from an
8.5-km-long fissure that was initially active
along its entire length. The fissure was produced
by rifting along the mostly submarine
Mid-Atlantic Ridge where it rises above sea level
and cuts across the island of Iceland, forming an
accessible natural laboratory for studies of
episodic eruptions at this oceanic spreading
ridge.
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Iceland Info.

• Area 103,000 sq km
• Coastline 4,970 km
• Terrain mostly plateau interspersed with
  mountain peaks, icefields coast deeply indented
  by bays and fiords
• Land use
• arable land 0.07
• permanent crops 0
• other 99.93 (2005)
• Natural resources fish, hydropower, geothermal
  power, diatomite

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Demographic s

• Population 306,694 (July 2009 est.)
• Age Structure 0-14 years 20.7
• Population growth rate 0.741 (2009 est.)
• Urban population 92 (2008)
• Infant mortality rate 3.23 deaths/1,000 live
  births
• Life expectancy at birth 80.67 years
• Adult literacy 99

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Economy

• GDP - per capita (PPP) 39,800 (2009 est.)
• 42,800 (2008 est.)
• 42,600 (2007 est.)
• GDP - real growth rate -6.3 (2009 est.)
• 1.3 (2008 est.)
• 5.5 (2007 est.)
• GDP - composition by sector
• agriculture 5.2
• industry 24
• services 70.8 (2009 est.)

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Reykjavik Capital City
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Reykjavik
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Roundup of Icelandic horses
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The Gullfoss (Golden Falls) Waterfall in southern
Iceland.
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An eruption of the geyser Strokkur.
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A river with volcanic black sand banks meanders
to the sea through farm fields near the southern
coast of Iceland.
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Looking across the plate boundary from the
European Plate to the N. American