*Please keep in mind that this is an entirely fictitious account of a fictitious journey. Any resemblance to real events or people is purely coincidental.
Jetlag? stinks. big time.
Today I’m in Iceland, more specifically Reykjavik. I am so glad this is a written blog because I have no idea how to pronounce that.
It’s not as cold here as I thought it would be. It’s actually fairly nice, about 50-59 degrees Fahrenheit. Iceland as a name, I guess, is misleading. That and the fact that it’s really far north.
This places is seriously beautiful, though. I mean, look!
But pretty pictures aside, I’m here in Iceland to study divergent plate boundaries- tectonic plates that are slowly spreading apart.
There are two tectonic plates in Iceland- the North American plate, and the Eurasian plate. For thousands and thousands of years, they have been drifting apart, and molten rock continuously forces its way up through the continuously expanding gap. It cools and hardens into new continental crust, ensuring the constant expansion of Iceland.
However, the molten rock doesn’t always necessarily ebb out of cracks evenly. It often pools and hardens into volcanic structures on the edges of the tectonic plates that continue to collect percolating magma for hundreds of years.
This means there are some pretty sweet looking volcanoes in Iceland.
Like this one:
And this guy:
Pretty incredible, right?!
Iceland’s most recent earthquake was of 4.8 magnitude 8 months ago.
The tectonic plates have been spreading for about 150 million years in the north and 90 million years in the south, and volcanic and seismic activity has been occurring for most of that time. More than 15 volcanoes have erupted in the last century alone.
The Mid-Atlantic Ride, a divergent plate boundary along the Atlantic Ocean floor, slices through Iceland. It is essentially an underground mountain range that is submerged except for, notably, Iceland.
Between tectonic plates, though, there is a large rift valley that expands and sinks every year.
This is the “gap” caused by the spreading tectonic plates, and is therefore lower than the surrounding land. The picture above has been taken from the edge of the North American plate and shows the distance to the Eurasian plate.
As the two plates pull apart, faults occur naturally on both sides, and the fracturing and movement results in earthquakes.
So that’s about it for the science portion of this.
I know I mentioned this earlier, but holy mother of dragons this place is so incredibly beautiful. I was hiking in the Thingvellir Rift Valley yesterday to take the photo above (actual photo credit: Sue Strickland) and can I just say that pictures really do not do it justice. The lakes, the mountains, the trees, the peace. It’s pretty incredible.
I’m staying with a really nice lady I found on Airbnb. She’s letting me stay in her extra bedroom, and every morning she makes us both breakfast! It’s really good, too. Woman can really fry an egg. She was a lot nicer than the couple I stayed with last week… They really did not appreciate my waking up at 4 every morning. Which I guess is understandable, but I did warn them I was there for research and would be getting up really early. It was totally worth it though. Lima was awesome :).
Alright, I appear to be getting to the point of tired (in a good way!) where I can no longer talk without rambling. I’m gonna sign off for now- see you guys next week!
Between Tectonic Plates 
