More geology! And oh man, I do love volcanoes. If you haven’t heard, Iceland’s been acting up, and it’s putting on quite the show.
Wicked shot of a the volcanic fissure that erupted near the Katla volcano in Iceland.
Iceland’s about to go off, I swear! This tiny little country (only a population of over 200,000) is the most geologically active country on this non-stop action planet of ours. The reason…? The mid-atlantic ridge, where the North American and the Eurasian tectonics meet, and in this case, are being pushed apart. The ‘push’ is cause my recycled magmatic material being pushed up along the mid-atlantic ridge, causing the plates to extend some 10’s of centimeters a year. The fact that Iceland is directly on the ridge is the reason, you may have noticed, that this volcano occurs more along a ‘line’, other than the typical crater style volcano you see all over the place. I’m not going to go into the differences, unless you ask, because it can get retarded.
However, I have noticed that on the CBC article, they refer to this volcano as a hot spot, which it definitely isn’t. Alright, looks like I’m getting right back into this, shit it’s getting late. A hot spot is defined as a volcanic event not related to any plate boundary activity… seeing as Iceland is right on a boundary, it’s not a hot spot. The most famouse of hot spots…..? Hawai’i…. take a look at where it lies, right smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or geologically speaking, the Pacific Plate. Ok really, I’ll stop…. if you actually want to know more, just comment on here, and I’ll lay it all out!! Holy shit my brain is oofffffff, it took me an hour to figure out what I was writing… damn you TV!!! Every time I look at it, I forget what I’m writing about, and now this entry is way too effing long.
Anyways, while this Icelandic eruption was relatively small, it’s causing a stir over whether it not it will be a precursor to a much larger eruption from the nearby Katla volcano, so I’ll keep you posted on what happens….. by flying over and camping out. I watched the video below on mute, so I don’t know if there’s any chatter in there, I’m assuming there is… enjoy!
Posted by Avery Henderson 
The Scientist 