Geyser, the area from whence our word comes, lost its best geyser awhile back. Now it’s just steam vents
When I entered college, the concept of continental drift was soundly rejected. In grad school, the idea wasn’t so crazy after all, and by the time I graduated, everyone knew the essentials of plate tectonics. The revolution, one of the greatest foundational theories of the physical sciences, occurred that quickly.
One of the really cool things about plate tectonics is that it explains volcanoes, why they occur where they do, and why some merely squirt hot lava out and over whilst others blow everything in the neighborhood to smithereens and cover the rest with ash. Some volcanoes occur when the continental plates slam and slide relative to each other, and some volcanoes are born of hot spots, or mantle plumes. In a few lucky places on earth, both phenomena wreak volcanic mayhem. Iceland is one.
Ruptures and rifts that separate the various continental plates upon which our landforms ride occur underwater. Only one of these ruptures, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that runs zipper-like up the Atlantic Ocean floor from the Southern Ocean to the Arctic, approaches the ocean surface, and that in only one place on earth.
Iceland.
Apart from the geological uniqueness of this scenic pile of basalt, Iceland boasts a delightful avifauna, which is just a fancy word for a bunch of different kinds of birds. I am a paleontologist, so I have a vested interest in geology because all my study species are essentially rocks buried in other rocks, and I have been a birder since early childhood. You see where this is going.
With enthusiasm unbesmirched by reality or common sense, on 29 May of 2019 I took off alone from Seattle to Reykjavik, to explore the wonders of Iceland. Let me show you how that trip exceeded my wildest expectations.