Iceland Case Study

Words: 476
Pages: 2

1.What is the geologic setting of Iceland (look in your text)?
Iceland is on a tectonic plate, the divergent boundary. The divergent boundary known as the Mid- Atlantic Ridge, runs between the Eurasian plate and the North American plate that move away from each other. The geologic features of this artic place of land formations consist of mountains, hot springs, geysers, glaciers, waterfalls, and volcanos.
2. Describe the valley you see in the video. What type of valley is this? The rift rugged valley had rotating seams of cracks, fillings of water surrounded by by gravel cliffs. Also I spotted meadows of green grass, with specs of snow. This is a rift valley. a geothermally active valley that contains Geysers and Strokkur.

3. There are
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Many of the mountains you see in the valley are volcanoes. Based upon what you know about divergent boundaries; what kind of volcanoes are these? These types are Fissure Volcanoes.

5. The beach sand is black. Do you think this is related to the type of lava coming from the volcanoes? Explain your answer. Yes, I do think black sand was formed and still can reform from volcanoes interaction of the hot lava and seawater. The sand comes from corded basalt lava from the volcanoes emerged into the ocean, cooling rapidly there, shattered into sand, and fragmented debris of many sizes.
6. What is a lava field? How do lava tubes form? Lava field also known as lava bed or lava plain are formed in flat areas of land by eruption of lava flows, essentially basalt. Lava flow extended to fields creating Lava tubes. Lava tubes also known as lava caves are created when active low-thick lava flow grows with a hard crust, that thickens and forms a dome above the flat flowing lava stream.
7. There are many hot springs in Iceland. How do they form and how are they caused by the tectonic setting? Hot springs for when there is a large supply of groundwater that emerge at the surface of Earth in some sort of heated pool sauna above heated rock or magma. The geologic activity from the tectonic settings taking place are submarine glacial volcanos creating many hot