GEEO Iceland Google Earth Presentation

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USA

Today I’d like to share with you a great experience I had while traveling to Iceland through a non-profit organization called GEEO. GEEO helps educators travel abroad so that they can learn more about different cultures to share with their students. I was joined on my trip by teachers from all around the United States.

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Atlantic Ocean

We flew halfway across the Northern Atlantic Ocean to the island of Iceland. You can see Iceland is located between North America and Europe. Iceland is considered to be part of Europe in geopolitical terms. Geologically, however, it is part of both continents: the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet in Iceland, and the island is literally being pulled apart between them—about two centimeters (nearly an inch) per year, roughly the speed your fingernails grow.

Iceland is often called “the Land of Fire and Ice” because it is one of the few places on Earth where active volcanoes and massive glaciers exist side by side. Keep that nickname in mind—almost everything we’re about to see was created by fire, ice, or both.

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Nordic Countries

Iceland is one of what’s known as the Nordic countries. Does anyone know what else is part of the Nordic countries? (A: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Greenland, and the Faroe Islands.) Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are also part of a region known as Scandinavia. The Nordic countries share deep historical and cultural ties going back to the age of the Vikings, and today they regularly rank among the happiest, safest, and most equal societies in the world.

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Iceland

Iceland was one of the last large landmasses on Earth to be settled by humans. According to Icelandic tradition, in the year 874, a Norwegian chieftain named Ingólfur Arnarson (pronunciation) became the first permanent settler on the untouched island we now call Iceland. Over the next sixty years—a period called the Settlement Age—thousands of Norse settlers arrived by open wooden ship, along with people from Ireland and Scotland. These settlers were part of the Viking world. When you hear “Viking,” you might picture raiders in horned helmets (they didn’t actually wear those!), but most Norse people were farmers, traders, shipbuilders, and explorers. From Iceland, their descendants sailed even farther west, settling Greenland and reaching North America around the year 1000—almost 500 years before Columbus.

The settlers told stories about their ancestors—feuds, voyages, romances, and battles—that were eventually written down in the 13th century as the sagas, some of the greatest literature of medieval Europe. Amazingly, the Icelandic language has changed so little over a thousand years that Icelandic students today can still read those medieval sagas.

Iceland was ruled by Norway and later by Denmark for more than 600 years. During this time, fishing and agriculture were the mainstays of Iceland’s economy, and life was often extremely hard—volcanic eruptions, famines, and plagues kept the population small and poor. Iceland gained sovereignty in 1918 and became a fully independent country on June 17, 1944, near the end of World War II. In less than a century since then, it has transformed into one of the wealthiest, healthiest, and most educated countries on Earth.

Iceland has a population of around 400,000 people—fewer people than many U.S. cities—living on an island about the size of the state of Kentucky. It is the most sparsely populated country in Europe: on average, there are only about nine people per square mile!

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Reykjavik

Our trip started in Reykjavik, the world’s most northerly capital city. Its name means “Smoky Bay”—when the first settlers arrived, they saw columns of what looked like smoke rising from the ground, but it wasn’t smoke at all—it was steam from natural hot springs, their first clue about the volcanic power hiding beneath Iceland.

Today, Icelanders have turned that underground heat into a superpower. Nearly all of Reykjavik’s buildings—homes, schools, even swimming pools and some sidewalks—are heated with geothermal energy (geo means “earth” and thermal means “heat”). Hot water is piped straight from underground into radiators. Essentially 100% of Iceland’s electricity comes from renewable sources: geothermal power and hydropower from its rushing rivers. Iceland burns almost no coal, oil, or gas to power or heat its buildings.

Nearly two-thirds of Iceland’s population lives in the area around Reykjavik, which is the heart of Iceland’s culture, economy, and government. Even though it is not a large city by international standards, it is full of amazing architecture, excellent museums, a fantastic art scene, and a gorgeous backdrop of snow-capped mountains and churning seas.

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Iceland Parliament Building

This is Iceland’s Parliament House, home of the Althing (pronunciation). The building itself dates from 1881, but the institution inside it is far, far older. The Althing was founded in the year 930—more than a thousand years ago—which makes it one of the oldest parliaments in the world still operating today. For comparison, the U.S. Congress first met in 1789; the Althing had already been meeting for over 850 years by then.

Iceland is a representative democracy and a parliamentary republic with many different political parties. It has also been a world leader in equality: in 1980, Icelanders elected Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the first woman in the world to be democratically elected president of a country.

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Hallgrímskirkja

This is Hallgrímskirkja (pronunciation), a Lutheran church famous for its unique architectural design and one of the tallest buildings in Iceland. The architect wanted the church to resemble the hexagonal basalt lava columns found across Iceland’s landscape—we’ll see some later. Lutheranism is a branch of Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German friar, reformer, and theologian from the 16^th century. Does anyone know what Martin Luther is most famous for? (A: nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of a church in 1517 and starting the Protestant Reformation.) Lutheranism is the official state religion of Iceland, and a majority of Icelanders belong to the national Lutheran church.

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Harpa

This modern building is a concert hall that was built in 2011. It is one of the most striking buildings in Reykjavik and stands out against the city’s skyline like a shimmering crystal. It is a remarkable blend of glass panels, steel framework, and geometric shapes that are awe-inspiring to see in person. The design was inspired by Iceland’s basalt columns, glaciers, and the shimmering Northern Lights, and its thousands of glass panels light up in changing colors at night. The interior spaces host concerts, conferences, exhibitions, and cultural events.

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Akureyri

We drove from Reykjavík to Akureyri (pronunciation), a town on the northern coast, enjoying beautiful scenery along the way. Akureyri has a population of around 18,000 people—which makes it the largest town in Iceland outside the capital region—and is an important port and fishing center. The area has a relatively warm climate, and its ice-free harbor has played a significant role in its history. The town is still heated with geothermal water from a hot spring in the fjord, called Eyjafjörður (pronunciation).

Akureyri sits only about 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Because we visited in summer, we experienced the midnight sun: this far north, the sun barely sets in June and July, and the sky stays light almost all night long. The opposite occurs in winter, when there are only a few hours of daylight—but those long, dark winter nights are perfect for seeing the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, when charged particles from the sun collide with gases in Earth’s atmosphere and make the sky glow green, purple, and red.

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Lystigarður

On a hill above Akureyri’s old town is Lystigarður (pronunciation), a park and botanical garden with specimens of almost all native Icelandic plants, as well as hundreds of foreign ones. We didn’t visit the garden, but it’s remarkable that a garden so lush can grow just below the Arctic Circle.

While in Akureyri, we headed out to sea to try to spot whales. Eyjafjörður is one of the best whale-watching spots in Europe. Species frequently seen here include bottlenose whales, minke whales, and humpback whales. Humpbacks are the acrobats of the whale world—they can launch their 40-ton bodies almost completely out of the water, a behavior called breaching, and the males sing complex songs that can travel for miles underwater. Whales were hunted nearly to extinction in the 19th and 20th centuries; since an international ban on commercial whaling took effect in the 1980s, humpback populations have been slowly recovering, and whale watching has become far more valuable to Iceland’s economy than whale hunting ever was. Iceland is one of only three countries in the world that controversially still allows some whale hunting. The main market for whale meat in Iceland is tourists.

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Goðafoss Waterfall

We started the next day with a stop at one of the most impressive waterfalls in Iceland, the Goðafoss (pronunciation). The waterfall is 40 feet high and nearly 100 feet wide, curving in a beautiful horseshoe shape. There were walking paths all around the falls, making it easy to see the waterfall from many different angles.

Goðafoss means “Waterfall of the Gods,” and the name connects to one of the most important moments in Icelandic history. In the year 1000, Iceland was on the edge of civil war between followers of the old Norse gods—Odin, Thor, Freyja—and converts to Christianity. At the Althing, both sides agreed to let one respected leader decide for everyone: the “lawspeaker” Þorgeir, who was himself a pagan priest. According to the sagas, Þorgeir lay under a fur blanket for a full day and night, thinking. When he emerged, he declared that Iceland would officially become Christian—but that people could still quietly practice the old ways at home. His compromise avoided a war. Legend says that when Þorgeir returned home, he threw his statues of the Norse gods into this waterfall, giving it its name. (Historians point out that this dramatic detail doesn’t appear in the medieval sources and was probably added to the story centuries later—but the peaceful conversion of Iceland in the year 1000 really happened.)

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Lake Mývatn

Next, we explored the beautiful scenery around Lake Mývatn (pronunciation), which formed during a volcanic eruption 2,300 years ago. Its name means “midge lake”—midges are tiny flies that swarm here by the millions in summer. That may sound annoying (and it was), but the midges are the base of an entire food web: they feed the Atlantic salmon and brown trout in the river, and the insect-rich, nutrient-rich waters attract one of the greatest gatherings of ducks in the world, with more than a dozen species nesting here. The lake is also dotted with strange rootless cones called pseudocraters, formed when hot lava flowed over the wetland and the trapped water exploded into steam.

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Dimmuborgir

Near the lake, we explored the lava formations of Dimmuborgir (pronunciation), which means “dark forts” in Icelandic. It is an area of dramatic black lava arches, pillars, and caves formed about 2,300 years ago, when a lake of molten lava partially drained away and left these hollow towers standing. We went on a hike among the formations.

In Icelandic folklore, Dimmuborgir is full of stories. Trolls were said to have been caught here by the rising sun and turned to stone—look closely and some rock pillars really do look like frozen giants. The area is also said to be the home of Grýla, a fearsome troll woman, and her thirteen mischievous sons, the Yule Lads. Instead of one Santa Claus, Icelandic children are visited by all thirteen Yule Lads in the days before Christmas, each with his own personality—like Door-Slammer, Spoon-Licker, and Sausage-Swiper—leaving small gifts in children’s shoes (or a raw potato if they’ve misbehaved!).

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Námaskarð

Our next stop was the Námaskarð (pronunciation) geothermal area to see bubbling mud pools and steaming fumaroles (vents from which volcanic gas escapes into the atmosphere). One of Námaskarð’s most notable characteristics cannot be captured by photo or video—the smell! The steam carries hydrogen sulfide, a gas that smells like rotten eggs. The ground here is so hot, acidic, and mineral-stained—rust reds, sulfur yellows, ash grays—that almost nothing can grow, which is why scientists compare landscapes like this to the surface of Mars. NASA astronauts actually trained in Iceland’s volcanic landscapes in the 1960s to prepare for walking on the Moon.

Freshly hardened lava is bare black rock, but over time a soft green carpet of moss slowly takes hold. In Iceland’s cool climate, moss can take decades or centuries to build up a thick cover, which means the moss is a rough natural clock: bare rock is young, while a deep, spongy green blanket tells you the lava has been sitting undisturbed for a very long time. The moss is also incredibly fragile: a single footstep can crush it and leave a scar that lasts a century, which is why visitors are asked to stay on marked paths and never walk on it.

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Dettifoss Waterfall

This is another waterfall that we visited, Dettifoss (pronunciation). It is considered the most powerful waterfall in Europe—nearly 150 feet high and 328 feet wide, with an average of about 6,800 cubic feet of gray glacial water thundering over the edge every second. You can feel the ground vibrate as you approach, and the spray can be seen from more than half a mile away. All that water comes from the melting of a giant glacier called Vatnajökull.

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Borgarfjörður Eystri

Our day ended when we reached Borgarfjörður Eystri (pronunciation), a fjord on the east coast where only around 100 people live. A large rock in this area called Álfaborg (pronunciation), or Elf Rock, is said to be home to the queen of the elves.

In Icelandic folklore, álfar are mystical beings that live hidden in nature, often in rocks or hills. They resemble humans but possess magical powers and live in a parallel world. Icelanders respect and even fear elves, believing that disturbing their homes brings bad luck. The belief is so strong that roads and construction projects have sometimes been altered to avoid areas where elves are believed to reside.

Borgarfjörður Eystri also has a large puffin colony. Puffins are seabirds with colorful beaks and black and white feathers. Called “clowns of the sea” for their playful appearance, they’re excellent swimmers, using their wings to “fly” underwater while catching fish. They return each year to nest, laying just one egg that both parents care for until it hatches. Puffins make their nests in burrows that they dig themselves—tunnels that can be up to 7 feet long. Iceland is puffin headquarters for the planet: the majority of the world’s Atlantic puffins breed in Iceland each summer.

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Hengifoss

In East Iceland, we hiked to Hengifoss (pronunciation), whose name means “Hanging Falls.” At about 420 feet, it is the third-tallest waterfall in Iceland, plunging in a single ribbon into a deep gorge.

What makes Hengifoss truly special is the cliff behind it. The rock face is striped like a layer cake: thick bands of dark basalt with thin, bright-red ribbons running between them. Each dark layer is a separate lava flow from volcanic eruptions 5 to 6 million years ago. Between eruptions, iron-rich soil built up on the surface; when the next lava flow buried it, the heat “rusted” the iron, turning the soil brilliant red. Reading the cliff from bottom to top is literally reading millions of years of Iceland’s volcanic history, one eruption at a time. Scientists have even found fossilized tree trunks in these layers—proof that Iceland was once warm enough to grow conifer forests!

The hike to the falls is about a mile and a half each way. Halfway up, we passed Litlanesfoss (pronunciation), a smaller waterfall framed on both sides by towering hexagonal basalt columns, some of the tallest in Iceland. Remember Hallgrímskirkja, the church in Reykjavik? Its architect copied these exact columns.

According to local legend, the lake below the waterfall is home to the Lagarfljótsormur, a giant serpent-like monster—Iceland’s own version of the Loch Ness Monster, with reported “sightings” going back to the 14th century.

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Eastern Fjords

Iceland is famous for its fjords—long, narrow inlets of the sea, surrounded by steep cliffs or mountains. The fjords were formed by glaciers over thousands of years. During the Ice Ages, glaciers slowly ground their way through valleys like enormous bulldozers, carving them into deep U-shapes; when the glaciers melted and sea levels rose, seawater flooded in. In Iceland, fjords are common along the coastline, and they’re home to diverse wildlife, including seabirds, seals, reindeer (in the east), and whales.

All along these roads, we kept seeing sheep—on the hillsides, near the shore, and sometimes standing right in the road. Iceland has more sheep than people: over 400,000 of them roam completely free across the mountains and countryside all summer long. After the lambs are born in May, farmers simply let their flocks loose to wander and graze wherever they like, unfenced, for months. Then every September, whole communities head into the highlands on foot, on horseback, and on ATVs for the réttir (pronunciation), the great autumn sheep round-up. The gathered sheep—all mixed together from many different farms—are herded into circular sorting pens and separated by the little notches, or ear-marks, that identify each farm’s animals. It’s hard work, but it’s also one of Iceland’s most beloved traditions, ending in feasts, music, and dancing.

We also passed field after field dotted with what looked like giant marshmallows: rows of grass bales wrapped in white and green plastic. This is silage, and it solves a very Icelandic problem. Farmers need to store up feed to get their animals through the long winter, but Iceland’s summers are too short, wet, and unpredictable to reliably dry grass into ordinary hay (that takes several dry days in a row—a rare luxury in Iceland). So instead, they bale the grass while it’s still damp and seal it airtight in plastic. Inside, helpful bacteria ferment it—the same basic process that turns milk into yogurt—which “pickles” the grass, locks in its nutrients, and keeps it fresh for months.

Farming has never been easy in Iceland because the soil is young and volcanic—rich in minerals but low in the organic matter that plants need, and so light and loose that wind and water strip it away easily. Combined with a growing season of only a few short summer months, this means very little of Iceland can be farmed at all. For most of the country’s history, the single most valuable patch of land on any farm was the tún, the “home field” right beside the farmhouse, which families carefully fertilized with animal manure to grow their most important hay. Today, Icelanders get around their tough soil and short summers in an ingenious way: they grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and other vegetables year-round inside greenhouses heated and lit by geothermal energy—using the island’s volcanic heat to grow food that its volcanic soil and climate otherwise couldn’t.

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Vatnajökull Glacier

This is the Vatnajökull (pronunciation) Glacier, the largest ice cap in Europe. It covers more than 8% of the surface of Iceland, and in places the ice is more than half a mile thick. Vatnajökull is not just a single glacier but a network of more than 30 outlet glaciers that flow down from the central ice cap, creating stunning ice formations and deep crevasses. Vatnajökull National Park, which protects the ice cap and the volcanic landscapes around it, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

Remember how Iceland is a land of “fire and ice?” There are several active volcanoes hidden underneath this glacier. When one erupts, it can melt enormous amounts of ice from below, unleashing a sudden glacial flood called a jökulhlaup (pronunciation)—a wall of meltwater, ice chunks, and volcanic debris that can wash out roads and bridges. Icelandic engineers actually design the bridges on the south coast to break away in sections, so a flood destroys only part of the road instead of all of it.

Sadly, Iceland’s glaciers are shrinking. Iceland loses billions of tons of ice each year as the climate warms, and scientists warn that most of the country’s glaciers could be gone within about 200 years. In 2014, a small glacier called Okjökull became the first Icelandic glacier officially declared “dead”—no longer thick enough to move under its own weight. In 2019, Icelanders held a memorial for it and installed a plaque titled “A letter to the future.” It reads, in part: “This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”

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Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon

The next morning, we drove along the southern coast of Iceland and visited the Jökulsárlón (pronunciation) Glacier Lagoon. The lake is the deepest in Iceland and its surface is the lowest point in the country, filled with icebergs that break off the Breiðamerkurjökull outlet glacier and drift slowly toward the sea, sometimes with seals sprawled on top. The blocks of ice coming off the glacier are typically 100 feet high, in dramatic shades of white and bright blue.

This famous lagoon barely existed a century ago. It began forming in the 1930s as the glacier retreated, and it has grown dramatically since—a change you can literally watch happening as the climate warms. The otherworldly scenery has made Jökulsárlón a favorite filming location for Hollywood, appearing in James Bond and Batman movies.

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Iceberg View

We were able to check out the lagoon by boat to get closer to the floating icebergs. Remember that what you see is only the “tip of the iceberg”: about 90% of an iceberg’s mass floats hidden below the waterline, which is why they’re so dangerous to ships. The deep blue color of some icebergs comes from ice so old and compressed that all the air bubbles have been squeezed out when it is below the surface, and then the iceberg flips over. Some of the water that makes up the icebergs fell as snow on the glacier more than a thousand years ago.

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Diamond Beach

Right where the lagoon empties into the Atlantic sits one of the most photographed spots in Iceland: Diamond Beach. Icebergs that drift out of Jökulsárlón can get tossed back onto the shore by the waves, where they are polished by the surf into crystal-clear chunks of ice. Scattered across the jet-black volcanic sand, they sparkle in the light like giant diamonds—some the size of a fist, others as big as a car. Every day the ocean delivers a completely new collection, and every day they melt away. It’s a beautiful place to think about how temporary even the mightiest ice can be.

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Skaftafell National Park

Skaftafell (pronunciation) is a beautiful preserve that is now part of Vatnajökull National Park. The diverse landscape here is often compared to certain parts of the Alps. Like most of Iceland’s incredible landscape, the region was shaped by rivers, glaciers, and volcanoes. Visitors can go on a glacier hike in this beautiful park, equipped with crampons (metal spikes that strap onto your boots), ice axes, and helmets—walking on a thousand-year-old river of ice.

A glacier’s surface is far from a smooth sheet of ice—it’s a changing, moving landscape of ridges, deep blue cracks called crevasses, and, most striking of all, moulins (pronunciation). A moulin—French for “mill”—is a roughly circular shaft where meltwater has drilled straight down into the glacier, sometimes plunging hundreds of feet to the base of the ice. In summer you can hear the water roaring down them. Moulins matter because that surface meltwater travels through the glacier to the ground below, where it can act like a lubricant, letting the whole glacier slide downhill a little faster. It’s a reminder that a glacier isn’t frozen and still—it’s a slow-moving river of ice.

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Vík

We then continued on to the small village of Vík, which has only around 300 inhabitants—yet it’s still the largest settlement for more than 40 miles in any direction. It is the southernmost village in Iceland and, despite being one of the rainiest places in the country, it is also one of the warmest.

Vík lives in the shadow of a sleeping giant. Directly above the town, hidden beneath the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap, is Katla—one of Iceland’s largest and most active volcanoes. Katla has erupted roughly twice a century throughout Iceland’s history, and its last major eruption was in 1918, which means it is considered overdue. Because an eruption would melt glacier ice and send a massive flood toward the coast, the villagers regularly practice evacuation drills, and the church on the hill—the highest ground in town—is the designated gathering point. Life alongside volcanoes is simply part of being Icelandic. (If any of your students have seen it: Vík is the setting of the Netflix series Katla, which imagines the aftermath of exactly this eruption.)

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Reynisfjara Beach

We visited Vík’s Reynisfjara Beach, which has black volcanic sand and ominous offshore rock formations. It is often ranked as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The cliffs here are made of towering hexagonal basalt columns, stacked like a giant’s pipe organ. These form naturally: when a thick flow of lava cools slowly and evenly, it shrinks and cracks into six-sided columns—the same process that created the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland and Devils Postpile in California. The cliffs west of the beach are home to many seabirds, most notably puffins, which burrow into the shallow soils during the nesting season.

Just offshore stand the Reynisdrangar sea stacks. According to legend, they are two trolls who were dragging a ship to shore when the sun rose and turned them to stone. The real story is erosion: the stacks are the hard remnants of cliffs the ocean has slowly worn away.

Reynisfjara is famous for “sneaker waves”—sudden, powerful waves that surge far higher up the beach than the ones before them. Visitors are warned never to turn their backs on the ocean here. It’s a good reminder that in Iceland, nature is beautiful but always in charge.

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Dyrhólaey

Dyrhólaey (pronunciation) is a small peninsula near Vík that originally formed as a volcanic island. Its name means “door-hill island,” after the massive natural rock arch at its tip—an opening so large that small boats and even a daredevil airplane pilot have passed through it. From the peninsula, you can see black lava columns jutting out of the sea and the black sand coastline stretching off into the distance. (Spin the image around to show other views.)

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Seljalandsfoss Waterfall

Next, we visited Seljalandsfoss (pronunciation), a 196-foot-tall waterfall. There was a path behind the waterfall that allowed us to peek behind the curtain of water cascading over the rocks above.

Just a few minutes’ walk from Seljalandsfoss is a waterfall that many visitors miss entirely: Gljúfrabúi (pronunciation), whose name means “the one who lives in the canyon.” That name is perfect, because instead of tumbling down an open cliff, Gljúfrabúi pours into a narrow slot in the rock. From the path, all you see is a mossy cleft and a boulder half-blocking the entrance. To reach it, you wade up the shallow stream through the gap in the cliff, and the canyon suddenly opens into a hidden chamber with the 130-foot waterfall thundering down in front of you and a patch of open sky far overhead. You need a raincoat, because the swirling spray soaks everything in seconds. It’s a great reminder that in Iceland, some of the most magical places are the ones tucked just out of sight.

The water tumbling over these waterfalls comes from a glacier-capped volcano nearby whose name became world-famous in 2010: Eyjafjallajökull (pronunciation—don’t worry, news anchors around the world couldn’t say it either!). That spring, Eyjafjallajökull erupted under its ice cap. The meltwater hitting hot magma blasted a plume of fine volcanic ash miles into the sky, and winds carried the ash cloud straight over Europe. Because ash can destroy jet engines, most of Europe’s airspace shut down for about a week—more than 100,000 flights were canceled and millions of travelers were stranded in the largest disruption of air travel since World War II. It was a dramatic reminder that a single volcano on a small island can affect the entire world.

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Gullfoss Waterfall

From here we traveled along Iceland’s famous Golden Circle, a route that connects three of the country’s most beloved sights—Gullfoss, the Geysir hot springs, and Thingvellir—all within about 60 miles of the capital.

Our first stop was Gullfoss (pronunciation), meaning “Golden Falls,” a massive waterfall that cascades over two great “steps” before spilling into a deep crevice. Fed by a glacier-fed river, the water passing through the falls can turn dark gray depending on how much sediment gets pushed through, and on sunny days the mist throws rainbows across the canyon. Here is a video of Gullfoss.

Gullfoss exists in its natural state today largely because of one determined farmer’s daughter. Around 1907, foreign investors arranged to dam the river and harness the falls for hydroelectric power. Sigríður Tómasdóttir (pronunciation), who had grown up beside the falls and guided visitors there, spent years fighting the project—repeatedly traveling roughly 70 miles to Reykjavik for meetings and hearings, hiring a young lawyer with her own savings (he later became Iceland’s first president), and, according to legend, even threatening to throw herself into the falls. The power plant was never built, the land eventually passed to the Icelandic nation, and Gullfoss became a protected nature reserve in 1979. Sigríður is remembered as Iceland’s first environmentalist, and a memorial to her stands above the falls she saved.

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Geysers

We were able to see a variety of geothermal pools and erupting hot springs in Iceland. This one is called Strokkur (pronunciation), and it shoots a spray of boiling hot water up to 100 feet straight into the air roughly every five to ten minutes. Groundwater seeps down into rock heated by magma. Deep underground, the pressure keeps the water liquid even beyond its normal boiling point—until it suddenly flashes into steam and blasts everything above it out of the vent, like a natural pressure cooker blowing its lid.

There is another hot spring nearby called Geysir (pronunciation), which is where our English word geyser comes from—one of the very few Icelandic words to enter languages all around the world. Geysir is one of the oldest geysers ever recorded, mentioned in written sources going back to the 13th century, but today it is usually dormant.

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Thingvellir National Park

Finally, we visited Thingvellir (pronunciation) National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to see the rift valley created by the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates pulling apart. This is where North America and Europe meet, geologically speaking; the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which runs mostly along the deep ocean floor, rises above sea level right here. We walked through a dramatic canyon that marks the edge of the North American plate, past another waterfall. The plates drift apart about two centimeters every year, so the valley grows a little wider every single year. Many people go scuba diving or snorkeling in the Silfra fissure, a crack between the continents filled with glacial water so pure and clear you can see more than 300 feet underwater. (Did you snorkel or dive at Silfra? If so, tell the students about your experience.)

Thingvellir is not just a site of geologic importance, but arguably the most important historical site in Iceland. Its name means “Assembly Plains”: Iceland’s parliament, the Althing, was established here in the year 930, when chieftains from all over the island began gathering every summer in this natural amphitheater to make laws, settle disputes, and hold what amounted to a national festival. A “lawspeaker” would recite the laws from memory at the Law Rock—this was before Icelanders wrote them down. The assembly met here for more than 850 years, until 1798, after which parliament moved to Reykjavik. The big decisions of Icelandic history happened on this spot, including the peaceful conversion to Christianity in the year 1000 that we talked about at Goðafoss, and it was here that Icelanders declared their modern republic in 1944. The national park was created to protect the remains of the open-air assembly grounds.