Iceland is a land being torn in half. At the rift, you can move between 2 TECTONIC PLATES: the Eurasian plate on one side and the North American plate on the other.
Useful resource: Geofile Online, Series 20 (2001-2002), Issue 1 (September 2001). Unit 406: Tectonic Activity in Iceland - Physical Causes and Human Impacts. Copyright Nelson Thornes.
Iceland is a very popular place for fieldtrips by 6th form pupils.
A rather good book (but with rude words) is Tim Moore's "Frost on my Moustache" - great descriptions of the landscape of Iceland and the Westmann Islands. Head over to the BOOKSHOP and buy a copy!
Here's a description of the Westmann Islands:
"like broken-off bits of green-iced chocolate cake... Like everything about Iceland's landscape, there seemed a peculiar sharp freshness to their jagged outlines and smooth, grassed surfaces.... The whole country is fresh out of the Earth's core."
And on the use of Geothermal power to heat the water supply:
"The land's geological youth means an abundance of super heated geothermal springs close to the surface. The near-boiling product is sent around Reykjavik in pipes so that houses have hot running water, often routing it under the drive to melt the ice in winter."
He also mentions the use of lupins to try to deal with a major soil erosion problem.
CHRIS DURBIN led a trip of Geographers from Staffordshire and elsewhere to Iceland in 2003. There are some great images from the trip, and other details on the SLN site. http://www.sln.org.uk/geography/SLNgeography@Iceland.htm
Famous for several tectonic features:
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Please note that a lot of these are actually spelt using special Icelandic characters which are not available.
A colleague went on a cheap preview trip to Iceland a few years ago and came back with some useful information which I'll perhaps have to get off him and post here.
Iceland is also showing the effects of global warming with glaciers in retreat.
HEIMAEY IMAGES
These show the area around Heimaey. This was threatened by an eruption which almost destroyed the town. A lava flow threatened to block the harbour entrance, which would have been bad news for the town which developed on the fishing industry. A plan was hatched to spray sea water onto the lava to try to get it to cool prematurely and slow down. The plan was successful, and actually resulted in the slowing down of the lava and an improvement in the harbour. There are also 'house graves', where markers indicate the position of houses buried under the lava flows. The ground is apparently still hand-hot in places following the eruption.
Images of Heimaey taken by Val Vannet in 2004. I am grateful to Val for the use of these images, and for many others elsewhere on GeographyPages.
 View from Eldfell |
Lava flow |
 View from Helgafell |
 Pump used to spray water onto lava flow to cool it down. |
 House grave - a great starter image ! |
 Lava flow above the harbour |
Here is Val's BLOG which she used to prepare her students for an ICELAND fieldtrip in 2006. It's a great example of how blogs can be used to interact with students and parents.
