Why Iceland Is Being Pulled Apart

Iceland sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where North America and Eurasia drift apart by about 2 centimeters a year. The island is being pulled apart, and yet every year it gets a little bigger. If the ground under Iceland is splitting open, why hasn't the island cracked in half and sunk into the Atlantic? In this documentary: the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and why Iceland rises above it; the hotspot that feeds the rift with magma; Thingvellir, the Althing and the clear water of Silfra; the Krafla Fires of 1975-1984; the Laki eruption of 1783 and the Haze Famine; Surtsey, Eyjafjallajokull and the glacial floods; the 1973 Heimaey eruption and the seawater that stopped the lava; Deep Time, the Atlantic as a tape measure; and the eruptions near Grindavik since 2023. Sources include Thingvellir National Park, the Icelandic Meteorological Office, Thordarson & Self (Laki), Thorarinsson 1968, USGS Open-File Report 97-724 (Heimaey lava cooling), Eurocontrol (2010 airspace closures), and NASA Earth Observatory. Photos via Wikimedia Commons: "Laki Panorama" by Areuland (CC BY 4.0); "Eyjafjallajokull volcano plume 2010 04 17" by Boaworm (CC BY 3.0).