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Iceland's Volcanic World | National Geographic


3m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[Applause]

I so insisted spectacular place. Not only does Iceland have a boiling river, they've even got this volcano you can literally descend into. My name is Anthony Russo and I'm a geothermal scientist and explorer with National Geographic. So when Coors Light National Geographic asked me, "What's your next?" No question, Iceland! These are the areas that we want to hit.

So we'll be in Reykjavik first, but then the volcano that we go into is around about there. This place is just a wonderland for anything geologic. So, in 2009, my plan was to move to Northern Iceland. I had gotten a full ride scholarship to what was my dream school. Then I met Sofia and that's where the dream school lost out to the dream girl.

I was worried that we'd never make it to Iceland. I thought, "This is too good to be real." This is not a cave; it's a lava tube. This was created by a river of flowing lava melts down deep enough to where it's the cool, cool, cool, cool, cool kind of like a freezing river. You'd really see where the lava was just flowing through here.

Oh, kiss going, "Wow, look at this!" Four of us in the direction which the lava was fun. Oh, welcome to your tropical getaway! Earth is alive! There's heat, there's hot water flowing through cracks and faults in the earth, constantly moving, constantly changing.

And the only way to truly understand this is by looking at the rock type. This is not... that's Iceland's boiling river! We're in a mecca for all things geothermal right now. God, look, it's bubbling! You can see it from here!

So what's crazy about boiling rivers, and this is what gets me so fired up about them, it's so rare to see these ecosystems. You need for things to just align perfectly. You need a tremendous source of heat, a tremendous source of water, the right plumbing system to get all of this hot water from deep in the earth up to the surface.

And on top of that, you can't have anything cool it down. If all this was underneath leisure, they wouldn't get the chance to form into the boiling river that you see down there. This is exactly what kind of stuff we want to sample. We're here to take the first sample from the Rekha dilute geothermal system and it is just gushing, bubbling hot.

Oh, it's getting hot, it's getting hot and hot! Oh, this is awesome! This is what exploration is all about! God, I love them!

[Music]

Yes, look, it's bubbling up over there! This is just a geothermal wonderland, and that is the original geyser! Actually, we get our word geyser from the original Icelandic word "geysa." That's right, "geysa." Yeah, they say it's 80 to 100 degrees C. The temperature gets so high that that water flashes and then you see that geyser shooting up!

Oh, it's bubbling again! Yep, okay, so that's a Cap'n. Yeah, that was incredible! That was really high! I didn't expect it to go that high actually. How well, go into a Hidden Valley, the hidden waterfalls, what they called it.

[Music]

[Music]

We flew over the coast! We just really showed just the vastness of everything, all of the different landscapes.

[Music]

I cannot believe we're on a glacier right now! Not only on a glacier but a glacier that's on a volcano. It's like a frozen river. Our guides took us to the center of the glacier and this is really a land of fire and ice.

[Music]

Everything that we've seen here has been so awesome, but the next place we're going to, that's the reason we're here. We're walking into something that, to the best of my knowledge, you can do nowhere else on planet Earth.

We're going into the volcano! A long way down, ladies! A long way up! Never have I gotten to descend due to a volcano like this. 4,500 years ago, roughly, this volcano erupted. The magma chamber emptied out and we're standing in it now.

The palette of oranges and yellows and reds is just incredible. Our very definition of beauty comes from nature. I think to be human means to push boundaries. We need to go further!

This has been the adventure of a lifetime. I can't wait to play with next!

[Music]

[Music]

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