The purple zones are the Rift regions... Iceland lies along the crack in the middle of the Atlantic, and is part of the Atlantic Rift Ridge... the European and North American Plates are slowly pulling apart, at a rate of 2-6 inches per year.

Volcanoes in the region are different than in other areas... they normally erupt out of a crack in the earth that rips open during a volcano, and stream hot, runny, lava all along the crack.

 

This is one of the rift lines in the separation zone.  This crack widens a couple of inches every year.... In some places, during an earthquake, it has moved as much as 9 meters in one day!

The majority of the movement happens in 10 year intervals, on average, with the last interval in 2000.

Below, a bridge crosses from the European plate to the North American Plate, at the mid point of the rift Zone.

The region around the bridge was covered in lava during an eruption from a rift rip in the mid 1700's... the crack the bridge crosses formed in the time since then.

 

This valley is part of the "Rift Zone", and the river you see is at the tail end of a large lake that covers canyons hundreds of feet deep. 

An interesting thing is that the bridge in this picture extends to an island, called Þingvellir (the Þ is sort of a th sound), where the first council of Iceland, the Althing met.  Its considered to be the first democratic assembly in history.

For really important stuff, the current parliament still meets there, out of tradition.

Several large cracks can be seen snaking across the valley, itself a large crack in the Earth's Crust.  Many hundreds of earthquakes happen in the rift zone each year.

This is a close-up of the crack shown above... the roadway crosses the crack.  They have a grate covering the expansion zone that has to be replaced every few years with a larger one.

The roadway snakes across a valley floor covered with lava deposits, a sign of recent activity.  Pockets of team rise out the ground in areas, signs that hot magma isn't far below the surface... the crust is quite thin in this region.

The lake in the rift valley, Thingvallavatn, is the largest natural lake in Iceland.  The river coming out of the lake is more than 5 times the volume of the small rivers flowing into it... most of the water flows into the lake under the lava beds, well below ground.

The edges of the valley are lined with walls that have huge rifts along them... its a very unique sight... imagine the power it would take to pull the ground apart like this... its incredible!

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