Today, I offer up a few photos and some video from the Hverir geothermal area on the east side of Mývatn National Park in Iceland – a rift zone astride the central Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and thus an area where you would expect to see a high heat flow through the crust. Heat interacting with meteoric water produces geothermal features: hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, and mud pots (where the groundwater is acidic).

It’s a harsh looking landscape. No placid pile of basalt flows here:

Craters galore dot the landscape, each home to a hissing vent of steam, or a pool of viscous mud:

Old mud dries out, and cracks in the loveliest way:

Thermophile microbes dwelling on the pile of rock:

Video to show the dynamism of the place:

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhRuYFx49KY”]

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3iUCvKb_Sc”]

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tqdjafZ8Z4″]

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErP6OlZyffQ”]

Shades of Yellowstone, for sure…