Rifting Plates Raise an Island | Geothermal Waters Warm You - South Coast Chinese Cultural Association

Published Thursday, October 1, 2026

by Violet shen & Ming Chuong

Editor’s Note :

Travel is more than movement—it is a way of reading the world.

Cultural Express launches Hidden Pattern, a new column by USC professor Cheng-Ming Chuong and Violet Shen, former Director of Clinical Research at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Through words and images, they explore landscape, culture, nature, and science—revealing the traces of time, the path of evolution, and the hidden order of the world.

Introduction:

Beneath Iceland’s glaciers, volcanoes still breathe; in lava caves, ice turns to crystal.

In the Iceland Discovery Trilogy, the authors explore rifts, wildlands, milky-blue geothermal waters, floating ice, roaring waterfalls, and crystal caves—unveiling the secrets of fire and ice. (Part I of III)

Near the Arctic Circle, Iceland is renowned for its glaciers, volcanoes, waterfalls, geothermal heat, and black lava landscape.

Glaciers cover active volcanoes, steam rises through fissures, and blue icebergs drift in lagoons. Here, ice and fire meet to create astonishing natural wonders.

Plates Part | Continents Drift

To see how Iceland was made, we entered Þingvellir National Park. Towering cliffs and long rifts turn textbook plate tectonics into a landscape before our eyes.

Iceland sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates slowly pull apart.

As the crust stretches, magma rises through fractures and solidifies into new volcanic rock.

Snow accumulates and compresses into glaciers. Fire creates the land; ice and water take over the carving, shaping today’s ever-changing terrain.

Travel guides often say visitors can “walk between two tectonic plates” at Þingvellir. In fact, the boundary is not two rock walls a few yards apart, but a broad, complex rift zone.

The vast Almannagjá fault records long-term crustal stretching and subsidence. Standing in the rift, we could see proof that the land is still changing.

Fault Lines | Common Ground

This landscape also holds a human history.

Around 930, Icelanders established Alþingi in this warmer rift valley. For centuries, people from across the island gathered in tents to debate, make laws, and settle disputes.

Nature split the land; in this rift valley, people found common ground and built a shared civic order.

Geology and history meet here, which is why Þingvellir became a World Heritage Site in 2004.

Walking between the cliffs, we saw not only an earth pulled apart, but the imprint of Icelanders building a society together.

Black Lava | Purple Bloom

Leaving the rift and traveling along Icesland’s Southern Ring Road, we watched black lava covered with a yellow-green coat, then turn into fields of purple flowers.

Fresh volcanic rock is nearly lifeless. Over time, lichens and moss take hold; rock fragments and organic matter build thin soil, allowing grasses to follow.

This shift from bare rock to grassland—known as primary succession—shows life reclaiming volcanic ground.

But people helped create some of those blooms. Nootka lupine, native to North America, was introduced to stabilize Iceland’s poor, erosion-prone soils.

It fixes nitrogen but can spread quickly and crowd out native plants. Behind the flowers lies a land story written by both people and nature.

Earth Boils | Fumaroles Hiss

At the Hverir geothermal area in northeast Iceland, the planet’s heat seems to breathe belore our eyes.Mud pots bubble like thick soup, while fumaroles release white steam with a sharp hiss.

Sulfur fills the air. Yellow, rust red, gray-white, and black streak a landscape nearly bare of vegetation—like another world.

Underground geothermal heat warms water, sending hot water and steam upward through cracks of the rock.

Geothermal gases and sulfur compounds acidify the soil, prohibiting plant growth and exposing mineral deposits. The colors and sounds of this barren ground are messages from the active earth below.

Heat Flows | Homes Glow

Icelanders have learned to put this force to work. Wells tap underground hot water and steam to generate electricity and supply heat and hot water.

Today, geothermal energy heats more than 90 percent of Iceland’s homes and also serves schools, hospitals, greenhouses, swimming pools, and even winter road de-icing.

For this cold country, the fire below brings both danger and warmth. Leaving the steaming wildlands and seeing ordinary homes again, we understood how this volcanic island sustains daily life.

Black Lava | Blue Lagoon

Crossing the black lava fields of the Reykjanes Peninsula, we watched white steam drift in the wind. Then a pool of milky-blue seawater appeared—the Blue Lagoon.

It is not a natural hot spring, but a bathing lagoon formed through geothermal-energy development.

Its geothermal seawater contains silica, mineral salts, and microalgae. Fine particles scatter light, creating its luminous milky-blue color, which shifts with the sun and weather.

This warm blue is more than beautiful. Clinical studies support the use of its geothermal seawater with light therapy for psoriasis.

From a warm pool beside a power plant to a world-famous bathing destination, the Blue Lagoon brought energy and tourism together in an unexpected way.

After Hverir’s bubbling mud and hissing fumaroles, its gentle waters seem worlds apart—yet both are linked to the same subterranean heat.

Soaking in water near 100°F (38°C), surrounded by dark lava and milky-blue water, we watched steam rise into the cold air.

Cold and heat, black and blue: Iceland’s contrasts felt close enough to touch. Here, the fire below becomes warmth we can feel.

From rifting ground to city heat to a lagoon in the lava, we saw how Icelanders live with volcanoes. Yet another force is reshaping this land at a different pace: ice. (Part I of III)

Next Week : Glaciers Carve the Valleys, Icebergs Drift to the Sea

Rifting Plates Raise an Island | Geothermal Waters Warm You