A volcano can rumble to life with little warning
Some of these seething mountains are above ground, others below ground -- and some have been known to burst to life after years of seeming extinction. It happened in 1973 on the island of Heimaey, when a supposedly extinct volcano showered the island with 33 million tons of lava and ash.
"I got a phone call in the middle of the night," recalled scientist Sven Jakobsson. "Of course I thought it was a joke and then I arrived here at six in the morning. We had this volcanic fissure erupting and the lava had started flowing into the town."
It can happen quickly like that -- a volcano rumbling to life with little warning, especially on a quiet patch of ground like Heimaey.
In 1973, fishing boats evacuated the town's 5,000 residents -- who eventually returned to rebuild. Today, Heimaey's volcanic legacy makes it one of Iceland's most popular tourist destinations. To get there, travelers take a plane or ferry from Reykjavik.
Once in Heimaey, there are twice-daily bus tours that skirt the city and its volcanic fields, now considered safe. Visitors can also hike up to the still-smoldering volcano -- recently measured at 580 degrees Centigrade (1076 Fahrenheit) at a meter's (3 feet) depth. Hour-long boat trips from Heimaey Harbor offer another perspective on the new land formations that came from the eruption.
Vatnajokool Glacial melt
While Heimaey has had two decades to recover from its meltdown, back on the mainland, the Vatnajokool Glacier has had just 16 months. In September 1996, a volcano underneath the glacier woke up in a fit. The explosion melted huge glacial swaths, triggering floods that scattered 1,000-ton ice blocks like peanuts.
"The peak flow was half that of the Amazon River," said geophysics professor Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, "which is the largest river in the world and drains a continent."
The torrent left behind a flood plain, still littered with unmelted ice. Scientists come here to track the receding glacier and the ice blocks.
Gudmundsson said studying the glaciers is important to see just how stable the large ice sheets are. "If they melt, we will have a rising sea level that will drown most of the larger cities in the world," he said.
Iceland's glacial and volcanic landscapes will always tempt scientific curiosity. For everyone else, it's enough to enjoy the view near the top of the world.
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