Iceland's Amazing Geology Explained: Volcanism, Tectonics, and Glaciers 

Thanks you so much for putting this video together. Im disabled from a very messy industrial accident and will never be able to travel there let alone visit the sites so videos will be the best i can ever get to experience such beautiful land. I truly appreciate your efforts and investment in time. Thanks again!

Having followed you since November 2023 this presentation appeared as a possible watch. Loved the overview of Iceland, not just the Reykjanes peninsula and it has added to my general information about the country. Thank you

Iceland looks like a crazy wild, beautiful place. Your photo with the feeder dyke, I think is amazing.

Very excellent presentation. Your students are very fortunate to go on amazing field trips with you.

Shawn, Thank you for a great presentation. You present this information in such a way that non-scientific folks can easily understand.

I've been to Iceland five times, and it has become one of the "in" places to visit. I have a 60-minute travelogue I present in schools and retirement communities, plus made a 16mm 90-minute film I presented in auditoriums. I so much appreciate this video and others you have done, giving so many of us a knowledge of geology.

Just wanted to say THANK YOU very much for putting your videos together. I’m very new to all this, but learning every time I watch another one. Appreciate you explaining in way understandable to me. Also, you keep my attention through out the video. Good job, and please keep producing so we can keep learning. 👍

Thanks for the presentation. I had been to Iceland in 2022, and had tried to find a concise explanation of the geology, but without success. Your explanations were great. Would love to hear more.

This was fascinating and so informative. Thank you for the daily updates on events in Iceland. I'm addicted!

Great illustration by Chelsea!

A 40 minute lecture never went so quickly. You are such a great teacher, Prof. Willsey.

With the current irruption in Iceland (December 18, 2023 ) your video helps me to understand what is going on. Thanks.

Thanks for the class! I really enjoyed learning all about the types of volcanoes, how they formed etc. Cool picture of you and the ice berg!

Fantastic presentation! I've been watching your daily videos on the current situation in Grindivik and so found this video to be extremely informative. I'm in Australia, and (at my age) will never have the good fortune to visit Iceland. Thus I visit vicariously via YT videos. Your students are so lucky to have such a great teacher.

I enjoy your interpretations of active tectonics; I apply it to the tectonic features in my state of Oregon with its 82,000 square miles of volcanic related geology that has occurred over the past 55M years. Many of the geologically recent features that occurred in Oregon are occurring in Iceland- Fissure and flood eruptions, the 150 sq. mile Belnap Crater aa lava field, lava tubes, tuyas, cinder cones, calderas, maars, shield and strato volcanoes.

Fascinating. Thank you so much Professor Willsey.

"Volcanic breccia" makes sense, evocative. I like it.

Thanks Prof.Willsey. For some reason sub-glacial and submarine eruptions are of great interest to me.

That was so well explained that I was surprised at the 40 min mark, Already ??!! Thank you much

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I never thought I would sit through a video like this glued to my screen with eyes n ears wide open . It’s really amazing how our planet works

Outstanding presentation Mr. Willsey, I thoroughly enjoy all of your presentations, your logical, concise, intelligent yet easy to understanding explanations is so refreshing. Although I never formally studied geology, I’m a backyard type uneducated geologist at heart, I’m fascinated by how and what forces shaped and continue to shape our planet. My wife and I live 51 miles north of Yellowstone park, just outside of beautiful Paradise Valley (yes, home of the Yellowstone series fictional Dutton Ranch), the drive through the valley whether it be on East River Rd or Route 89, the geologic strata along either side of the valley and into the park are wonders to behold. I’ve been following your Iceland / Grindavyk updates, as my wife and I recently returned from two incredible weeks circumnavigating the amazing country island of Iceland, unfortunately we missed the June-August volcanic eruption and now the potential eruption near Grindavyk, the overwhelming geological sculptures, formations, activity passed and present are sights, I just couldn’t get enough of. One of our amazing adventures besides the zodiac boat tour in the ice berg lagoon near Diamond Beach, was drysuit snorkeling in the area where mid-Atlantic ridge is exposed and the huge lake that has formed, to see down rock walls and huge boulders then into 200-300 ft. of crystal clear glacial water, was breathtaking ( cold temps too🥶). Anyway, thank you for your insight and knowledge of the fascinating places of our amazing planet…..3 rd rock from the sun. Travel safe and keep up the great work….regards from Southern Montana.

Great educational video, Shawn! Methinks some of this will become increasingly more relevant for me in the latter half of Nick’s Ice Age Floods A to Z series!

Thank you Shawn, love this.

Yup...I want to go to Iceland now.

Thank you! I was really trying to understand whats going on in the news, and this is very informative.

Your videos and content Shawn are interesting, informative and easy to watch. Just wanted to say thanks, as I plan to watch all of it!

Thank You for taking time and explaining Iceland. At one time I was part of a geo seismic crew that located oil deposits around this crazy world. Thank you!

excellent presentation. Thanks.

Iceland's on my bucket list ...and its only 2hrs flight from the UK. I need to do it.

Excellent presentation Professor. Thank you for your time.

Excellent presentation Mr Willsey. Beautifully explained for amateurs to understand the gradual processes. I was in Iceland in 1985 and I remember being in a local's house one evening watching many of his videos showing the volcanic activities that he and his father recorded. Since then I have educated myself so much more about geology having travelled extensively around the world in my younger years and therefore developing a hugely interesting and appreciative knowledge of our spectacular planet and I continue the education process by watching your many videos as well of course of others such as Nick Zentner and so many more. RU-vid is by far the best platform for this. And also having lived and travelled extensively in North America (I am from Australia) including Idaho and Utah your videos are indeed very interesting. Thank you for your work.

Thank you, that was really interesting.

Thank you so much. I enjoyed this very much because I am fascinated by geological history. Your illustrations over the images are very helpful I am 79 and probably will never go to Iceland but I love to watch your lectures. I was a public health nurse and now I love to become educated on our earth’s tectonic history. Gratefully

Excellent teaching Shawn. Thank you.

Excellent. Ready for another geo adventure. Thx Sir Willsey

That was an excellent intro to Iceland! Thanks!

Great vid, thank you!

Awesome as usual ♡

A great example of columnar jointing is the Giants Steps in Ireland

traveling to Iceland 12 days from now and this video was grat info thank you very much :))))

Great presentation! I think there is a confusion in explaining and understanding the columnar joint along the topography. Vertical and horizontal columns are formed along a horizontal and inclined surfaces, respectively. This point is not clear in the presentation if I am not mistaken. Again, thank you all the great effort bringing this awesome presentation.

Very ‘COOL’ stuff thanks - good mix of cartoon explanation which ‘flowed well’. I liked it and even learned a few tidbits.

Thanks!

Thank you

Thanks for this learning experience. I've been studying Iceland for tourist sites since 2016 for our first holiday to Iceland in 2017. That was such an intense experience, I consider Iceland my 2nd home since. So many sites get you asking how did that come about being like that ? You showed the map of major faultlines where in fact there are many of these. I have visited Iceland 5 times now and I'm especially intrigued by the Torfajökull / Fjallabak region and Landmannalaugar which is exactly between the major faultlines.

Thank you for your time and sharing your expertise professor, very interesting lecture. Looking at the graphic showing the mid-Atlantic ridge, it's easy to imagine where it bisects being the result of the NAP movement west. I enjoyed the sub-glacial eruption sequence and the changing environment's effect on the resulting lava. I've been interested in geology since I looked down and saw a colored rock about 1958. With the database of man at my disposal now, I've been picking channels that feed my curiosity. Glad to find this fine resource.

I have to Iceland but I only had 3 days but I really want to go back. ❤❤❤❤❤

How interesting. Happy Thanksgiving today 2023

Are you planning another trip to Iceland soon? I have been to Iceland twice, in 2022 and 2023, concentrating on the geology of this fascinating country.I would very much like to go back again with a Geology professor to take an in-depth look at this amazing place. I have a BS in geology many years ago. I worked for the USGS Branch of Astrogeology when they were looking for and choosing the lunar landing sites. I have always been fascinated with volcanology in particular. In recent years after retiring from flying aerial photographers in my own helicopter with my own company, I've begun getting serious about my own photography. Landforms, geologic features as expressed visually, has been of interest. What you can see from the sky whether 200' or 2000' above the ground tells you so much. I hope you will consider another trip, if you have already made the one you are talking about. I want to really know what I have been photographing these past two years. Anne Umphrey

Iceland is definitely on my bucket list. Super cool...............and hot too!

Hey Shawn great continuous insight thanks. Straight to it. Is the uplift rate we see typical of the area or above/below average to basaltic eruptions? Thanks

Wonderful and detailed presentation, thank you Sir. Would you say that the present magma dyke near Grindavik is sort of parallel to the divergent plate margin? If so would that be coincidence or consequence? Even the Fagradallsfjall dyke appears roughly parallel to its Grindavik sibling… The peninsula appears to have several such parallel formations, spaced out over the age of the island as the plates moves apart. At 1cm per year, a million years is 10km, or 6mi, which is not inconsiderable 😊

The smell of volcanic gases you won’t soon forget.

À propos this topic, perhaps you could do a video series on different interesting plate boundaries around the globe? I have, for example, unsuccessfully tried to understand what is known about the plate boundary between North America and Eurasia where it leaves Iceland northward and apparently reemerges again in Siberia. What’s going on there? Or on the other side of the globe, what is feeding Mount Erebus, and what kind of plate boundaries surround Antarctica?😊

Romans didn't have shields that shape. They had some circular ones occasionally but they appear to be flat.

So a question about the map at 33:30, I am Faroese myself and I have to admit that I know very little about the geological and glaciological history of our tiny isles. However, I find it interesting that according to that map, there was no ice cap on top of the isles? Now that combined with no extra orange areas (which I assume to be former land area but I could be wrong) it seems that this is because there's no data? Or can you or someone elaborate further on this.

Sample the most southern fissure for Breccia. No betting necessary.

Diamond beach, with its mini-icebergs, is likely one of only several such beaches in existence where these phenomena occur?

Watching this and seeing how small we are in comparison to what the earth gives us . Makes me think we really don’t belong here we are so fragile and the earth can be so violent it really amazes me . Even looking back in time what have people been around say 200 k years I’m guessing and in earth history that’s nothing like a penny to a hundred dollars bill

👍

Greetings Shawn... with your permission, id like to re broadcast this video on my YT Iceland live seismic stream 😏

😋Here comes a dumb question... Is that columnar jointing formation what we see in the second-to-last Harry Potter movie [Deathly Hallows Part 1]? There's a scene in a tent where Harry discovers Dumbledore's message on the Snitch and runs out of the tent onto some very strange flat clumped-column-rocks to tell Hermione (who happens to be sitting on those rocks puzzling out her own mystery of the Deathly Hallows symbol). Where was that scene filmed, in Britain or was it possibly Iceland? Either way, the actors are both sitting on the weirdest rock formation I've ever seen, hexagonal columns - like 'field' of them. I've always wondered what formed those. 23:00 Is that what that field of hexagons is in Harry Potter? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-u5XE9yy9mB4.html lol, I know it's a silly thing to ask but it's a really weird, strangely beautiful landscape that almost looks like science fiction landscape. Thanks for the video - very educational! 👍🏻

Wow, I never realized it exactly... Iceland is less than 20 million years old. Are there any other land masses that young that come anywhere close to the size of Iceland? I can't think of any... which by no stretch of the imagination means that there aren't any. I just saw something where the Hawaiian Islands, the oldest ones, are a little over 5 million years old. that's pretty young... But Iceland is a vast land by comparison. Far out. Peace.

Can the gasses be toxic to tourists?

I take it the Icelandic language is not Latin based