Satellite view of Iceland from the Terra and Aqua satellites(September 9th, 2002).Although summer is

Satellite view of Iceland from the Terra and Aqua satellites(September 9th, 2002).Although summer is coming to a close, the perimeter of Iceland isstill tinged with green.  Its large permanent ice caps stand outbrightly against the surrounding volcanic rock.  An ice cap is aminiature ice sheet – a mass of ice that covers less than 50,000square kilometres of land.  It is technically a dome-shaped glaciermass that flows in all directions.Vatnajökull, the largest ice cap, actually rests on top of threeactive volcanoes.  The heat from the volcanoes causes the undersideof the ice cap to melt, slowly filling the calderas.  Eventually thecaldera spills over, and releases a torrent of water known as a glacial melt flood.This volcanic activity happens because a tectonic boundary runsapproximately north-east to south-west through Iceland.  The platesare pulling away from each other, which causes magma to well up fromdeep in the Earth.By mid-October, the northern part of Iceland will be covered in snow,and by late October, the whole country.  The brightly-coloured lakesand coastal water are due to the very fine, highly-reflectivesediment that is ground to bits by the massive weight of theglaciers, and washed out with glacial runoff. -- source link

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