:11:02
of a thousand eruptions
:11:04
we can view the exposed features
of seafloor spreading...
:11:08
the newest crust of Earth.
:11:13
Oceans of congealed lava.
:11:19
Towering shield volcanoes,
such as Hekla
:11:23
the greatest, most effusive
of lceland's volcanoes.
:11:30
Lakagiar, a long alignment
of more than 1 00 volcanic cones
:11:35
marking a major fissure
atop the mid-Atlantic ridge.
:11:42
The island of Heimaey,
where an eruption in 1 973
:11:46
Threatened to bury
the town of Vestmannaeyjar.
:11:53
And the stretch marks
of creation-
:11:56
great cracks in the Earth
left by spreading plates.
:12:04
Beneath us, the American plate
and the Eurasian plate are born
:12:08
and slowly grow apart
:12:11
lceland grows
from the center outward
:12:14
at the rate at which
the Atlantic widens-
:12:17
slower than
a human fingernail grows.
:12:21
Yet in 1 80 million years.
:12:24
this slow spreading of
the plates created the Atlantic
:12:29
and in the last 1 3 million years
:12:32
it built
this great volcanic island
:12:34
straddling this boundary
of creation.
:12:45
Far from lceland
and the mid-Atlantic ridge
:12:48
the rifting process
:12:49
which splits continents
and creates oceans
:12:52
has only begun.
:12:55
Yet is has created
a geologic feature so enormous
:12:58
it can be seen from the moon-
the Breat Rift Valley of Africa.