This valley of wildflowers belies a region of intense tectonic activity. "Iceland [is located] astride the mid-Atlantic ridge, a seafloor mountain range where two of the colossal slabs of rock that make up earth's crust, the North American plate and the Eurasian plate, part company," said a 1997 National Geographic article.
(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "In Search of Vikings," May 2000, National Geographic magazine)