Why does Iceland have volcanoes?

Answer 1

A geologically young land, Iceland is located on both the Iceland hotspot and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which runs right through it. This combined location means that geologically the island is extremely active, having many volcanoes. Iceland is one of two places on Earth where a mid-ocean ridge rises above sea level, making it an easily accessible site to study the geology of such a ridge. The volcanic eruption of 'Laki' in 1783-1784 caused a famine that killed nearly a quarter of the island's population; the eruption caused dust clouds and haze to appear over most of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa for several months afterward. The island has about 130 volcanic mountains, of which 18 have erupted since the settlement of Iceland. Over the past 500 years, Iceland's volcanoes have erupted a third of the total global lava output. Although the Laki eruption in 1783 had the largest eruption of lava in the last 500 years, the Eldgjá eruption of 934 AD and other Holocene eruptions were even larger. The ridge also causes alot of Geysers.

Answer 2

Iceland is located in a somewhat unusual place where two of the three possible causes of volcanic activity line up. To start off, Iceland is located on the Mid Atlantic Ridge where two of Earth's tectonic plates are pullin apart. The crust is thin in this area, reducing pressure on the mantle and allowing some of the superheated rock to melt. Normally activity is not intense enough to build up into islands; this is where the second source comes into play: a hot spot. A hot spot forms when a plume of extra hot mantle material wells up from near Earth's core, forming magma beneath the crust. These two sources of magma have combined to form a cluster of volcanoes that built up the island we know as Iceland.
2 reasons, mostly. First of all, Iceland is located on the mid-atlantic ridge, which is the place where the Eurasian plate and the North American plate drift apart from eachother. Because of this, there is a lot of vulcanism in that area.

A second reason is that Iceland is located under a so-called "hot spot", this is a place where a lot of magma comes up from the mantle. This of course causes a lot of vulcanism too.

Answer 3

Iceland is located both over a hot spot and on top of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, both of which are sources of magma for volcanoes. This unusual combination makes Iceland one of the most volcanically active places in the world.

Answer 4

Iceland is in the unique potion of having two volcano-producing forces working beneath it. First, the situated on top of two diverging tectonic. The crust is thin where these plates diverge. This reduces pressure on the upper mantle and lowers the melting point of the rock in it. This magma then rises up and forms volcanoes along what is called a mid ocean ridge. These volcanoes generally remain beneath the ocean surface. However, Iceland is also situated on top of a hot spot, an area of the mantle where temperatures are higher than normal. This also generates magma and, in the case of Iceland, enhances the volcanic activity already occurring due to the divergent plate boundary. Either of these forces on their own will create volcanoes, but together they produce an area of very high volcanic activity.

Answer 5

A ridge or specifically the mid-atlantic ridge runs straight through Iceland. For those of you without middle school level science knowledge a ridge is an opening in the ground underwater formed by tectonic plates pushing or pulling away from each other.

Answer 6

because most people call iceland fire and ice because it is over a hotspot

Answer 7

Iceland is on 2 different tectonic plates that are slowly moving apart, so a vent is created, and that becomes a volcano. That's why Iceland is growing bigger every day.