Iceland is a land of fire and ice! In 2008, ASL Director Patterson was on sabbatical at the University of Iceland, studying a new kind of hydrothermal vent with Jörundur Svavarsson. Fetch1 mapped the vent field. Dry suit dives conducted in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Jones, Director, Serpent Project (UK), yielded some first-ever measurements of these unique ecosystems. Called strytur in Icelandic, these vents are emitting hot (> 70 °C), 11,000 year old freshwater at incredibly high pH (>10) into the cold Arctic ocean. The vents are formed by the precipitation of smectite, a kind of clay, when the silica-rich vent water combines with the magnesium-laden seawater. The vents vary in size with the largest reaching 45 m in height!
