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You're soaking in a pool of bubbling hot water. Plumes of white steam rise from the ground nearby. Just beyond, snow and ice crest a pink mountain. Ahh... It's just another day in Iceland.

With a name like Iceland, you'd think ice would be all you could see there. In fact, many visitors head straight for Iceland's most fiery sights. You can watch smoking volcanoes. You can relax in steaming hot springs, or pools of water heated by hot rock. You even can see geysers spray boiling water in the air.

Where does all the heat come from? It starts below—way below. Iceland sits atop an underwater split in Earth's crust. The split is called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Along this 16,000-kilometer ridge, huge tectonic plates slowly pull apart.

About 20 million years ago, volcanoes erupted along the split. They burped up tons of lava and rock. This created a landmass that acted like scar tissue covering a wound in Earth's crust. That landmass would one day become Iceland.

At Thingvellir National Park you can see the boundary between the plates for yourself. It is a deep rift where the two plates pull apart. Stand on one side and look down into the rift.

On the west side, you can stand on the North American plate. On the east side is the Eurasian plate. You're looking right between two tectonic plates! Each year, the plates move about an inch farther apart. As they move, the land stretches out to cover more area. In this way, Iceland is slowly growing bigger.

Sometimes, Iceland grows in more sudden spurts. Just ask the people of Heimaey. This tiny island lies off Iceland's southern coast. On January 23, 1973, a crack opened in the ground on the island. The crack was less than a mile from the island's only town, a fishing village.

Red-hot curtains of lava erupted from the crack. Within a month, the lava had created a brand new volcanic mountain. Flowing molten rock burned hundreds of buildings in the town. Hot ash buried others.

After a few weeks, the eruption slowed. It didn't stop completely, though. A slow-moving river of hot lava continued to flow toward the town. The brave residents had to save what was left of their village. They used water pumps and fire hoses to spray cold seawater on the hot lava. They hoped the cold water would harden the lava and stop it.

The plan worked! The front of the surge cooled and hardened. It created a wall. That blocked the rest of the lava from reaching the town. Instead, the lava flowed around the town and into the sea.

In the early summer, the eruption finally ended. The remaining lava cooled. It formed into new land. In just five months, the island of Heimaey grew one-fifth larger!

Volcanoes don't usually pop up every day. It's taken millions of years for volcanoes and lava flows to build Iceland. They've created twisted, rugged, and beautiful landscapes.

Hike through one of Iceland's many ancient lava fields. You might notice something strange. The ground in front of you is steaming! Plumes of white steam rise from the ground. Iceland is covered with steam vents and hot springs. The steam comes from naturally heated rocks and hot water below Earth's surface.

The most famous of Iceland's bubbling hot springs is Blue Lagoon. It is not far from the country's capital city. You can visit the lagoon and soak in its soothing, milky blue waters. Minerals and white mud in the water make your skin as soft as a newborn baby's skin. Enjoy that water, because it has traveled a long way.

It starts nearly two kilometers (one mile) under Blue Lagoon. There, water from the Atlantic Ocean seeps into the ground. Hot rock heats the water. People use powerful pumps and long pipes to bring the water to the surface.

Icelanders tap into the natural hot water for more than soaking. They harness steam from hot water to spin turbines and create electricity. People use the electricity to heat homes and even greenhouses. Iceberg lettuce, anyone?

You've discovered what Iceland's fiery volcanoes can do. What about the ice? After all, Iceland wouldn't be Iceland without ice.

One-tenth of the country is covered with glaciers. Imagine one as large as Rhode Island. Glaciers carve the valleys deeper, slowly grinding their way toward the sea. The land was first created by lava from volcanoes. Now it's being reshaped by ice.

The largest glaciers are called icecaps. Iceland's biggest icecap is enormous. It's larger than all the glaciers in mainland Europe combined. Most people only tour along the edges of this massive icecap. If you are really adventurous, you can explore the icecap itself.

Ready to go? You'll need plenty of warm clothes. You'll also need a hiking partner. Take a rope, too, in case you fall into a crack hidden in the ice. Looking ahead, there is nothing but white as far as you can see. The brightness is blinding! Everything is silent except for the snow crunching under your boots.

Finally, you reach the top of an ice-covered peak. You've made it up the tallest mountain in Iceland, 2,120 meters (6,950 feet) high. What a view! You can see ice and snow. Far off in the distance, you also see the stark green and black plains at the edge of the icecap.

As you gaze out at the view, you see a stream of smoke. Uh-oh. That's no hot spring! The smoke is coming from a volcano. Iceland is one of the few places on Earth where active volcanoes lie below icecaps. Here, fire literally meets ice. This can make for a dangerous situation.

Imagine what happens when a fiery volcano erupts under a glacier. Meltdown! First, the melted water creates a lake hidden beneath the ice. As the lake grows bigger, it eventually runs out of space. It overflows. Then a flood of water bursts out of the icecap.

In 1996, a volcano erupted beneath one of the country's icecaps. The flood that followed was one of the worst Iceland has ever seen. Within hours, the deluge washed away bridges, roads, and power lines.

These glacial floods carry more than water. They also carry huge amounts of volcanic ash and black sand. Eventually the flood stops. The ash and sand settle. This forms large black plains called sandurs. That's the Icelandic name for an area in the western part of the country where you can find the largest sandur on Earth.

Fire and ice also meet to create beautiful scenes in another part of Iceland. In English, the place name means "the people's pools". Bubbling hot springs dot the area. Lakes of water from melted glaciers have filled the exploded tops of ancient volcanoes.

Rugged mountains of volcanic rock poke out of the landscape. Minerals in the rock stripe the mountains with magnificent colors—yellow, blue, and brown. The setting sun casts a warm glow over stream-filled valleys.

These sights, like the rest of Iceland, have a strange and wild beauty. This is a place that's fiery and frozen, strange and spectacular. This is Iceland, a land of fire and ice.

Article by Beth Geiger. Top-of-page image by © CSLD/Shutterstock. "Iceland: Land of Fire and Ice" appears on page 10 of the March 2010 issue.