Iceland, Jamaica, and the Afar Triangle

I am a fiction writer but I am blessed, or perhaps cursed by also being a scientist of the Earth. Years ago I visited a road cut in Arkansas near the tiny town of Caddo Gap. What I witnessed that day truly blew me away, both metaphorically and metaphysically.

I stood on the side of the road, staring for what must have been many minutes, or perhaps hours, at what could only be described as a visual slice of the Earth’s core. It called to me with its siren’s song as I stared in lust at its naked earthen breasts.

As a geologist I may never again experience such a visceral feeling as I did that day, but three destinations beckon to me and I hope to visit each one before I die. They are: Iceland, a land created by sea-floor spreading, dominated by geysers and ice floes; the Afar Triangle, a place in southern Africa that is the site of a triple juncture, a spot where three plates intersect and truly one of the rarest geologic places; Jamaica, an island I believe is Atlantis reborn – perhaps the most exotic geologic location on earth.

I’ve never visited any of these places. The closest I have come is Nassau in the Bahamas. I was there years ago with my deceased wife Anne and friends Ray and Kathy. We hailed a cab and had our cabbie, an islander name King, drive us around and show us the sights. King was quite the character – loud, direct, friendly and informative. He took us to a little café beneath a bridge where only the locals ate.

“Mon, you have to try the conch fritters,” he told us.

We tried them and they were wonderful. I have no recipe for conch fritters for you tonight but I wish I did. I guess my mind was somewhere else. While the Bahamas isn’t Jamaica I was in the Caribbean and the bowels of the earth were calling to me. And yes, it was nothing short of visceral!

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