Iceland, land of geysers and hot springs, volcanic rock and funny looking horses. This Kentucky-sized island smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic also happens to be located smack dab on top of the mid-Atlantic ridge -- that seam where the tectonic plates of Europe and America are slowly spreading apart. 

Iceland's location makes it a hotspot for volcanic activity and the people of Iceland have learned to capitalize on the geothermal bonanza beneath their feet. In fact, 80 percent of Iceland is powered by geothermal steam, which is piped up from deep below the earth's surface.

But Iceland could be in a position to make a lot more money on their volcanic location. Ninety percent of the island is made up of basalt, a porous black rock formed from cooled magma.  Juerg Matter is a geologist at Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. He explains why basalt is such a fascinating rock. "When these types of rock are exposed to air they react with the air and with the rain water and the minerals get decomposed in the weathering process."  

But the CO2 doesn't just decompose. It reacts with calcium and magnesium in the basalt to create calcium and magnesium carbonates -- or limestone as most of us know it. That means taking CO2 out of the air and turning it into a solid. 

 

The reaction has scientists all over the world eager to explore the possible uses of basalt in the quest to permanently capture and store CO2 emissions. Some of the most cutting edge research is happening at a geothermal plant in Iceland, where this weekend a giant basalt sequestration experiment will begin.  

Under what's being called the CarbFix project, an international team of researchers (including Juerg Matter) will start a massive injection process -- taking CO2 from the plant, mixing it with groundwater and piping it 600 meters down into the basaltic rock.  

The scientists will then monitor the groundwater downstream using two other 600-meter-deep boreholes to see how much CO2 is being absorbed from the water, what other mineral byproducts are being produced, and how fast the reaction is taking place. The mixture of CO2 and water, which they will pump into the basalt, will have a relatively low pH when it is injected (CO2 and water makes carbonic acid). Scientists will be able to see how well the reaction is proceeding by measuring the pH of the water down stream to see if it is becoming less acidic as carbon is taken out of the solution and turned into limestone. 

There are more questions than answers at this point. Can scientists speed up this reaction, which happens very slowly in nature? Will the reaction create unstable seismic conditions?  How much water will be needed? At this stage in the game, we are witness to a very exciting and very open-ended science experiment.  

Gordon Brown is a geologist at Stanford University. He's been studying geological sequestration for 40 years and although he's not a part of the CarbFix project, he takes heart in the possibility that it could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against rising CO2 emissions. 

"It's an old problem and it's exciting to me that we're finally doing things that might lead to some ultimate solution," Brown says. "We need to fix this problem and I'm beginning to see the hope that it might actually be fixed within my lifetime." 

As the main backers of the CarbFix project, Reykavik Energy has invested 11 million dollars, in part because it is optimistic about the potential global market for this sequestration technology. Hólmfríður Sigurðardóttir, who works in the Innovations department of Reykjavik Energy says, that as the most common rock on the planet, basalt also happens to be conveniently located in some of the most heavily populated places.