Geology

Rift Zone

RIFT ZONE uses air bubbling up through fine sand to suggest a small-scale geothermal landscape. By turning a knob, viewers can change the pressure of the air rising up through the sand and alter the shapes and patterns of the landscape. The aerators that activate the sand are arranged in a composition of three elements: a circle, a line and a dot, corresponding to the three kinds of rift zones that occur on earth: solitary volcanoes, fracture zones such as the one spreading on the island of Hawaii, and the ring dike that forms in the crater of a volcano as the central plug cools and then a new eruption occurs around the perimeter in a circle.