National Geographic magazine

A column of hissing steam emerges from a gaping 600-foot (180-meter) chasm in Iceland’s Vatnajökull Glacier. Scalding magma transforms water, pooled at the bottom of this abyss, into billowing steam. In 1996, two weeks after an enormous volcanic eruption beneath the ice cap, billions of gallons of meltwater gushed from a glacial lake, causing Iceland’s worst deluge in 60 years.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Iceland’s Trial by Fire," May 1997, National Geographic magazine

A veiled woman of the Untouchable caste pauses for a photo while sweeping outside her home in India. India's constitution forbids caste discrimination and specifically abolishes Untouchability, but the hierarchies and social codes of Hinduism perpetuate the system.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Untouchable," June 2003, National Geographic magazine)

National Geographic magazine

Trails of lightning backlight Chimney Rock in southwest Colorado's San Juan National Forest. Home to ancestors of the Pueblo Indians more than 1,000 years ago, the area around Chimney Rock has been a designated archaeological area and national historic site since 1970.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Life and Times of William Henry Jackson: Photographing the Frontier," February 1989, National Geographic magazine)

Brown Bears in Mist, Russia
Photograph by Michael Melford

This Month in Photo of the Day: National Geographic Magazine Features

In early morning mist that rolls in from the coast, two brown bears tussle like teenagers. "I was at this spot a year earlier and saw these bears doing the same thing," says John Paczkowski, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. "They sparred for about 40 minutes, taking breaks to eat a few berries." Bears in the Kronotsky reserve often encounter each other at salmon streams and seem to socialize more here than in some other food-rich areas.

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Orangutan Orphan, Borneo

Clinging to the hand of a human protector, six-year-old Mugi is one of some 500 orphans cared for at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue Center in Indonesian Borneo. The island's orangutans are endangered: The population has fallen by more than 50 percent in the past 50 years.

This Month in Photo of the Day: Nature

In a far north without ice, a mother bear could be stranded a long way from good hunting, struggling to feed herself and her cubs. This snow-free scene near Kapp Fanshawe (Cape Fanshawe) offers a glimpse of what may be the Arctic's rockier future.