According to Wilfred Elders, professor emeritus of Geology at the University of California, Riverside, co-authored three of the research papers in the Geothermics special issue with Icelandic colleagues.

"Drilling into magma is a very rare occurrence, and this is only the second known instance anywhere in the world," Elders said. The IDDP and Iceland's National Power Company, which operates the Krafla geothermal power plant nearby, decided to make a substantial investment to investigate the hole further.

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This meant cementing a steel casing into the well, leaving a perforated section at the bottom closest to the magma. Heat was allowed to slowly build in the borehole, and eventually superheated steam flowed up through the well for the next two years.

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According to phys.org, scientists drilling a borehole deep into Iceland's rocky crust to explore new methods of using geothermal energy hit a major roadblock. Their drill ran into molten rock at a depth of 6,900 feet.

"This is only the third time that magma has ever flowed into a geothermal drill hole, as far as we know," said Peter Schiffman, a geology professor at UC Davis and member of the international team conducting the study. "A research project in Hawaii hit magma in 2005, and in 1977 magma erupted out the top of a producing geothermal well not far from our site in Krafla, Iceland.