Volcano eruption in south Iceland april 14th 2010

Description:

The 2nd Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in south Iceland for 2010. It started on 14.04.2010. GPS coordinates of the eruption: 63.629° N, 19.630° W. Video by Icelandic National TV stations RÚV and Stöð 2. Music by Jonn Serrie, The Legacy, Spirit Keepers. Date: april 14th, 2010.

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2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull

The 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull were a series of major volcanic events that occurred at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. Seismic activity started at the end of 2009, and led to a volcanic eruption on 20 March 2010. A later eruption from 14 April 2010 led to widespread disruption of air travel in Europe from 15 April, affecting the travel plans of millions of passengers.

Eyjafjallajökull is one of the smaller glaciers of Iceland. It is situated to the north of Skógar and to the west of the larger glacier Mýrdalsjökull.

The icecap of the glacier covers a volcano (1,666 metres (5,466 ft) in height) which has erupted relatively frequently since the Ice Age.

First eruption

At the end of December 2009, seismic activity began around the Eyjafjallajökull volcano area, with thousands of small earthquakes (mostly of magnitude 1–2 Mw), 7–10 kilometres beneath the volcano). By 26 February 2010 the Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment used by the Meteorological Institute of Iceland at Þorvaldseyri farm in the Eyjafjöll area (around 15 kilometres southeast of the location of the recent eruption) had shown 3 centimetres displacement of the local crust in a southward direction, of which a 1 centimetre displacement had taken place within four days. This unusual seismic activity along with the rapid movement of the Earth's crust in the area gave geophysicists evidence that magma was flowing from underneath the crust into the magma chamber of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano and that pressure stemming from the process caused the (in geophysical terms) huge crustal displacement at Þorvaldseyri farm. The seismic activity continued to increase and, from 3 to 5 March, close to 3,000 earthquakes were measured at the epicentre in the volcano. Most were too small (magnitude 2) to be read as presaging an eruption, but some could be detected in nearby towns. The eruption is thought to have begun on 20 March 2010, some time between 10:30 pm and 11:30 pm local time (UTC), a few kilometres east of the glacier in the northern slopes of Fimmvörðuháls mountain pass.

Second eruption

On 14 April 2010 Eyjafjallajökull resumed erupting after a brief pause, this time in the centre of the glacier, causing meltwater floods to rush down the nearby rivers in two flows on either side of the volcano, and requiring 800 people to be evacuated. The road along the Markarfljót river had been washed away in several places.

Unlike the earlier eruption, the second eruption occurred beneath glacial ice. Cold water from melted ice chills the lava quickly and fragments it into glass, creating small glass particles that get carried into the eruption plume. This, together with the magnitude of the eruption, estimated to be ten to twenty times larger than the 20 March one on Fimmvörðuháls, created a glass-rich plume in the upper atmosphere, which is very hazardous to aircraft.

As of 16 April 2010 the eruption was continuing.

There has been continuous extensive air travel disruption across large parts of Europe since the second 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on 14 April 2010, stranding millions of travellers. The eruption occurred beneath glacial ice and the cold water from melting ice chilled the lava quickly causing it to fragment into glass, creating small glass particles that get carried into the eruption plume. This, together with the magnitude of the eruption, created a glass-rich plume in the upper atmosphere, which is very hazardous to aircraft. Volcanic ash is also a major hazard to aircraft. The presence and location of the plume depend upon the state of the eruption and the winds.

As a result there were significant flight delays in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, with most major European airports being closed.