Hundreds of small earthquakes per month are being recorded in the area around Katla – a volcano in Iceland with a long history of very powerful eruptions.
CNN has a photo gallery that includes two photos from the Silfra Fissure in Iceland’s Thingvellier National Park. The Silfra fissure is the pull-apart boundary between the North American and Eurasian plates.
After covering a large portion of Iceland with ash in late May 2011, Grímsvötn Volcano left behind a small lake filled with melt water and a hole in the Vatnajökull Glacier.
Recent eruptions of Icelandic volcanoes have caused significant air travel disruptions over western Europe. The UK government has appointed a volcanic ash scientist to monitor and respond to future eruptions.
“Grimsvotn, the most active of Iceland’s volcanoes, began erupting around 5:30 p.m. local time on Saturday, May 21, 2011. These images [...] show the erupting volcano at 1:00 p.m. local time on Sunday May 22, 2011. [...] This analysis places the maximum height of the plume at the time of overpass at about 46,000 feet (14 kilometers), which means that the ash has been injected into the stratosphere, the stratified portion of Earth’s upper atmosphere.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
“The initial plume from Grímsvötn was higher than that from Eyjafjallajökull, which only reached 8 kilometers (5 miles). Despite its taller plume, Grímsvötn was expected to hamper trans-Atlantic air traffic less than Eyjafjallajökull had, at least in the first 24 hours.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
This video shows ash clouds from Iceland’s Grimsvotn Volcano that are rising thousands of feet above the volcano and threaten to impact air traffic in western Europe.
Grimsvotn is a volcano in Iceland that is located under the Vatnajokull glacier. Recently there has been glacial melting and minor earthquakes in the area. On Saturday it began erupting, producing a large ash cloud.
An article on The Independent website looks back at the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano and the impact that it had on Iceland and air traffic.
Climbers descend into the magma chamber of Iceland’s Thrihnukagigur volcano. This is the only location on Earth where an empty magma chamber is open to access.
This video is part of the National Geographic Channel’s “Expedition Week” programming for Thursday, April 7th at 9:00 PM ET/PT.
Geologists drilling an exploratory geothermal well in 2009 in the Krafla volcano in Iceland met with a big surprise: underground lava, also called magma, flowed into the well at 2.1 kilometers (6,900 feet) depth.
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