Gaming Journal - The Icelandic volcano

Icelandic Volcano Began Rumbling in March
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
Published: April 15, 2010
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The Eyjafjallajokull volcano, one of Iceland’s largest, had been dormant for nearly two centuries before returning gently to life in the late evening of March 20, noticeable at first not by any great seismic activity but by the emergence of a red cloud glowing above the vast glacier that covers it.

In the following days, fire fountains jetted from a dozen vents on the volcano, reaching as high as 100 meters, according to the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland. That spectacular show, along with lava flows up to 20 meters thick, and “lava falls” to the volcano’s northeast, turned it into a full-fledged tourist attraction.

The volcano seemed to return to somnolence early this month. Then on Wednesday, an explosion sent clouds of ash soaring as high as 11,000 meters, disrupting air traffic in Northern Europe, with ripple effects far beyond.

The latest eruption led to the evacuation of hundreds of rural Icelanders. Although in an area where many people keep packed suitcases near the door for just such an eventuality, the movement to emergency shelters was efficient, reports said.
About 450 people had registered by Thursday morning at a shelter in the Hvolsvollur Elementary School, Iceland Review reported. Hundreds of other people were staying with friends or relatives.

But people throughout the affected area had to wear protective masks, and farmers and rescue workers scurried to herd thousands of sheep and other livestock away from the area of ash fall, amid fears of the deleterious effects of fluorine or other toxic elements in the ash.

Sigurlaug Sigurdardottir, a farmer from Herjolfsstadir, told the mbl.is news site that the ash had turned a bright day so dark that it was impossible to see a nearby house.

Another farmer, Ingunn Magnusdottir, described a desolate scene, saying: “There is gray dust covering everything. The cars are gray.” She said that her animals were all being kept in barns but that livestock at other farms had to be evacuated to safer areas.

A thick layer of gray to black ash — which residents described as fine, like flour or sugar — covered thousands of hectares of land. The authorities were monitoring drinking water in islands that draw their water from Eyjafjallajokull glacier melt, Iceland Review’s Web site reported.

The eruption showed no sign of abating, Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland, told Reuters.
“The seismographs are showing that since this morning the intensity of the eruption seems to be growing,” he said.
As much a third of the glacial ice above the crater has melted — it had been up to 250 meters thick in spots — raising the level of a nearby river by nearly a meter and covering some roads. But the worst danger of flash flooding appeared to be over, and some nearby residents had been able to return home.

Bridges over the Markarfljot river were damaged. The police restricted travel on some roads in the east, and the authorities warned that further flooding was possible.

At one point, the authorities decided to use heavy construction equipment to dig a break through the main highway to Reykjavik, Highway 1, rather than risk an overflow thought capable of destroying a key bridge.

The latest eruption is the fourth by Eyjafjallajokull (pronounced EYE-a-fyat-la-jo-kutl) in 1,100 years, vulcanologists say.
The last one, in 1821, which began with days of explosive eruptions, left deep layers of dark-gray ash through vast areas of southern Iceland — some of it nearly reached Reykjavik — and it caused the Markarfljot and the Holtsa rivers to flood.
The fluorine in its ash was blamed for the deaths or debilitation of large numbers of livestock.

As Eyjafjallajokull was settling down, the Katla volcano erupted in the spring of 1823.

Some vulcanologists and geologists said Thursday that the latest eruption might last just a few days. But the possibility remained of a longer event, like Eyjafjallajokull’s eruption of more than a year in the 1820s.

What a difference 48 hours makes: Clear skies above as volcano cools down after its violent outburst

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
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With clear blue skies and a small cloud rising up to the heavens, Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano looks a picture of calm today compared with 48 hours earlier.

Back then, with fire and 1,250C lava spitting out from its core, it presented a far more violent image to the world.

Dust particles were shot up into the skies above and drifted down over the Atlantic, closing vast swathes of European airspace.

The volcano has now simmered to 80 per cent of its intensity, but scientists are warning that earth tremors could cause an even larger eruption at a neighbouring crater.

An eruption at the Katla volcano would be ten times stronger and shoot higher and larger plumes of ash into the air than its smaller neighbour.

The two volcanoes are side by side in southern Iceland, about 12 miles apart, and thought to be connected by a network of magma channels.

Katla is buried under one of Iceland's largest glaciers, the Myrdalsjokull, which is 500m deep. This means it has more than twice the amount of ice than the current eruption has burned through, threatening a new and possibly longer aviation standstill across Europe.

Katla showed no signs of activity Tuesday, according to scientists who monitor it with seismic sensors, but they were still wary.

Pall Einarsson, professor of geophysics at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland, said one volcanic eruption sometimes caused a nearby volcano to explode, and Katla and Eyjafjallajokull have been active in tandem in the past.

The last three tiimes that Eyjafjallajokull erupted, Katla followed.

Katla also typically awakens every 80 years or so, and is slightly overdue having last erupted in 1918.

That notion is frightening for nearby villagers, who would have to quickly evacuate to avoid the flash floods that would rip down Katla's slopes.

Even last week's eruption generated spectacular cascades of melted water and ice chunks the size of houses when burning gases and molten earth carved through the glacier.

Svenn Palsson, the 48-year-old mayor of the coastal village of Vik, said residents were going over evacuation plans just in case.

With a population of 300, Vik has been covered in three millimeters of ash from the Eyjafjallajokull eruption, but the real concern is Katla.

Residents would have two to three hours to reach the safety of a shelter if the volcano erupted and caused the ice to melt quickly.

'We have practiced and can do it in 30 minutes,' Palsson said.

Other areas around the mountain, however, would have no more than 20 minutes to evacuate, he said.

Katla's substantial ice cap is a major worry because it is the mixture of melting cold water and lava that causes explosions, and for ash to shoot into high altitudes.

Strong winds can then carry it on over Europe.

So far there have been minor tremors at Katla, which scientists believe to be movements in the glacier ice, but the activity from Eyjafjallajokull is making measurements more difficult to read and an eruption more tricky to predict.

'It is more difficult to see inside Katla,' said Kristin Vogfjord, geologist at the Icelandic Met Office.

Vogfjord says Katla's sensitivity to eruptions at Eyjafjallajokull may have to do with pressure shifts in the Earth's crust that are caused by an eruption's magma flow.

'Katla can start tomorrow or in 100 years, you don't know,' said Palsson. 'All we can do is be ready.'