Eyjafjallajökull Iceland 2010

Katie and Lisa 🙂

The 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull were volcanic events at Eyjafjöll in Iceland that affected the residents and air flights across western and northern Europe for six days.  This volcano was dormant for two centuries before this eruption. It was a small eruption rated as 1 on the Volanic Explosivity Index but when the eruption entered second phrase on 14th April it created ash cloud that blocked mist of airways to and Europe, and created the most air travel disruption since World War 2. By 14–20 April, the ash covered large areas of northern Europe when the volcano erupted.

The second phrase rated  as 4 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index but reduced to a point where no lava was produced on 21st May and by the morning of 24th there was very little activity. The eruption was declared officially over in October 2010, when snow on the glacier did not melt but  Ármann Höskuldsson, a scientist at the University of Iceland Institute of Earth Sciences stated that it might erupt again because it is active.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iceland/eyjafjallajokull/index.html

Katie and Lisa 🙂

Mount Eyjafjallajökull is between the North-Atlantic and Eurasian plate; on the Mid-Atlantic ridge. It is a constructive plate boundary,on the ridge also called divergent or spreading. The North American plate is going slowly towards the west and the Eurasian plate is heading east.

A divergent boundary move apart and as they do, the mid-ocean ridges are created as magma from the mantle upwells, becasue of this it causes growing oceanic crust on both sides of the vent. As the plates continue to move, and more crust is formed, the ocean basin expands and a ridge system is created.

The formation of the new crust on either side of the vents would push plates apart, mid-ocean ridges are mountain chains in the ocean. Magma is pushed upwards through the ridge cracks by convection currents. As some magma erupts out through the crust, the magma which does not erupt continues to move under the crust with the current away from the ridge crest. These continual convection currents, help to move the plates away from each other to allow more crust to be created and the sea floor to grow, this is known as sea-floor spreading.