Glowing lava ‘bombs’ the size of SUVs are being thrown up from the South Iceland Eyjafjallajokull volcano. However, ash fall is expected to reduce, liquid lava is not flowing and the risk of further flooding is considered minimal at the moment.
Scientists flew over the volcano yesterday and the University of Iceland’s Bjorn Oddsson told reporters that tephra is collecting on the glacier ice and insulating it, resulting in a less explosive eruption. Less dangerous ash is being produced in the gas cloud, but so-called lava bombs are being produced and fired off at high speed. “There is no flowing lava, but that could come with increased volcanic activity,” Oddsson told RUV. A flow of lava would likely mean much lower levels of ash falling to the ground in the surrounding area; but Oddsson said there is already a hugh amount of ash on the glacier which is just blowing around with the wind.
Oddsson said it is not possible to predict when the falling ash will ease off but that the relative stability of the eruption at the moment means floods are unlikely.
Television journalist and keen amateur aviator, Omar Ragnarsson, flew over the volcano and released this video.
Photo: RÚV
Oddsson: “relative stability of the eruption”. Is he related to the Oddsson who used to predice the relative stability of the Icelandic krona?
Can anyone tell me why the Eyjafjalla volcano is called the Eyjafjallajökull volcano? A jökull can’t really volcano. It takes a fjalla to supply the rock the fire needs to party.
To put it another way, a jökull is a glacier, which is water, which is cool. Cool and liquid we can think of kind of as what comes from a harp. A fjalla is a mountain, which is rock and sometimes rocks. We can think of the fjalla kind of as a guitar, which can be electric. You can get rock out of a guitar, hard rock out of an electric one, but from a harp you can’t get anything that isn’t liquid, no matter how hard you bang the strings.