Volcano!: Iceland Erupts

Iceland is often referred to as the Land of Ice and Fire and in March and April 2010 it proved that it is indeed very fiery, when a series of volcanic eruptions shook the country and the after effects eventually affected most of Europe.
Despite Iceland's nickname, people are surprised to learn that the country is covered in volcanoes, in fact, Iceland is relatively young in geological terms, and is still settling down. Straddling the tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia, earthquakes are common and the earth's searing hot magma is never far from the surface. It's no surprise then, that there are gushing geysers, hot springs and bubbling mud pools.
With this geothermal activity on tap, the Icelanders have harnessed our planet's power to heat their homes. But not everything in nature can be controlled and tamed and a volcano blowing its top serves as reminder as to how fragile the human race is.

On March 20th, 2010 an eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano began in Fimmvörðuháls following months of small earthquakes under the Eyjafjallajökull glacier. The eruption opened a 0.5 km long fissure on the northern part of the pass. Just over a week later, the Fimmvörðuháls eruption produced a 300-meter-long fissure and new craters were seen erupting on a north trending path toward the area of Þórsmörk, a popular tourist nature reserve, prompting tours to briefly stop as volcanologists assessed the situation further.

This was followed in April by a larger eruption on Eyjafjallajökull itself.
On 14 April 2010 Eyjafjallajökull resumed erupting after a brief pause, this time from the top crater in the centre of the glacier, causing meltwater floods (known in Iceland as Jokulhlaup) to rush down the nearby rivers, and requiring 800 people to be evacuated. This eruption was explosive in nature and is estimated to be ten to twenty times larger than the previous one on Fimmvörðuháls. This second eruption threw volcanic ash several kilometres up in the atmosphere which led to travel disruptions in northwest Europe on 15 April 2010 including the closure of airspace over most of Northern Europe.



As we at Reykjavik Outsider are based in the UK, we haven't been able to experience the eruptions first hand. Although dangerous, it would be amazing to get up close to a volcano spewing out its red hot lava.
Fortunately, others have been lucky enough to capture these images for themselves, and we have put together a slide show (top) from the pictures available on Flickr and found a cool video from You Tube (above).
Its almost incredible to remember that only a few years ago we were in Þórsmörk and had stood at the foot of the very glacier that is host to that volcano.