Mother Earth may be about to show us how insignificant we are. The recent eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland has shutdown air travel in northwestern Europe. News reports indicate air travel may be curtailed for a couple days. But the geologic history is interesting:
The eruptive phase started on 19 and 20 December 1821 by a series of explosive eruptions continuing during the next days. The sources talk about heavy ash fall in the area around the volcano especially to the south and west. After that event the eruption continued on a more subdued level until June 1822.
From the end of June till the beginning of August 1822, another series of explosive eruptions followed. The eruption columns were shot to considerable heights, with ashfall both in the far north of the country, inEyjafjörður, and in the southwest, on the peninsula of Seltjarnarnes near Reykjavík.
The period from August to December 1822 seemed quieter, but farmers attributed the death of cattle and sheep in the Eyjafjörður area to poisoning from this eruption, which modern analysis identifies as fluoride poisoning. Some small glacier runs occurred in the river Holtsá. A bigger one flooded the plains near the river Markarfljót. The sources don’t indicate the exact date.
In 1823, some men went hiking up on Eyjafjallajökull to inspect the craters. They discovered a fissure vent near the summit caldera a bit to the west of Guðnasteinn.
In the spring of 1823, the nearby volcano Katla under the glacier Mýrdalsjökull erupted and at the same time steam columns were seen on the summit of Eyjafjallajökull.
What would the consequences for Britain, Norway, France, Germany and Denmark be if the eruptions continue for two years? I dare say that would be economically very bad.
2 comments
Cynical Bard says:
20 April 2010 at 9:08 (UTC -7 )
But no one is talking about how much CO2 is being released and how the Copenhagen agreement will penalize Iceland for the big increase in emissions. Something should be done!
Ira says:
20 April 2010 at 13:42 (UTC -7 )
This high-fluoride ash cloud is a feature of the Hekla stratovolcano. This year’s eruption (from a vent under the Eyjafjallajökull glacier) is only showing 1/3 the fluoride concentration of a typical Hekla eruption.
A Hekla eruption in 1783 reportedly killed 80% of all the sheep in Iceland (sheep are especially vulnerable to fluoride poisoning), and the ashfall in France produced years of bad harvests which was a major cause of the French Revolution.