aviation

Grading grading grading! A webcam capture of the eruptive plume from Eyjafjallajökull on the morning of May 6, 2010. News: A quick update on the Eyjafjallajökull eruption: The volcano has been producing an impressive ash plume over the last day (see image above). The current ash plume is reaching 5.8-6 km height (19-20,000 ft) - and causing some trouble over Ireland and Scotland. However, much of airspace closed yesterday has reopened (for now). You can see two new images of the ash plume over at the NASA Earth Observatory. As for the continued fallout from the ash plume from April, British…
A shot of the strombolian activity at the vent of Eyjafjallajökull, taken on May 4, 2010. Image courtesy of the Iceland Met Office. The latest news from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption has the volcano erupting more explosively again (see above), possibly due to an increased influx of water into the vent area - in any case, the ash has become denser (by volume in the air) and the plume is higher (see below) than in the last couple of weeks. The rate of lava flow extrusion has also gone down in the last few days. The latest update from the Iceland Met Office has a lot of details on the current…
The steam plume from a lava flow moving down the slopes of Eyjafjallajökull on May 2, 2010. A quick note on the activity at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland: The ash from the ongoing eruption has caused a partial closure of airspace over Ireland from 0600 to 1200 on Tuesday May 4. This is one of the first closures of European airspace since airspace reopened over 10 days ago. This closure is based on the predicted location of ash in flight corridors over Ireland tomorrow. The Icelandic Met Office has released two interesting updates on the activity at Eyjafjallajökull. The first describes the…
News! Colima in Mexico erupting in 2008. The current activity at Eyjafjallajökull is more-or-less unchanged, with strombolian activity producing a 3-4 km tall ash-and-steam plume and the lava flows at the crater moving northward towards the GÃgjökull glacier. You can check out an extensive page on the state of this eruption at the Nordic Volcanological Center - along with a new page with thermal and LIDAR information on the eruption from France. The Icelandic Met Office notes that the lava has been producing meltwater from the glacier - which many Eruptions readers have noticed as floods…
An undated painting of the island volcano of Ischia near the Bay of Naples, Italy. Guess what? It is the end of the semester (well, school year) here at Denison, so I might be a little busy for the next couple weeks. Here are some news bits (with special thanks to all who emailed me some of these links): Boris might have more information or opinion on this, but Italy is back in the news concerning the threat of volcanism to the country. This time the volcano is Ischia, off the coast in the Bay of Naples. Guido Bertolaso of Italy's civil protection agency is quoted as saying that the "magma…
Night image of Eyjafjallajökull erupting on April 24, 2010. Image courtesy of James Ashworth. A quick update on the Eyjafjallajökull eruption: Not a lot to report in terms of changes in the volcanic activity at the volcano. The update from the Icelandic Met Office last night sums it up nicely: Overall activity similar as yesterday. Eruption seen from west in the morning - north crater still active. External water has not affected vent activity much since 18 April. Geologists' field observations (2-10 km from vents) show that explosivity is magmatic and that the tephra produced since 18…
A night shot of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption showing the glowing plume from the strombolian explosions and the Aurora Borealis overhead. A quick update on the current activity at Eyjafjallajökull eruption: the eruption continues at the summit craters, but there seems to be less ash being erupted, at least yesterday. The latest update from the Icelandic Met Office suggest that things are settling down - but floods are still periodically being produced by melting of the glacier: Volcanic tremor has been similar the last 24 hours. GPS stations around Eyjafjallajökull showed deflation…
A strombolian eruption in the crater of Eyjafjallajökull, taken on April 19, 2010. Image courtesy of the Icelandic Met Office. The Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland has been one of the most fascinating eruptions in recent memory - and this is beyond the fact that it is a prime example of a "wired" eruption, where people from around the world can follow every aspect of the eruption from the comfort of their home. What will really be interesting is the political fallout from the six day closure of the airspace over most of Europe due to the ash. If you read the press, you'd think that…
The ash-and-steam plume from Eyjafjallajökull on April 19, 2010. Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland is slowly settling into a pattern of strombolian-to-surtseyan (depending on meltwater access to the crater) explosions that have been sending ash up to 2-5 km above the summit. We can see this new, more diffuse plume in the recent NASA EO image of the eruption taken April 19. There is still abundant ice to melt at the summit as there have been a number of floods overnight and this morning near the volcano, betraying the continuing production of meltwater by the eruption. The Icelandic Met office…
Gaua erupting in February 2010. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory. As a certain famous Icelandic native would say, "there is more to life than this." Some other volcano news from around the world: The situation at Gaua in Vanuatu is worsening. Ash from the current eruption is contaminating water and food supplies on the island. Authorities are planning on evacuating 3,000 people from the island if the eruption that started in 2009 gets worse, but there has already been significant ash fall, mudflows and explosions. Shiveluch on the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia continues to…
Eyjafjallajokull erupting on 4/17/2010, image by Marco Fulle. Note the "rooster tails" of ash and steam, typical for Surtseyan eruptions. European airspace has slowly begun to reopen as the explosive eruptions at Eyjafjallajökull have become less intense over the last 24 hours. However, there is still lots of hazardous airspace and airports around places like London and across the UK remain closed - leaving people stranded. We will still have to wait to see what the political ramification are, especially after EU officials claim "flaws" in their decision and the over $1 billion losses by the…
National Geographic film crew near Eyjafjallajökull, April 18, 2010. UPDATE 1PM EDT 4/19/2010: I can almost categorically say that Hekla is NOT erupting, contrary to Twitter or the brief banner on MSNBC. See my comment below (#68). In what is sounding like a bit of a broken record, the eruption at Eyjafjallajökull is still going. However, we might be beginning to see some changes in the style of volcanism - even the first suggestion of lava flows at the new crater. As mentioned yesterday, since the eruption became subglacial, we've been seeing eruptions where water - in this case glacial…
Some very quick notes on Eyjafjallajökull: Eyjafjallajökull erupting at night on April 17/18, 2010, with impressive incandescent explosions. European airlines are taking "test flights" to see the effect of the ash on their aircraft in hopes to convince EU officials to reopen airspace. Now, officials from KLM say that everything went fine in their test flight, but I haven't seen any details about flightplans, altitude and all the sorts of info you'd want to see if you want to believe these test flights are representative. However, the president of KLM does have a bit of a point in saying…
The eruptive plume from Eyjafjallajökull taken Holsvelli webcam. Image courtesy of Mattias Larsson. Sorry to disappoint everyone visiting to blog while they sit at any number of airports around the world, but the eruption at Eyjafjallajökull appears to still be going strong. The Icelandic Met Office is heading up to the volcano to conduct a survey of the crater area to find out (1) what it looks like and (2) how much new water (i.e., ice) is there available for the erupting magma. More water is likely to mean more explosive eruptions in this phreatoplinian style - however, like I mentioned…
The ash plume from the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption. To say that the Eyjafjallajökull eruption has become the most significant volcano-related news story of the year would be an understatement. There has been wall-to-wall coverage on every major media outlet, dissecting everything from the effect of ash on jets, to the effect of ash on people, to wildly premature commentary on the climatic effect of the eruption to the potential place in history of this event. The eruption is affecting a wide swath through society: the European economy may take a hit of billions of dollars due to…
The ash from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption as it spreads over Europe on April 15, 2010. The newly-subglacial Eyjafjallajökull eruption of 2010 has now begun to be felt outside of Iceland. The ash being thrown into the atmosphere from this explosive phase of the eruption has prompted officials in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Norway to close the airspace above their nations due to the threat that ash poses to jet aircraft. Remember, the silica glass shards that make up most ash can melt inside jet engines, causing them to stall - which could lead to crashing. Luckily, so far we have not…
The steam and ash plume from the Eyjafjallajökull subglacial eruption that started early morning, April 14, 2010. Well, after the brief respite when there was speculation Eyjafjallajökull-Fimmvörduháls eruption might be over, we now know what was going on. After the original fissures ceased activity, the magma found a new route to the surface, this time underneath the Eyjafjallajökull glacier. Eruptions readers last night watched as an earthquake swarm arrived underneath the icecap, which prompted Icelandic officials to start evacuating people from the area around the volcano (photo from…
The steam-and-ash plume from Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland, March 22, 2010. Overnight, the Eyjafjallajokull eruption in Iceland added to its oeuvre, producing what is being reported to be a 8-km plume. Images of the plume (above) suggest (to me) that it is very water-rich, so likely this is the expanding(?) fissure interacting with snow, ice or groundwater, producing steam explosions. These explosions have some minor ash component to them, mostly from the shattering of rapidly cooled lava, but are dominated by steam. The eruption appears to be continuing into its third day unabated. Flights…
The fissure vent eruption on Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland on March 21, 2010. The big news this morning is the eruption that started last night at Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland, producing a 1-km fissure vent. The pictures and videos I've seen so far have been quite impressive, with the classic look of a "curtain of fire", where basaltic lava erupts explosively from a linear array of vents - you can see the geometry in the image from the BBC/AP (above). Especially clear is the dual nature of the eruption, with both the explosive fire fountains and the effusive (passive) lava flows from the root of…
A shot from the Hekla webcam showing the glow from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull that started March 20, 2010. Quick note, but for those of you who have been following the seismicity at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, there is news from Iceland that an eruption has started. I will post more details as I can find them, but so far, evacuations have commenced near the volcano. It sounds like the eruption can be seen coming through the glacier on the volcano, but any real details of the style of volcanism are unknown. This is the first known eruption of Eyjafjallajökull since 1823. UPDATE 9:40…