Icleand Eyjafjallajokull 2010

Icelandic Volcano Eruption: Eyafjallajoekull

Date: 21^st March 2010

What Happened: Eyafjallajoekull volcano, dormant for 200 years begun to erupt just after midnight. It sent lava 100 metres into the air. The reason the eruption was so big was because the molten hot lava met the freezing cold ice, causing steam, an ice cap sits upon the volcano, causing pressure to build up and the volcano erupted. The lava, when it met with the ice caused it to blow into tiny pieces of ash.

Cause: Iceland sits on the Mid Atlantic Ridge, which is the plate boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the North American Plate. The two plates are pulling apart, this causes magma to rise through the Earth’s crust and out onto the sea floor where it builds and builds, eventually and eruption happens which pushes the volcano out of the water and it becomes an island. As Iceland sits on a plate boundary the island keeps growing and volcanic activity never stops. Most of the island has been created with volcanic activity, with 90% of the land formed from lava flows. The volcanic activity which created Iceland has been fairly continuous for the last 20-25 million year.
Not only does its location straddling the plate boundary keep the volcanoes erupting, but a magma plume lies beneath Iceland, this is where the magma here is especially hot, causing a vast column of superheated rock.…