26 Replies to “Videos of the two phases of Eyjafjallajökull eruption in March-April 2010”

  1. Thank you for the video’s Jón.
    I am following this excellent blog for a couple of weeks now and am learning so much.
    Thank you so much.

  2. Thank you for the videos, Jón.
    I was wondering which other volcanoes in Iceland had a similar explosive eruption in a recent past… they’re mostly fissure eruptions, like in the Fimmvörduháls phase, aren’t they?

    1. Isn’t the normal eruption style more like Hekla and Katla as one type of eruptions? Quickly started crater/caldera eruptions. And then we have the Grimsvötn, Bardarbunga style with a bit more warning and a slower eruptive pattern.
      In a sense of it Eyjafjallajökull is more like Heimey in the pattern. First fissure eruption that later goes into crater-cone eruption. Difference of course being that Heimey was not as explosive as Eyja was. But on the other hand it was less water in Heimey.

      But I might be wrong in this.

      1. I guess it was simply luck that the Heimaey eruption was on land. This was really the edge of the island, 200m further north or north-east and it would have been in the sea. At least for the first time 🙂

      2. But it was still a comparatively small eruption.
        Wasn’t it a VEI2? If it had been Eyjafjallajökull with those really massive supersonic concusions there would not have two stones still being ontop of each other. But who knows what would have happened if it had been larger water content.

      3. I agree with you. Heimaey wasn’t really explosive, the second phase of Eyjafjallajökull was.
        Its a pretty unprecise tool.

      4. I wouldn’t call that Luck! If it wouldn’t have been on land, the destruction might have been much lower, if any.

        i mean that eruption destroyed property in a rater big way, at least the property of the people that lived on this island.

      5. This is questionable. I you have a phreatomagmatic eruption next to a town (and next to in this case would mean a few hundret meters away) than you would deposit enormous amounts of ash in the town. Heimaey had to be unburied from ash, especially the parts that were close to the volcano. But I think the damage done by the ash would have been much bigger, if this eruption had happened in the sea.
        The eruption destroyed a few houses (not nice for the people which got affected) but that was is mostly.
        And its also the question, if the evacuation would have been so easy. People basically got onboard of the fishing ship in the harbour and left the island.

      6. I also disagree on this.
        If you remember the video from Eyjafjallajökull when they flew over and you could see the phreatomagmatic explosions creating wast hypersonic chockwaves.
        Just one of those chockwaves going off that close to Haimaey town would have been hard enough to punch the innards of the citizens into mush. It would have been the first volcano to kill all citizens in a town with pressure waves.
        Lets hope that a volcano never erupts in water close to a town like that.

  3. Oh my, I had almost forgotten what an adoringly cute eruption Fimmvörduhals was. In my opinion one of the most beautifull eruptive phases ever. It had it all.

    Ah, I wish someone could turn that back on…

    1. Oh, yeah. You will be seeing some action, for sure. And I must confess, I envy you. Don’t forget to bring us nice shots and footage, I would be most grateful if you could.

      1. It is still not certain that I will be going. It depends a bit on if we can hire a boat or not during that week, but I am hopefull. Of course I will post pics and vids for you guys if we go.

  4. It is quiet in Iceland at the moment. I don’t know how long that is going to last. But I few things I am going to write about in the next few days.

  5. I don’t really have anything to say. I’m just posting this to easy my mind after being molested by the forum software at BigThink.

    I feel so… violated.

    1. What happened?
      I even got auto-banned by the system there once. Had to e-mail Erik to get back in.
      Right now though I am avoiding the place due to a certain person who believes in vampires… But mostly my absence from there is due to me actually being more interested in Icelandic volcanos.

      Handing over a comfort beer so you will feel clean again:)

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