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Post major volcanic eruption in Iceland. Maidans

Scientists record outbreaks of activity of the giant and most dangerous Katla volcano in Iceland, which has been silent for almost a hundred years. A volcanic explosion can be so colossal that the volcano will release toxic ash emissions into the atmosphere that can instantly kill more than 200,000 people. Katla is a close neighbor of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, whose eruption in April 2010 caused the largest aviation collapse since the Second World War.

Deep under a glacier in Iceland, a massive disaster is brewing. According to experts, the Katla volcano, popularly known as the "evil sorceress", is preparing to unleash its deadly wrath across northern Europe.

Katla is a volcano on the south coast of Iceland, one of the largest in the country.

At the moment, Katla is showing all the clear signs of an imminent explosion. It can be so colossal that the volcano will release toxic ash emissions into the atmosphere that can instantly kill more than 200,000 people. Scientists fear that Katla will plunge Europe into chaos again, as in 2010, when the eruption of its neighbor, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, led to the largest aircraft collapse since World War II. A powerful column of ash practically paralyzed air traffic - millions of people were stuck in Northern Europe from mid-April to mid-May.

A total of 14 Katla eruptions are known. Previously, the volcano erupted every 50-80 years, but since 1918 it has been silent - during the last eruption, it threw five times more ash into the sky than its neighbor Eyjafjallajökull in 2010. The Katla eruption predicted today will be the first in nearly 100 years. Currently, Katla emits 12 to 24 kilotons of carbon dioxide daily, the volcano's magma chambers are filling up, which speaks of an impending catastrophe and makes experts sound the alarm.

The peak of seismic activity in Iceland occurs in autumn, which carries the highest risk of eruptions. The accumulation of magma inside Katla is greatly enhanced by the presence of a glacier on its crater - it acts just like a lid on a giant pressure cooker. The fact that the volcano is hidden under glaciers also makes it much more difficult to monitor its activity.

Katla is located far from major settlements in Iceland and the eruption does not threaten the local people. One of the main dangers is that Katla's volcanic activity can cause violent melting of nearby glaciers and flooding of neighboring areas with melt water.

Icelanders have a legend about Katla that goes back more than eight centuries. According to legend, Katla is the name of a hot-tempered and cruel housekeeper in a local monastery who possessed supernatural powers. Once, when she was accused of witchcraft, the "evil witch" escaped and jumped into the Mirdalsjökull glacier (which is located above the volcano). An eruption began, destroying the monastery and killing all its inhabitants. Legend warns that one day Katla will return to take revenge.

In the spring of 2010 in Iceland, after more than 200 years of hibernation, a volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier became active. The first time the volcano made itself felt on March 20, but the "test" eruption did not lead to any serious consequences. On April 14, it began to erupt again and threw out a huge amount of ash into the air, because of which it was necessary to almost completely stop air traffic over Europe.

The volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier (Eyjafjallajokull, the correct pronunciation of this word can be heard) does not have its own name, therefore it is customary in the media to call it by the name of the glacier. He wakes up on average once every two hundred years. Over the last millennium, it entered the active phase 4 times, the last one in the interval between 1821 and 1823. The eruptions did not turn into any particularly serious destruction, despite the fact that the volcano is located 200 kilometers from the Icelandic capital Reykjavik. In the 19th century, eruptions were limited to ash emissions, which, however, were quite poisonous due to the high content of fluorine.

The fact that the Icelandic volcano will wake up this spring became known back in 2009, when seismologists recorded a large number of weak earthquakes with a magnitude of up to 3 in the vicinity of the glacier. In early March, more than three thousand earthquakes were recorded on the Eyjafjallajökull glacier, which clearly indicated an impending eruption. On March 20, the volcano finally woke up, the first eruption began.

The power of the eruptions was relatively low: local travel companies even began to organize helicopter trips to Eyjafjallajokudl. However, around 500 farmers have been evacuated from the glacier area, and local and international flights to Iceland have been suspended. By the evening of the next day, when it became known that the awakened volcano did not present any danger, all emergency measures were canceled, and the evacuated citizens were allowed to return home a few more days later.

Scientists have established observation of the volcano. Magma continued to flow from the faults in the glacier until almost the second major eruption on April 14.

If the first signs of activity of a volcano near Reykjavik in 200 years passed almost unnoticed, then the second eruption affected the life of all of Europe. First, it turned out to be about twenty times more powerful than the first. Secondly, magma began to erupt not from several faults in different parts of the glacier, but from one crater. The incandescent rock began to melt the glacier and triggered minor flooding in local areas, from where the authorities hastily evacuated about a thousand farmers.

Well, the main cause of concern was the huge amount of ash thrown into the atmosphere by the eruption. The ash cloud rose to a height of about 6-10 kilometers and spread over the territory of Great Britain, Denmark and the Scandinavian countries and countries of the Baltic region. The appearance of ash was not long in coming in Russia - in the vicinity of St. Petersburg, Murmansk and a number of other cities. On the evening of April 15, it looked something like this.

Volcanic ash settles for a very long time (the cloud after the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano settled only after it circled the Earth twice), and poses a great danger to aircraft. The Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute notes that when ash particles enter the engines, they form the so-called glassy "shirts" on the rotor blades and can lead to their stop. Ash also impairs visibility, negatively affects the stability of radio communications and can damage on-board electronics. For safety reasons, flights in places of its congestion are prohibited.

The decision to restrict the movement of aircraft in Europe was made immediately after the scale of the eruption on the Eyjafjallajokull glacier became apparent. Already in the afternoon of April 15, all flights, except for emergency flights, were canceled at London Heathrow. This was followed by cancellations and rescheduling of flights at other airports throughout Europe. France closed 24 airports; by Thursday evening, airports in Berlin and Hamburg were closed, and then in other German cities. As the cloud moved across Europe, new flight cancellations followed, including flights across the Atlantic Ocean and even to Australia and New Zealand.

Air traffic in Minsk is limited, the Russian Aeroflot has canceled about 20 flights to European cities. The Khrabrovo airport in Kaliningrad is completely closed for receiving and departing aircraft; the same measures have been taken at the airports of Lithuania bordering on the Kaliningrad region. In total, about four thousand flights were canceled on Thursday, on Friday this number may rise to 11 thousand.

Among the victims of flight delays are thousands of tourists stranded at airports and many businessmen whose plans and business negotiations have been thwarted. No exceptions were made even for the top officials of states - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had to cancel his working trip to Murmansk and stay in Moscow.

Also, the visit of the heads of many states to Poland to President Lech Kaczynski, which is scheduled for April 18, remains in jeopardy. Polish airspace has been closed almost completely since early Friday morning, only Krakow airport is functioning (the Polish president will be buried in the castle in Krakow), however, most flights in it have been canceled or postponed indefinitely. However, there is no talk of postponing the date of the funeral of Kaczynski, who died in the plane crash near Smolensk.

The last time Europe and the world at large faced such a massive flight cancellation was only in 2001, when aircraft hijacked by terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers in New York. Panic then, for obvious reasons, was much greater, as well as fears for the lives of passengers.

When everything will return to normal in this case, it is not clear. On the one hand, the representatives of the airports are trying not to stir up panic and promise to resume flights by the end of Friday or, in extreme cases, by Saturday, on the other hand, scientists warn that the ash will affect air traffic for several more weeks, or even months. According to preliminary data, the eruption will cost airlines about a billion dollars.

Eyjafjallajökull is a volcano in Iceland, located under the glacier of the same name, the name of which can only be pronounced by 0.005 percent of the world's population. In 2010, the small northern country of Iceland decided to remind Europeans of its existence. And she did it in such a way that the message could not be ignored.

The overly active activity of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano and the powerful release of ash into the atmosphere led to the cancellation of several tens of thousands of flights. This eruption can rightfully be considered one of the most remarkable events of the past year.

For two hundred years, Eyjafjallajökull was considered sound asleep. Its previous eruption was recorded between 1821 and 1823. - in two years the volcano caused enormous damage to the surrounding area. However, Icelanders are accustomed to such cataclysms. There are several active volcanoes on the island, which periodically remind of their existence. So the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull did not panic the local population, on the contrary, it provoked a real tourist boom. People from all over the world came to admire the impressive spectacle.

In fact, the volcano that attracted so much tourist attention to Iceland didn't even have a name of its own. Previously, the Eyjafjallajökull glacier was known, located 125 km from Reykjavik and hiding a conical-shaped volcano under it. For simplicity, they began to call it by the same name. Eyjafjallajökull translated into Russian literally means "glacier of the island mountains." The height of the summit is 1666 meters, and the diameter of the crater, which has been hidden under the ice for many years, is 4 km.

Naturally, scientists were observing Eyjafjallajökull, but could not predict the full scale of the upcoming eruption. Much more attention of scientists has always been attracted by the volcano located 12 km to the east - Katla. In the XX century, he was noted for special activity. Consequently, it was popular with tourists visiting the island.

For lovers of exotic, all types of travel are available in Iceland: auto, walking, and helicopter tours by air. Only from above can you estimate the power of volcanoes in full. Apart from the evidence of the fiery breath of the Earth, Iceland is famous for its rivers, waterfalls and geysers. Acquaintance with them is included in the compulsory tourist program. At the foot of the Eyjafjallajökull glacier is the village of Skogar and the most visited waterfall in the country, Skogafoss, on the Skogau River. The famous tourist routes leading to the Fimmvurduhauls pass between the Eyjafjallajökull and Myrdalsjökull glaciers pass by.

Photo of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland.

In Iceland, after a 200-year hibernation, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano woke up. The eruption began on March 21, 2010 and was so powerful that a state of emergency was declared in the country and hundreds of residents of nearby settlements were evacuated.
Russia 1

On April 14, a new eruption began, accompanied by the release of a huge amount of ash into the atmosphere. The next day, a dozen European countries were forced to fully or partially close their airspaces - in particular, flights were canceled at the airports of London, Copenhagen and Oslo.

Eyjafjallajokull (Eyjafjallajokull) means "Island of Mountain Glaciers". The volcano is located 200 kilometers east of Reykjavik between the Eyjafjallajokull and Mirdalsjokull glaciers. These are the largest ice caps in the south of the northern island country, covering active volcanoes.

Eyjafjallajökull volcano is a conical glacier, the sixth largest in Iceland. The height of the volcano is 1666 meters. The crater diameter is 3-4 kilometers, the glacial cover is about 100 square kilometers.

Iceland lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where volcanic eruptions occur quite often. Almost all types of volcanoes found on Earth are represented in this country. Ice caps and other glaciers cover an area of \u200b\u200b11,900 square kilometers.

Since many Icelandic volcanoes are covered with glaciers, they often flood them from below. Glacier tongues break loose from their places, releasing millions of tons of water and ice that blow away everything in their path.

It is because of these fears that Iceland has taken such serious security measures since the awakening of Eyjafjallajokull in 2010. In particular, after its March eruption, traffic on nearby highways was stopped and residents were evacuated. Local authorities feared that the volcanic lava would melt the glacier and cause severe flooding.

However, after the research carried out, experts came to the conclusion that the eruption does not pose a threat to local residents. A few days later, the authorities allowed people to return to their homes.

Volcanologists were able to approach the crater at a distance of several meters and film the eruption on camera, they saw that the crack, from which the lava comes out, is about 500 meters long. In addition, the filming was carried out from the air. Many have been posted on the popular YouTube video portal.

Here is one of such shooting - a spectacle bewitchingly beautiful and frightening at the same time.

Icelandic scientists have been observing the volcano for a long time, tracking signs of seismic activity. In their opinion, the eruption could last about another year or even two. The last eruption of Eyjafjallajokudl was recorded in 1821. Then it lasted until 1823 and caused the threatening melting of the glacier. In addition, due to the high content of fluoride compounds (fluorides) in its emissions, a threat to health was created, namely the bone structure of people and livestock.

Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption (also "Eyjafjallajök atfor "; Isl. Eyjafjallajökull) in Iceland began on the night of March 20-21, 2010 and proceeded in several stages. The main consequence of the eruption was the ejection of a cloud of volcanic ash, which disrupted air traffic in Northern Europe.

First eruption.

Since the end of 2009, seismic activity has increased in Eyjafjallajökull. Until March 2010, there were about a thousand earthquakes with a force of 1-2 points at a depth of 7-10 km under the volcano.

At the end of February 2010, GPS measurements carried out by the Meteorological Institute of Iceland in the area of \u200b\u200bthe glacier recorded a movement of the earth's crust by 3 cm in the southeast direction. Seismic activity continued to increase and reached a maximum on March 3-5 (three thousand tremors per day).

Temperature map

About 500 local residents were resettled from the area around the volcano (since the intense melting of the glacier, under which the volcano was located, could cause flooding of the area). Keflavik International Airport (Keflavik City) was closed.

On March 19, the shaking began to the east of the northern crater at a depth of 4-7 km. Then the activity began to spread eastward and rise to the surface.

The volcanic eruption began on March 20, 2010 between 22:30 and 23:30 GMT. At this time, in the eastern part of the glacier, a 0.5 km long fault was formed (at an altitude of about 1000 m above sea level, in the direction from north-east to south-west). During the eruption, no large ash emissions were recorded, the cloud rose to a height of about 1 km.

On March 25, due to the melted glacier water that got into the crater, a steam explosion occurred in the crater, after which the eruption passed into a more stable phase.

On March 31, at about 19:00 (Icelandic time), a new crack (0.3 km long) opened, which is located about 200 m northeast of the first.

Second eruption.

Second eruption, view from the north, April 2, 2010

On April 13, at about 23:00, seismic activity was recorded under the central part of the volcano, west of two erupting cracks. About an hour later, a new eruption began at the southern edge of the central caldera. The column of ash rose 8 km. A new crack, about 2 km long, was formed (from north to south). Water from the active melting of the glacier flowed both north and south, into inhabited areas. About 700 people were evacuated. During the day, a highway was flooded with melt water, and destruction occurred. In southern Iceland, volcanic ash precipitation has been recorded.

A trail of a volcanic eruption on April 15 in a high pressure area over the Norwegian Sea. Aqua satellite image.

On April 15-16, the height of the ash column reached 13 km. When ash falls to a height above 11 km above sea level, it enters the stratosphere with possible transport over considerable distances. The anticyclone over the north Atlantic contributed to the significant spread of the ash cloud eastward.

The trail of the volcanic eruption on April 15. Aqua satellite image.

The eruption continued on April 17-18. The height of the ash column was estimated at 8-8.5 km, which means the cessation of the ingress of erupted material into the stratosphere.

Influence on air traffic in Europe.

On April 15, 2010, due to the high intensity of the eruption and ash release, flights were suspended in northern Sweden, Denmark, Norway and in the northern regions of the UK.

Due to the high concentration of volcanic ash in the air, on April 15, 2010 (the ash cloud rose to a height of 6 km), all British airports stopped operating from noon, and Danish airports were closed from 21:00 Moscow time. In total, on April 15, 2010, from 5 to 6 thousand flights were canceled in Europe.

At the same time, the airspace of Iceland itself and its airports remained open.

Flights to Europe from America and Asia (USA, China, Japan) were postponed indefinitely.

According to the estimates of the International Air Transport Association, the daily losses of airlines from flight cancellations amounted to at least 200 million USD.

On April 19, the Association of European Airlines called for an "immediate review of restrictions and bans" on flights in the airspace of the European Union. According to the results of test flights carried out by some European airlines, the ash does not pose a danger to air traffic. The International Air Transport Association has criticized European governments for the lack of thoughtfulness in the introduction of flight bans. " European governments made a decision without consulting anyone or assessing the degree of risk adequately, - said the head of ICAO Giovanni Bisignani. - It is based on theoretical calculations, not facts».

According to EU Transport Organization CEO Matthias Root, the flight ban was triggered by a computer program of dubious scientific value that simulates the spread of volcanic ash. He urged EU leaders to consider adopting US safety regulations. " On the other side of the Atlantic, one piece of advice would be given to airlines - don't fly over a volcano. Otherwise, all necessary precautions would be left to be determined by the carriers themselves", - said Mathias Ruth.

The volcanic eruption prevented the leaders of many heads of state from flying to the funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and those killed in a plane crash near Smolensk on April 10, 2010.

Volcanic ash distribution in Russia.

According to the Met Office, Great Britain, as of 18:36 on April 18, 2010, volcanic ash in Russia was recorded in the Kola Peninsula, in the south of the Central Federal District, part of the Volga, South and North Caucasian Federal Districts, as well as in the north east of the Northwestern Federal District. St. Petersburg was located on the border of the alleged spread of ash, according to forecasts, the ash was supposed to reach the city on the night of April 18-19. Volcanic ash was not recorded on the territory of Moscow, and its spread was not expected in the next day (April 19).

According to other information, the first particles of volcanic ash reached Moscow on April 16, 2010. On the night of April 16-17, small particles of ash could be collected on a sheet of paper laid on the windowsill. Microscopic examination of the particles revealed debris of plagioclase crystals and foamed volcanic glass.

Marina Petrova, general director of the Roshydromet meteorological agency, said on April 19 that Russian experts are not observing volcanic ash over the territory of Russia. Valery Kosykh, director of the Federal Information and Analytical Center of Roshydromet, said that the ash data over Russia was based on information from the London Volcanic Ash Tracking Center. “The main problem is that no one in Russia can measure the concentration of this ash,” he said.

Volcanic ash distribution schemes.

Ash cloud spread by April 17, 2010 18:00 UTC.

Ash cloud spread by 19 April 2010 18:00 UTC.

Ash cloud spread by 21 April 2010 18:00 UTC.

Ash cloud spread by 22 April 2010 18:00 UTC.

Impact on the environment.

During volcanic eruptions, huge volumes of aerosols and suspended particles are emitted, which are carried by tropospheric and stratospheric winds and absorb part of the solar radiation. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 in the Philippines threw so much ash to an altitude of 35 km that the average level of solar radiation decreased by 2.5 W / m2, which corresponds to a global cooling of at least 0.5-0.7 ° S, but, according to the Deputy Director of IGRAN for Science Arkady Tishkov, “ what took off in Iceland until it even reached a volume of one cubic kilometer. These emissions are not as widespread as, for example, those that have been noted as a result of recent eruptions in Kamchatka or Mexico.". He believes that the " this is an absolutely ordinary event», Which may affect the weather, but will not cause climate change.