Volcanic ash grounds planes

science Thursday, April 15, 2010. Post by David Bradley

UPDATE: No flights till Saturday!

Air traffic is at a standstill grounded across Britain and Northern Europe thanks to the outpourings of an Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajoekull, it’s almost a natural revenge for nations allowing that country to become bankrupt, but either way if you were hoping to fly in or out of London today, you’d have been out of luck. But, why should volcanic ash in the atmosphere affect aircraft?

Up to 4000 flights have been cancelled with airspace closed in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark and elsewhere. Fundamentally, it’s a preventative measure to avoid engine damage from the tiny particles of rock, glass and sand belched out by Eyjafjallajoekull, also known as Eyjafjöll. It’s previous eruption lasted twelve months from December 1821 to January 1823, although it’s actually one of the least active of Iceland’s volcanoes.

Eyjafjallajökull is located immediately west of Katla volcano and consists of an East to West lying elongated ice-covered basaltic-andesite strato-volcano with a 2.5 km summit caldera. According to the Global Volcanism Program, “fissure-fed lava flows occur on both the eastern and western flanks of the volcano, but are more prominent on the western side.”

Popular Mechanics was first up with an explanation some time last year and has re-posted in light of the news.

For anyone grounded today, the possibility of a beautiful sunset is probably little consolation…

Selected news on Eyjafjallajoekull and its grounding effects

• New satellite image of volcanic ash cloud (scienceblog.com)
• Views of the Ash Plume Over Europe (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com)
• North Europe hit by volcanic ash (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Icelandic volcano grounds flights across UK, Ireland, Scandinavia (sluggerotoole.com)
• Volcanic ash grounds European air traffic (theworld.org)
• Volcano ash ‘no health threat’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• volcano in Iceland turned the skies of northern Europe into a no-fly zone (robbiz1978.blogspot.com)
• Iceland Volcano Evacuation: Eyjafjallajokull Shows Signs Of Second Eruption (huffingtonpost.com)
• EU vs. the Volcano (flightwisdom.com)
• European flights grounded due to Icelandic volcano (gadling.com)

• Previously on SciScoop: « A swallow tale – emotional birds

• Next:Volcanish ash, air travel risks and science »