Time flies! Today ten years have passed since the 2010 eruption in Eyjafjallajökull. These volcanic events caused air traffic to close down across Western and Northern Europe from 15th to 20th of April 2010, creating the highest level of air travel disruption since the Second World War! We remember it like it happened yesterday.
Eyjafjallajökull, the name that made worldwide news and was every newscasters nightmare to pronounce, is a beautiful glacier volcano on the South Coast of Iceland. This active volcano, covered with a beautiful ice cap, has erupted relatively frequently since the last ice age. Most of the time followed by eruptions by its large neighbour Katla Volcano. Katla Volcano is one of the biggest and most active volcano in Iceland. It erupted last in 2011 a small eruption but the last violent eruption was 102 years ago, in 1918. This volcano is long overdue and scientists have Katla Volcano on their radar for when it erupts next.
Eyjafjallajökull is a stratovolcano, which means it is made up of many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice and volcanic ash. These volcanoes are characterized by their periodic and explosive eruptions.
The name Eyjafjallajökull is made up of two parts: the first part, Eyjafjöll, is the name given to the southern side of the volcanic mountain mass, which forms the foot of the volcano together with the small mountains. The name is made up of the words eyja meaning „island“ and fjöll meaning „mountains“ so the literal meaning is „the mountains of the island“. The second part, which the name is made up of is jökull means glacier. Therefore, the altogether meaning is “glacier of the islands mountain“.
The eruption in 2010 lasted almost one month.During this time, Norðurflug has implemented 10 trips a day with two helicopters. The departure took place from Hotel Ranga, which is located between Reykjavík and the volcano, approximately 95 km away from the city center.
Eyjafjallajökull is one of the highlights of many of our tours and we can say that the eruption in 2010 truly put Iceland on the map and have attracted many travelers to Iceland since.
Discover Eyjafjallajökull by helicopter on the Volcanoes and Glaciers tour, the Essential Iceland tour and the Glacier Lagoon Expedition.
Fun facts:
# What does the name mean? Direct translation of the name Eyjafjallajökull: „Island Mountain Glacier“. As simple as that!
#How is it pronounced? Check it out: [ˈɛɪjaˌfjatl̥aˌjœːkʏtl]
#The Icelandic Volcano Tongue Twister, check it out here
#When the eruption started on the Fimmvörðuháls hiking trail it formed two new volcanic craters which were named Magmi and Móði.
