REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Iceland's most active volcano erupted Saturday, with a white plume shooting 18,000 feet into the air, scientists said.
The eruption was followed by around 50 small earthquakes, the largest of which measured 3.7 on the Richter Scale, according to Iceland's meteorological office.
There was a similar eruption at the same volcano in 2004.
Scientists don't believe this eruption will lead to air travel chaos like that caused by ash from the Eyjafjallajokul volcano in April 2010.
The Grimsvotn volcano is located underneath the Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland.
Sparsely populated Iceland is one of the world's most volcanically active countries and eruptions are frequent.
They often cause local flooding from melting glacier ice, but rarely cause deaths.
Last year's Eyjafjallajokul eruption left millions of air travelers stranded after winds pushed the ash cloud toward some of the world's busiest airspace and led most northern European countries to ground all planes for five days.
In November, melted glacial ice began pouring from Grimsvotn, signaling a possible eruption. That was a false alarm but scientists have been monitoring the volcano closely ever since.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
Comments
This is showing all the 5+ quakes in the past 10 days. There was a 6.5 in this ten day period.
rupture not rapture...
started near 6pm GMT on 21st May.If this volcano erupts bad, maybe there will be a tsunami hitting europe since it sits under the largest glacier which may crash into the sea
Eruptions in Grímsvötn start as subglacial eruptions, which quickly break the ice cover. At 21:00 UTC, the eruption plume had risen to an altitude of over 65,000 ft (~20 km). Initially, the plume is expected to drift to the east and subsequently to the north-east.
The figure above shows an image of the eruption cloud at 22:00 UTC. The image is from the Icelandic Met Office weather radar located at Keflavik International Airport, at 220 km distance from the volcano. The cloud extends above a large part of Vatnajökull ice cap. The line marks the approximate location of Grímsvötn volcano.
The last eruption in Grímsvötn occurred in November 2004. Grímsvötn is Iceland's most frequently erupting volcano.
The figure below shows tremor activity associated with the eruption. Note that seismic activity increases after 17:30 UTC.