Effects of the eruption within Iceland Areas were flooded because of the glacier melt water which lay above the volcano. Agricultural land was damaged, and farms were hit by heavy ash fall. The ash fall poisoned animals in nearby farms. Some roads were destroyed.

Divergent boundaries are typified in the oceanic lithosphere by the rifts of the oceanic ridge system, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise, and in the continental lithosphere by rift valleys such as the famous East African Great Rift Valley.

Effects that are found at a divergent boundary between oceanic plates include: a submarine mountain range such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge; volcanic activity in the form of fissure eruptions; shallow earthquake activity; creation of new seafloor and a widening ocean basin.

Volcanoes are one kind of feature that forms along convergent plate boundaries, where two tectonic plates collide and one moves beneath the other.

The eruptions of Iceland’s volcano Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 were apparently triggered by a chain reaction of expanding magma chambers that descended into the Earth, a group of researchers now says.

Eyjafjallajokull is a strato volcano. It is a conical volcano built by many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice and volcanic ash. Strata volcanoes are among the most common volcanoes. Due to the glacier on top of Eyjafjallajokull eruptions are explosive and contain much ash.

Iceland responded by declaring a state of emergency and European airspace was closed as a safety precaution. It is estimated that airlines lost an estimated £130m every day that airspace remained closed, while millions of passengers were left stranded.

European Red Cross Societies mobilized volunteers, staff and other resources to help people affected directly or indirectly by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull glacier volcano. On the front line was the Icelandic Red Cross.

14 April 2010