Eyjafjallajökull
ice cap in Iceland covering the caldera of a volcano
Eyjafjallajökull (Icelandic: [ˈeiːjaˌfjatl̥aˌjœːkʏtl̥] ; "glacier of (the mountain) Eyjafjöll"), sometimes referred to by the numeronym E15, is one of the smaller ice caps of Iceland, north of Skógar and west of Mýrdalsjökull. The ice cap covers the caldera of a volcano with a summit elevation of 1,651 metres (5,417 ft). The volcano has erupted relatively frequently since the Last Glacial Period, most recently in 2010, when, although relatively small for a volcanic eruption, it caused enormous disruption to air travel across northern and western Europe for a week.
Geography
Eyjafjallajökull consists of a volcano completely covered by an ice cap. The retreating ice cap covered an area of 66 km2 (25 sq mi) in 2019, but was previously more than 80 square kilometres (30 square miles), with many outlet glaciers. The main outlet glaciers are to the north: Gígjökull, flowing into Lónið, and Steinsholtsjökull, flowing into Steinsholtslón. In 1967, there was a massive landslide on the Steinsholtsjökull glacial tongue. On 16 January 1967 at 13:47:55 there was an explosion on the glacier. It can be timed because the seismometers at Kirkjubæjarklaustur monitored the movement. When about 15,000,000 cubic metres (530,000,000 cubic feet) of material hit the glacier a massive amount of air, ice, and water began to move out from under the glacier into the lagoon at the foot of the glacier.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Eyjafjallajökull” as ice cap in Iceland covering the caldera of a volcano. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q39651. VIAF identifies the subject as 235741798. Authority coordinates are 63.633, -19.600. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010, 2019 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eyjafjallajökull” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.