The White House said Monday that 40,000 Americans were stranded in Britain because of the huge number of flight cancellations due to the cloud of volcanic ash.

Many more US citizens also appeared to be having trouble returning home from vacation or business trips in other parts of Europe, amid an aviation crisis brought on by the eruption of a volcano in Iceland which led to airspace closures across much of the continent.

President Barack Obama’s spokesman said the US ambassador to Britain Louis Susman had called the White House earlier Monday with an update on the situation.

“I think there are approximately, according to him, about 40,000 Americans in England that are trying, because of the disruption in air travel, to get back to this country,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Yahoo! News

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As ash from an Iceland volcano snarled air travel across Europe, experts said an eruption of the ‘supervolcano’ at the Yellowstone national park would be deadly, though it is unlikely any time soon.

“The next major eruption for Yellowstone, if you have a guess, is probably thousands of years in the future,” Bill Burton, a vulcanologist with the US Geological Survey, told AFP.

The volcano, dubbed a ‘supervolcano’ because of its enormous strength, has not erupted for hundreds of thousands of years.

It last erupted some 640,000 years ago, and the two prior eruptions were 1.3 million and 2.1 million years ago.

That track record — a major event approximately each 730,000 years — suggests the volcano won’t erupt again for another 90,000 years, though Burton noted that there is no real certainty when it comes to volcanic activity.

“You cannot be totally complacent and assume nothing is going to happen,” he said.

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(AP Photo/Brynjar Gauti)

Volcanic eruptions in Iceland which this week caused thousands of flights to be canceled may continue for months, disrupting European air traffic as ash is sporadically blown above the continent’s busiest airports.

More than 20,000 flights have been grounded after an April 14 eruption of the 1,666-meter (5,466-foot) Eyjafjallajökull volcano sent dust billowing across thousands of miles of European airspace and closed terminals from Dublin to Moscow.

“It could go on for months,” Sigrun Hreinsdottir, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland, said in a telephone interview from Reykjavik. “From what we’ve seen, it could erupt, pause for a few weeks, and then possibly erupt again.”

Canceled flights are costing carriers about $200 million a day, the International Air Transport Association estimates. Restrictions over most of the U.K. will remain in place until 1 p.m. at least, shutting London Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, and while terminals have reopened in Scotland and Ireland, others have closed as the cloud drifts southeast.

Flights have been halted amid concern that the ash plume could damage engines or parts such as speed sensors. The finest material from the blast is formed of dust akin to glass, which can melt and congeal in a turbine, causing it to stop, said Sue Loughlin, head of vulcanology at the British Geological Survey.

Bloomberg

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A volcanic eruption in Iceland, which has thrown up a 3.7 mile high plume of ash and disrupted air traffic across northern Europe, has grown more intense, an expert said on Thursday.

The eruption under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier continued to spew large amounts of ash and smoke into the air and showed no signs of abating after 40 hours of activity, said Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland.

“The seismographs are showing that since this morning the intensity of the eruption seems to be growing,” he said.

Hot fumes had melted up to a third of the glacial ice covering the crater, causing a nearby river to burst its banks, and frequent explosions on the floor of the crater sounded like bombs going off, he said.

The floods were abating, however, and some of those living in the sparsely populated area near the volcano had returned to their homes.

Reuters

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The potential eruption of Iceland’s volcano Katla would likely send the world, including the USA, into an extended deep freeze.

“When Katla went off in the 1700s, the USA suffered a very cold winter,” says Gary Hufford, a scientist with the Alaska Region of the National Weather Service. “To the point, the Mississippi River froze just north of New Orleans and the East Coast, especially New England, had an extremely cold winter.

“Depending on a new eruption, Katla could cause some serious weather changes.”

Eyjafjallajokull, the Icelandic volcano that has continued to belch lava, ash and steam since first erupting last weekend, isn’t the direct problem. It’s Katla, the noisier neighbor, that’s the concern. If lava flowing from Eyjafjallajokull melts the glaciers that hold down the top of Katla, then Katla could blow its top, pumping gigantic amounts of ash into the atmosphere.

Scientists say history has proven that whenever the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupts, Katla always follows — the only question is how soon.

Read more – USA Today

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