Barnaby Bear goes to Eyjafjallajökull

Barnaby Bear is very brave. He decided to go to see the volcano Eyjafjallajökull. It is

in Iceland.

Here is Eyjafjallajökull

Europe map

Here is Iceland. It is a long wayFrom Romania.

Barnaby Bear was very curious to see what all the fuss was about!

Barnaby Bear spoke to his friend Ulfur, who is a scientist.

What’s going on now!

Ulfur explained that a volcano is an opening in the earth’s surface which allows hot magma, ash and gases to escape from

below the surface.

magma / lava

ash

gas

This makes the area very hot and dangerous. When a volcano

erupts, people often need to move away from the area.

Wow!

The Eyjafjallajökull volcano started to erupt recently on 20th March 2010. It has been

erupting all the time for more than a whole month!

People living at the bottom of the volcano were moved to other areas. Some people

moved into bigger towns and to the capital city, Reykjavik.

This is what the area at the bottom of Eyjafjallajökull looks like now. It was very

difficult for Barnaby to see anything!

                            

Now Barnaby Bear understands why the aeroplane pilots do not

want to fly through the ash!

Barnaby can see that the ash is spreading quickly. Here is a map showing how the ash

can spread.

                            

Lots of people who needed to travel on aeroplanes had to wait at airports for a long

time.

                            

Oh no!

Barnaby Bear really enjoyed his trip to Iceland!