A steam plume rises above a line of small lava fountains on 5 September 1984, the day after the onset of an eruption from an 8.5-km-long fissure extending north from Leirhnjúkur. During the first hours of the eruption, the fissure was active along its entire length, producing a sheet of pahoehoe lava, but later activity was concentrated at a single vent near the northern end of the fissure. This fissure eruption was the last of a decade-long series of Krafla eruptions beginning in 1975 that accompanied an episode of crustal spreading.

Photo by Michael Ryan, 1984 (U.S. Geological Survey).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license terms.

Galleries: Volcanic Gases | Fissure Vents

Keywords: eruption | lava fountain | gas | gas plume | emissions | lava | fissure | plume

Krafla