Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano is in the 2nd phase of an eruption which began from last month. Subterranean liquid rock -magma -found a weak spot in the earth’s burst and crust through. Because of its location between glaciers, the eruption was largely ash-free.

But the 2nd one, began with more powerful eruption through a rupture close to the volcano’s glacier-covered summit. Fire met ice and fire won. Huge amounts of ice melted and flash floods followed. Once the eruption melted away the icy lid, some 150m (492ft) thick, the volcano began to belch ash into the atmosphere.

Gas dissolved in the magma starts to emerge and forms bubbles, as it does in champagne when the cork is released. When the boiling fragments of magma hit cold air and water, they freeze into dust particles, driven high up into the atmosphere by the power and heat of the eruption.