Explore this area while on a self drive tour in Iceland.
Eyjafjallajökull is best known for its 2010 eruption. It caused an enormous ash cloud, that not only destroyed the agricultural region around it, but grounded flights across Europe.
Why You Can Trust Our Content
Guide to Iceland is the most trusted travel platform in Iceland, helping millions of visitors each year. All our content is written and reviewed by local experts who are deeply familiar with Iceland. You can count on us for accurate, up-to-date, and trustworthy travel advice.
For days, and in some cases, weeks, travellers were trapped in foreign airports, waiting for the winds to change. The event dominated international news, causing no end of problems for newsreaders attempting to pronounce it.
The many crater of this eruption was near to Gígjökull. This caused floodwater to surge from under the glacier’s tongue, flooding the Markarfljót river that flows from it.
These glacial bursts are incredibly dangerous and unpredictable results of an eruption under a glacier, and have been known to wash away entire towns and villages. For that reason, Iceland’s South Coast, in areas beneath glaciers such as Gígjökull, is very sparsely populated, and defined by black-sand-plains where they have happened before.
