Hi, geographers.

My name is Mr. Louge.

I hope you're ready for some fantastic learning today.

We're gonna have a brilliant time.

Today's lesson is the impact of eruptions, Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland, which is the name the volcano that erupted in Iceland in 2010.

That is from our unit, "Mountains and Volcanoes, What, Where and Why".

Some of our learning is tricky today, but I'm here to help and we can learn together.

Let's get started, shall we? By the end of the lesson, you'll be able to describe and explain the forces at work when volcanoes erupt and how these may alter the landscape and environment.

Some of the keywords we will be using today are diverge, economy and meltwater.

To diverge is to go in different directions from the same starting point.

The economy is the way money in a particular area is made and spent.

Meltwater is water from the melting of snow or ice.

Our lesson today will be split into two parts.

The first part is, why is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge important? And the second part is, what was the impact of the eruption of E15? Now, before we begin, Eyjafjallajokull is a very tricky name to pronounce over and over, so journalists gave it the nickname of E15 due to the number of daunting letters that are after the initial E.

For the purpose of this video, I'm going to refer to Eyjafjallajokull by its nickname, E15.

Let's get started.

E15 is a volcano located in southern Iceland in Europe.

If you're not sure, Iceland is an island that sits in the northwest of the UK, approximately 850 miles away, but that will depend on where you are in the UK and where you're going to in Iceland.

E15 erupted on the 14th of April, 2010.

The eruption continued for over one month.

I'm sure you can imagine what that was like for people in Iceland and within close proximity of the volcano, but we'll further discuss the impact of E15 in the second parts of our learning today.

So as mentioned earlier on, Eyjafjallajokull is a hard name to pronounce, so it's given the name E15 by journalists due the number of daunting letters after the initial E.

In this video, we will refer to Eyjafjallajokull as E15.

So to further understand the eruption of E15 and why it was such a major eruption, we need to learn a bit more about tectonic plates and further understand the details of the location of E15.

Earth's crust is broken up into a series of pieces, called tectonic plates.

This map shows the boundaries of the tectonic plates and where they are in relation to the continents.

A tectonic plate boundary is where two tectonic plates, two pieces of the Earth's crust, meet together.

Okay, can you spot Iceland on this map? Pause the video now to see if you can find it.

Did you find it? There it is.

To the northwest of the UK.

Let's just look at that again.

What do you notice about where Iceland is located on this map showing Earth's tectonic plates? Pause the video now and tell your partner.

One pupil says, "Iceland is located on the red line, which is a tectonic plate boundary," and she's certainly correct.

Iceland is located on a tectonic plate boundary.

In fact, it's located on the North American plate and the Eurasian plate boundary, and hopefully you can see that there.

This point is commonly known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a 16,000 kilometres long tectonic plate boundary that cuts through the centre of Iceland.

Okay, we've got our first check for understanding for today's lesson.

Can you point to Iceland on the map and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge? Pause the video now to see if you can find those two.

Welcome back.

Did you find them? There we have Iceland and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Fantastic if you managed to locate them.

Tectonic plates are constantly moving as they sit on top of Earth's mantle, which is constantly melting and moving.

The Earth mantle is melting and moving, as you can see in this diagram, due to the heat from Earth's core.

Earth's core is approximately 5,500 degrees Celsius.

So it's extremely hot.

At the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, two tectonic plates, the North American plate and the Eurasian plate, diverge.

Do you remember, diverge was one of our keywords for today.

Diverge means to move apart.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge diverges approximately two to two and a half centimetres per year, but sometimes even more than that.

Here we can see the tectonic plate movement.

The North American plate moves to the west and the Eurasian plate moves to the east.

As the plates pull away from each other, molten rock rises between them to form volcanoes.

On average, there's a volcanic eruption in Iceland every five years.

Okay, we've got another check for understanding now, but this time with a true or false question.

At the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, two tectonic plates, the North American plate and the Eurasian plate converge or move towards each other.

Pause the video now and answer true or false.

Welcome back.

The answer to that question was false.

Did you manage to get that correct? Well done if you did.

But now can you justify your answer? Is it because A, the North American plate moves to the west and the Eurasian plate moves to the east? Or is it because B, the more North American plate moves to the north and the Eurasian plate moves to the south? Pause the video now to justify your answer.

Okay, so the correct answer there was A, the North American plate moves to the west and the Eurasian plate moves to the east.

So the two tectonic plates diverge, move away from each other.

Well done if you answered both those questions correctly.

You're doing brilliantly.

That leads us onto our first task for today.

Can you fill in the gaps using these missing words and numbers? Two and a half centimetres, 2010, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, east, month, west, 16,000 kilometres and diverge.

Let me read that out for you.

Iceland is located on the.

Here, two tectonic plates move apart or.

These are the North American plate which moves and the Eurasian plate which moves to form volcanoes.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is long and moves apart approximately each year.

The eruption here occurred on 14th of April and lasted over a.

Pause the video now to see if you can fill in those gaps.

Welcome back.

Does your work read like this? Iceland is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Here, two tectonic plates move apart or diverge.

These are the North American plate which moves west and the Eurasian plate which moves east to form volcanoes.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is 16,000 kilometres long and moves apart approximately two and a half centimetres each year.

The eruption here occurred on 14th of April, 2010 and lasted over a month.

Well done if you managed to get all those correct.

Okay, we're now on to the second part of our learning today.

What was the impact of the eruption of E15? Let's begin.

When E15 erupted, it lay beneath a 200 metre thick sheet of ice, and that's really important for our learning today.

As the magma came to the surface, it caused an explosive eruption as meltwater, which is one of our keywords, mixed with the lava and formed huge amounts of ash.

The ash rose up 10,000 kilometres into the atmosphere, the same height as aeroplanes.

Volcanic ash is not soft and fluffy, but it's a hard abrasive mix of rock, mineral and glass.

It's extremely damaging to the lungs and can cover everything it lands on.

Ash can also lead to engine failure, so for safety's sake, flights across Europe were cancelled for one week.

More than 100,000 flights were cancelled and it took many weeks to clear the backlog.

Strong winds blew the ash southeast across the UK and Europe.

British airspace was closed for six days.

Okay, we've got another check for understanding here.

Why were flights cancelled? Was it A, pilots couldn't see through the ash? B, no one wanted to visit Iceland? Or C, ash can lead to engine failure, so for passenger safety, flights were cancelled? Pause the video now to answer that question.

Welcome back.

The answer to that question was C, Ash can lead to engine failure, so for passenger safety, flights were cancelled.

Well done if you've got that answer correct.

Cancelled flights caused many problems for individual passengers and European businesses.

This had a huge impact on the European economy.

Remember, economy is another one of our keywords today.

Tourism was hugely affected.

1.

2 million passengers a day could not fly.

Many passengers had to travel over land or by boats to reach their destination.

For others, this was not possible and they had to wait for the airspace to be declared safe and for flights to resume.

Many people missed out on their holidays and important events, such as weddings and funerals.

The then UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, ordered three Navy ships to help stranded Britains.

Airlines lost millions of pounds each day in lost fares and up to 1.

1 billion pounds overall.

Think about all the things that you can buy in an airport and an aeroplane.

Fuel was also not needed for aircraft.

London alone lost 100 million of income from tourism.

Perishable goods, which are ones that go off quickly, need to get to shops quickly.

Without planes, many perishable goods, like food and flowers, became unsalable.

The meltwater from the eruption also flowed down the volcano and caused flooding.

Sections of the main road that circles the island were flooded.

However, trenches were dug through roads before flooding could destroy bridges.

700 people were evacuated.

No lives were lost, because Icelandic people are used to eruptions and are all very well prepared.

Let's just check our understanding here.

Which was not an impact of the ash emission? The key wording there is not an impact and ash emission.

Is it A, flights were cancelled across Europe, B, trenches were dug through roads, C, the tourist industry lost money or D, perishable goods were left unsold? Pause the video to see if you can answer which of those was not an impact of the ash emission.

Welcome back.

The answer is B.

Trenches were dug through roads was not an impact of ash emission, but it was an impact of flooding caused by the eruption of E15.

We're now moving towards our second task for today.

Can you make a flowchart to explain the impact of the eruption of E15? Use the images there to help you.

Pause the video now to go and complete that task.

Welcome back.

Does your flow chart include similar information? So firstly, E15 lay beneath a 200 metre thick layer of ice.

When it erupted, the ice melted and mixed with lava.

This sent up a huge cloud of ash.

No flights were allowed over Europe for over a week, which had a huge impact on the European economy.

Flooding meant that roads were destroyed and over 700 people had to be evacuated.

Well done if your flowchart included lots of that information.

You've been doing great so far.

That takes us to the end of our lesson.

Let's quickly summarise what we've learned today.

We have learned that Iceland is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates diverge.

Remember, we learned that diverge means to move apart.

The eruption of E15 occurred on the 14th of April, 2010 and continued for over one month.

Heat from the eruption caused a glacier covering E15 to melt and the resulting flood water damaged roads.

We've also learnt that ash from the eruption rose high into the atmosphere and grounded aircraft, impacting on the European economy.

You've been absolutely brilliant today and you've done some fantastic learning.

Well done for all your hard work.

I hope to see you again for some more fantastic geography.

Goodbye.