Time-lapse video: Eyjafjallajökull volcanic ash hides Aurora Borealis

On 21 March 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted for the first time in 200 years, launching lava into the skies. It was enough to trigger evacuations and close airspace across the country.

Soon thick plumes of dust and ash billowed further out, bringing European airspace to a standstill between 15 and 20 April. The economies of many countries were hit hard by the severe travel disruption it caused.

Despite the chaos, the eruption was also stunning to witness. Pétur Guðmundsson, a photographer and filmmaker from Iceland, produced this motion time-lapse in early May 2010 as the volcano continued to spew out ash.

Using a digital SLR camera positioned on a dolly, he captured a picture every few seconds as the camera was moved really slowly to create a motion effect. At one point, a lightening strike dramatically lights up the plume.

The eruption was declared officially over in October 2010 by Ármann Höskuldsson, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland.

According to Höskuldsson, although there are currently some steam and gas emissions in the summit area, there are no signs of imminent volcanic activity and it's considered to be dormant.

Iceland Volcano eruption of Ejyafjallajökull pre-requisite for massive Katla eruption

Live Webcam view Ejyafjallajökull

The eruption of Ejyafjallajökull, it is feared, may continue for weeks, months or even longer, disrupting air traffic whenever the wind blows its ash into flight paths: last time it blew up, in 1821, it went on for more than a year.

The real fear is that it may well be followed by another massive volcano, Katla, some five times bigger, which would spew out far more of the stuff and could therefore cause far greater chaos.

Every time Ejyafjallajökull has blown its top since the Vikings first arrived on the island in the ninth century, Katla has swiftly followed.

Vulcanologists say these could just be the opening volleys of a decades-long barrage, as climate change takes hold. “Global warming melts ice and this can influence magmatic systems”, Dr Freysteinn Sigmundsson, of the Nordic Volcanological Centre at the University of Iceland, told Reuters. “Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades.”