Here's an interesting outcome of a volcanic eruption - glass rain!
The volcanic GLASS cloud: How tiny shards created by heat of Iceland eruption have 'rained' on ScotlandScientists have released photographs of what they believe are volcanic glass particles from Iceland which fell on Scotland this week.
The samples were taken from a car windscreen in Aberdeen and analysed at the city's James Hutton Institute.
The images of the tiny particles were taken using a scanning electron microscope.
Scientists said it was ‘highly likely’ the glass particles, which are part of the ash constituents, came from the Grimsvotn volcano which started erupting on Saturday.
Commercial glass is created by heating silica, or sand, to an extremely high temperature. Sand scorched by lava could do the same.
The largest of the particles found is 0.03mm across, with the smallest measuring just 0.002mm wide.
The institute also analysed samples given to them by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) taken in Lerwick, Shetland, which matched the particles taken from the car window.
Evelyne Delbos, the institute's head of electron microscopy, said: ‘We analysed the same sample on the same day from Lerwick and it had the same elemental composition.
‘It is highly likely the particles came from the Grimsvotn volcano but until we have a reference sample to compare we cannot confirm.’
Read
more.
-----
A
daily update with some neat pictures and a video.
Another set of pictures.
