After the last helicopter flight brought the only view to the volcano the next flight was booked due to the good weather prognosis for the 4/17/2010. But another phenomenon could be observed during the nights of the 16th to the 18th of April 2010.

Martial quarrel in the house of Odin ?

Eruption flashover lightning gallery

But what was the reason for this flashover lightning in such a dimension? In the starry nights of the 4/16th to the 4/18th we could observe that the lava fountains with an estimated height of 300m and also good visible with the naked eye, was surrounded with hundreds of 'micro flashes' (up to 10 per second, new unit fls/s) at the beginning of a strong dynamic push. The impulse took place for ca. two minutes.

When a lava push ended the flash appearance expanded to the entire plume. Huge flashes with a length of may 4-6 km twitched sometimes in a low altitude over the whole glacier surface every 5-10 seconds at the first night. Some flashes left the cloud and took course in the free space around. Than, always after a lightning phase a break up to 10 minutes occurred. During this time, sporadic lightings could be seen too, - till the next lava push started again.

Remarkable to observe was, that particular bright and strong flashes twitched between the two high active vents (more I couldn't recognise) from the crater to a height of may 1-2 km. May the reason was the different electrostatic potential which did balance themselves out by taking the 'short way'. Than, in the further way the two different clouds of different consistence (scroll down to the daylight exposures) were mixed together in the big plume and caused a big electric chaos. The behaviour of the eruptions let conclude on this reason and may underline this theory. Suggestions are welcome.

And this in addition. During we got overwhelmed with the spectacular glittering phenomena over the volcano; an aurora bow about 160° did appear around 2:00 o’clock in the morning of the 4/17th. I made the comparisons with piano keyboards which wrote nice coloured melodies in the starry night sky. Sometimes they appeared more intensive, - sometimes the streamer moved fast, - than they disappeared again,- and appeared at another place. But the reality on the ground was hard. In which direction I should fix the camera? If I take the aurora I’ll miss a lot of lightnings, vice versa I would miss my first aurora. By a comfortable temperature of -7C° and a strong wind in the wide plain I denied installing up the backup camera. But with a record ominous high speed changing of positions I may find a good compromise.