I suspect you may not have heard about it sooner because it wasn't really much of an issue (internationally) before it began to affect airplane travel. I found a three weeks-old issue of Stern magazine where a picture of the eruption was among the "photoshots of the week": An impressive yet (compared with the last weeks) small eruption, with a lot of people standing around to watch, take photos and have a barbecue. The blurb that came with the picture was something along the lines of "The area around Eyjafjalla glacier has become a tourist hotspot after a volcano underneath the glacier erupted on March 20th. The dramatic spectacle will likely be short-lived: Geologists predict that the volcano's current activity will abate within a few days."
Which on hindsight is vaguely amusing - and which was pretty much the full extent of media coverage we got about it here. Until last week.
So you may have heard about it as a side-note at best.
My brother and I once wanted to make a volcano in our backyard by digging until we reached magma. It's probably just one of those childhood memes floating around. ;)
(Our "volcano" just ended in a hole of perhaps 30 cm depth. We encountered too many roots and rocks afterwards. V. disappointing. I seem to remember a fun "science for kids" experiment that involved food dye and flour and clay in order to simulate a volcanic eruption though. Have to see if I can find that again.)
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I found a three weeks-old issue of Stern magazine where a picture of the eruption was among the "photoshots of the week": An impressive yet (compared with the last weeks) small eruption, with a lot of people standing around to watch, take photos and have a barbecue. The blurb that came with the picture was something along the lines of "The area around Eyjafjalla glacier has become a tourist hotspot after a volcano underneath the glacier erupted on March 20th. The dramatic spectacle will likely be short-lived: Geologists predict that the volcano's current activity will abate within a few days."
Which on hindsight is vaguely amusing - and which was pretty much the full extent of media coverage we got about it here.
Until last week.
So you may have heard about it as a side-note at best.
My brother and I once wanted to make a volcano in our backyard by digging until we reached magma. It's probably just one of those childhood memes floating around. ;)
(Our "volcano" just ended in a hole of perhaps 30 cm depth. We encountered too many roots and rocks afterwards. V. disappointing. I seem to remember a fun "science for kids" experiment that involved food dye and flour and clay in order to simulate a volcanic eruption though. Have to see if I can find that again.)