At noon on February 28, the Scientific Advisory Board for Iceland´s recent volcanic activity officially declared that the eruption at Holuhraun had come to an end.
One day earlier, a helicopter surveillance flight showed no more glow at the eruptive site, suggesting that the magma flow was over, says volcanodiscovery.com. Volcanic gas was, however, still being released from both the eruptive site and the lava field.
Beginning on 31 August 2014, this 6-month-long eruption became one of the very rare prolonged fissure eruptions in Iceland in the past 1,000 years, and was the largest Icelandic eruption since the Laki eruption in 1783-1785.
In the aftermath of the Laki eruption, temperatures plunged globally due to the large amounts of sulphur dioxide injected in the northern hemisphere. The ensuing cold-related famine is estimated to have killed about 6 million people worldwide, making it one of the most deadly volcanic eruptions of all times.
Luckily, the recent eruption was not as poisonous, although it did emit huge amounts of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere.
At one time, some 40,000 to 60,000 tons of sulphur dioxide were spewing out of Bárðarbunga every single day, according to the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, RUV.
Every single day!
That’s more than twice the amount of sulphur dioxide spewed from all of Europe’s smokestacks.
Icelandic Met Office – http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/articles/nr/2947
Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/bardarbunga/updates/end-holuhraun-eruption.html
Thanks to H.B. Schmidt for these links