Why it's different this time.
VictorVector said: Volcanos have erupted before and this action has not been taken before. I am unaware of any incidents except of those flying directly into dense cloud. +++ The reason it's different now is that this volcano erupted under a glacier. The hot rock hitting the ice generated lots of ash pushed higher up in the atmosphere than a 'normal' eruption from other volcanos. Now that the ice is melted, and the meltwater isn't running into the caldera, the ash is not being ejected so high, and not being made in such large quantities. The amount of ash being ejected, and how high it goes also depends on the type of eruption: there are lots of different types - ranging from the slow ooze (Hawai'i) to the big bang (Mt. St Helens, Krakatoa). There were worries about the current eruption that the type of lava was changing from basaltic to something else with a higher gas content, but I've not seen anything on that recently. You'd have to ask a vulcanologist about the different types of eruptions to get more details. This time really is different.