Ethiopia’s Hayli Gubbi Volcano Erupts Harshly.
Ethiopia’s Hayli Gubbi is a shield volcano. This is a volcano type that usually erupts quietly and has soft lava flows. However, Ethiopia’s Hayli Gubbi didn’t erupt like a typical shield. It erupted almost like every other composite or stratovolcano volcano. Those volcanos erupt harshly and violently. Scientists were shocked to find that a shield volcano erupted so violently. Juliet Biggs from the University of Bristol said in an interview with Deutsche Welle that it was extremely strange because though it is a shield volcano, it erupted violently. Other scientists who study volcanos state that this is the first time Ethiopia’s Hayli Gubbi Volcano has erupted in approximately 12,000 years. Volcanologist Arianna Soldati and other experts say that the explosive nature came from silica-rich, “sticky” magma that built high pressure rather than liquid-like, silica-poor magma that are usually in shield volcanos. Other scientists think that there was a magma intrusion from a nearby, active volcano called Erta Ale. The eruption of Ethiopia’s Hayli Gubbi Volcano was not as dangerous as a composite volcano, which erupts violently. Hayli Gubbi only reached up to 6-9 miles of ash in the sky. However, the ash cloud caused some trouble in neighboring lands. Near the volcano, villages were covered in ash, ruining and interfering with the grazing fields and the water sources. Lots of villagers had trouble breathing because of the thick smoke in the air. The ash cloud drifted across the Arabian Sea and all the way to South Asia. Ash this thick is harmful for jet engines, so airlines needed to reroute or cancel flights. This caused a large amount of travel delays for the region.