The 1845 Hekla eruption: Grain-size characteristics of a tephra layer

Abstract

The 1845 eruption is commonly viewed as a typical Hekla eruption. It is a key event in the eruptive history of the volcano, as it is one of the best documented Hekla eruptions, in terms of contemporary accounts and observations. The eruption started on 2 September 1845 with an intense, hour long explosive Plinian phase that passed into effusive activity, ending on the 16 March 1846. The amount of tephra produced in the opening phase was 0.13km3/7.5×1010kg. The total grain-size distribution of the deposit is bimodal with a dominant coarse mode at −2.5 φ (5.6mm) and a broad finer mode at 3 to 4.5φ (0.125 to 0.045mm). At individual sites, the grain-size distribution of the tephra from the Plinian opening phase is also commonly (not always) bimodal. Deconvolved grain-size distributions exhibit distinctly different sedimentation patterns of the coarse and fine subpopulations. The lapilli-dominated subpopulation fines rapidly with transport, while the ash-dominated subpopulation shows less changes with distance, indicating premature sedimentation of fines by aggregation from the 1845 volcanic plume. Tephra deposition was to the ESE of the volcano from a 19km (a.s.l.) high eruption plume. The plume front travelled at speeds of 16–19ms−1. Reports of ash deposition onto ships near the Faroe and Shetland Islands, 700 to 1100km away from Hekla, demonstrate that even moderate-sized Hekla eruptions can affect very large parts of European air-space.