A volcano in northern Ethiopia erupted Sunday, marking its first known eruption in 12,000 years. The volcano, called Hayli Gubbi, spewed ash up to nine miles [14.4 km] into the air for several days, leading to flight cancellations and spreading a layer of dust across nearby communities.
Hayli Gubbi is a shield volcano, a type of volcano known for very broad, gentle slopes and oozing lava flows. Named because their shape resembles a warrior’s shield lying flat, these volcanoes are the largest on Earth and are built by repeated lava flows. It’s unusual for a shield volcano to produce such a large expulsion of ash.
“To see a big eruption column, like a big umbrella cloud, is really rare in this area,” Juliet Biggs, an Earth scientist at the University of Bristol in England, tells Stephanie Pappas at Scientific American.
