Ash Settles Everywhere
When a volcano like La Palma erupts, it spews out tiny particles that are a mixture of rock, minerals, and miniature shards of glass. This mix blends with water vapor and gases to form the dark plumes that emerge out of active volcanoes. This lightweight ash can travel for extremely long distances—satellites confirmed in mid-October that ash from La Palma had traveled across the Atlantic—but can also spread and settle in areas around the volcano, blanketing anything and everything in thick piles of gray.
Since the volcano is still active, there’s no sign of the ash from La Palma stopping anytime soon. The Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) Toulouse issued an advisory Friday morning about a new plume of ash that had reached an altitude of 8000 feet (2400 meters) and was moving southwest.
