Manufacturology

Is this volcanic ash?

I made an exper­i­ment and placed a white plate out­doors on my veranda this after­noon. Dur­ing this time there was a light rain shower. When I checked the plate about an hour later, I found a num­ber of small par­ti­cles, seen in the pic­ture below.

I’m uncer­tain of how much debris that would nor­mally come with the rain, but the amount of par­ti­cles is rel­a­tively large, and I sus­pect that these are ash par­ti­cles from the Eyjaf­jal­la­jökull vol­cano. I live on the out­skirts of a small city where air is fresh and unpol­luted. I may be wrong, but that’s what I think…

Update 18 April: I read that the Nor­we­gian Mete­o­rol­o­gisk insti­tutt has also col­lected rain water (DN). Pho­tos from an exper­i­ment sim­i­lar to mine are shown at YR.no. When analysed they found that the col­lected dust con­tained small frag­mem­nts that look like glass. Dur­ing explo­sive erup­tions like at Eyjaf­jal­la­jökull, magma (molten rock) boils and forms bub­bles like soap bub­bles. These bub­bles explode and small frag­ments that look like small pieces of glass with rounded cor­ners, spread with the wind.

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