Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Iceland: a book of photographs by Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson

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In March 2010 Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland exploded into life, spewing lava, magma, rock and clouds of ash into the sky above it. The disaster grounded airlines, stranding holidaymakers and business passengers across Europe and North America. While many could only watch the crisis unfolding in hotels and airports, photographer Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson chose to fly into the epicentre on a mission to record one of nature's most deadly phenomena

He and geologist co-writer Ari Trausti Gudmundsson have made a selection from 10,000 of their pictures of the eruption and turned them into a book chronicling the events in Iceland

Interest generated by their first two sell out editions of 'Eyjafjallajokull: Untamed Nature', spurred the duo to add new personal accounts, giving fresh insight into the drama, in their brand new third edition. Images are also paired with the latest scientific data and analysis relating to the volcano

Ragnar's most awe inspiring pictures show lightning storms within the darkened plume of the volcano, caused by water vapour from a nearby glacier releasing energy in response to the superheated ash cloud

"My favourite picture is an aerial shot of the crater taken while flying at low altitude, in high wind speeds and the door of the plane taken off so I didn't have to shoot through glass. I could feel the heat of the volcano against my face as we made our pass. It was taken with a telephoto lens and an extremely high ISO, which can make pictures grainy, but it turned out to be a pin sharp shot. I couldn't have been more pleased"

The ash cloud reached 55,000 ft with hot lava measuring an amazing 1,000 degrees Celsius spewing 400 ft into the air

Eyjafjallajokull's crater measures 1.8 miles wide and 2.5 miles across. From 3-5 March 2010 there were almost 3000 earthquakes at the epicentre of the volcano