Katla is the active Icelandic volcano partially covered by the Mýrdalsjökull glacier.
Katla is a large subglacial volcano in southern Iceland, located near the town of Vík í Mýrdal. Its summit reaches about 1,512 metres, while its roughly 10-kilometre-wide caldera is buried beneath hundreds of metres of ice. The glacier therefore conceals much of the volcano’s structure from view.
Katla’s eruptions can melt enormous quantities of ice and generate jökulhlaups, or glacial outburst floods. Its eruption history includes at least 20 documented major eruptions, with the most recent major eruption occurring in 1918. Smaller events and geothermal activity have also produced floods beneath Mýrdalsjökull.
A common mix-up is Grímsvötn, another Icelandic volcano strongly associated with glacial floods, but it lies beneath Vatnajökull. Askja and Hekla are also Icelandic volcanoes, yet neither is the volcano partially covered by Mýrdalsjökull. Katla’s ice-covered setting is central to both its hazards and its name in Icelandic folklore.