Caldera – Page 2 – Iceland geology

January 8, 2015

Bárðarbunga volcano update 7-January-2015

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This is going to be a short update for Bárðarbunga volcano.

There are changes taking place in harmonic tremor on the SIL stations closest to the eruption in Holuhraun. I don’t know what this means exactly, the best idea at the moment is that the eruption is either ending or getting less in power. It is hard to know for sure at this moment due to the bad weather in Iceland. This might also just be part of normal fluctuation of the eruption.

Harmonic tremor from the eruption in Holuhraun. Changes can be seen at the end of the trace. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is the same now as it has been for the past few days.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Currently there are only 11 earthquakes larger then magnitude 3,0 in Bárðarbunga volcano for the past 48 hours. That is among the lowest number of earthquakes since this activity started in August-2014. Total of 117 earthquakes are on this map, that is now considered as “few” earthquakes compared to what was happening from August-2014. Holuhraun lava field is now 1,15 km³ in size, it also covers ~83,11 km². It is about the same size as Þingvallavatn lake. It is only going to take few more days until it is larger then largest lake in Iceland.

Storm warning

Please note that there is going to be bad weather in Iceland until Friday to Sunday. I am not sure when there is going to be break in the bad weather. Observations of what is happening in Bárðarbunga volcano are going to be difficult at best during this stormy days.

January 3, 2015January 3, 2015

Bárðarbunga volcano update 03-Januar-2015

This is out of sync update of the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano. This website was dealing with technical problems when it was moved to a new server. I hope that has all been resolved now. This new server should be more responsive than the server I used to host my website on. This was sudden move between servers, but it had to be done since the traffic to this website was overpowering the server I was using and my website had already been suspended once due to this.

Bárðarbunga volcano update

The eruption continues in Holuhraun around the same rate as before. During the Christmas time there has no travels of scientists going to the eruption area. The main lava field is now around 83 km³ in size according to latest reports. This number changes frequently.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to the Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake during the past 24 hours had the magnitude of 4,6. Number of earthquakes in that same time period was 50 according to the news. Pollution from the eruption continues to create problems in Iceland depending on wind direction. Yesterday and last nigh the pollution did go up to 900 μg/m³ in Egilstaðir and up to 2400 μg/m³ in Höfn in Hornafirði. Wind was rather strong during that time (I think) so the pollution did not stop for a long period of time or build up.

Other discoveries

Scientists have discovered that dyke activity in Bárðarbunga volcano appears to be creating new layers of crust at depth. I don’t have the details on this , I did see this in the news few days ago, but I lost the news about what this is exactly about. I hope to get more details later about this.

Donations

Since I had to move to a new host, the cost for me with this website has gone up. The cost of just running the website is now $135 a month. Any donation to help me with this cost and more are welcomed, it is also possible to support me by using Amazon advertisements that I have by buying from Amazon what you need. Thanks for the support.

December 30, 2014December 30, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano update for 29-December-2014

I’m sorry for this late update. I went on to do other things, they took longer then I expected.

The eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano continues as before. Due to the holiday season and bad weather it has been difficult to monitor the eruption in exact details. What I do know is that the lava field is now close or larger than 83 km² in size. The earthquake activity remains, there are however fewer earthquakes taking place now than week ago and that is not all down to bad weather or off-line SIL stations. The drop in earthquake activity appears to be real. If it is going to increase again remains to be seen.

The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

GPS data suggest that no change has taken place and there is ongoing drift in the crust next to Bárðarbunga volcano. Ice on the GPS antenna has been a big problem in last few days and that might not change while winter lasts in Iceland (depending on weather). The eruption is ongoing, there are however larger fluctuation taking place (that is what appears to be happening), sometimes the eruption appears to drop so much that it is not visible, just before it increases again. This would in line what was reported in November, the question is that change increasing or not. At the moment I am not sure on this detail, but I am waiting reports on this to be published (that might take a while).

I don’t think there are any more news on Bárðarbunga volcano at the moment. Next update is going to be on 2-January-2015.

December 27, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano update 27-December-2014

Bárðarbunga volcano continues to erupt in Holuhraun as before. The eruption is around the same phase as before. There was some change detected at the eruption vent in Holuhraun, it is remains unclear at the moment what change is.

The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the past 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity has dropped for the past few days, with few earthquakes that have been reaching magnitude 3,0 and above. Largest earthquake in the past few days has had the magnitude of 5,0. It is unclear why this is happening at the moment, earthquake activity might pick up again, it also might increase again. There is also a change that end of the eruption in Holuhraun is getting close, at least the phase that is connected to earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Continued earthquake activity in Tungafellsjökull volcano

Earthquake activity continues in Tungafellsjökull volcano. So far the earthquakes that are happening are smaller ones, with rare magnitude 3,0 or larger earthquake taking place every once in a while. At the moment the earthquake activity in Tungafellsjökull volcano is increasing and it is bit unclear why that is. The risk of eruption in Tungafellsjökull volcano appears to remains, even if that would just be a minor eruption. If an eruption takes place in Tungafellsjökull volcano, it would be the first documented eruption in the past 12,000 years to take place (at least).

New years update schedule

Next article about Bárðarbunga volcano eruption are going to be on the following days.

29-December-2014
2-January-2015

After that I am going to return to normal schedule on reporting on Bárðarbunga volcano eruption.

December 22, 2014December 23, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano update 22-December-2014

This is a short update of Bárðarbunga volcano eruption.

The eruption has now lasted almost four months. Making this the longest eruption in Iceland for many, many years. This might be the longest eruption in Iceland since 19th century.
The lava field in Holuhraun is now larger then 80 km² in size. The lava now flows underground in lava tubes inside the lava field. It breaks out on the edges at times and sometimes up on the surface.
Earthquake activity remains the same in Bárðarbunga volcano. Bad weather has decreased the sensitivity on the nearby SIL sensors. Some remain offline due the weather and heavy snow in the area.
Subsidence has slowed, the amount of larger earthquakes has also dropped at the same time. It has not stopped, just slowed down for the moment.
There are no signs about the eruption ending any time soon. The eruption could go on for years, at least many months in it’s current phase.

Other news about Bárðarbunga volcano eruption

Scientists are getting bored of the meetings about the Bárðarbunga volcano. So far around 80 or so meetings have taken place since the eruption started.
Scientists are going to continue monitoring and keeping going to meetings, even if they are a bit bored on them.
Police is keep watch in Drekagil location. At the moment there are just two police people at that location now. Since no scientists have been able to go to Holuhraun in the past two or three weeks due to bad weather.

Tungafellsjökull volcano update

Latest news report suggest that dyke intrusion is taking place in Tungafellsjökull volcano.
If an eruption takes place in Tungafellsjökull volcano it is guessed that is not going to be any larger than the eruption in Fimmvörðuháls in Eyjafjallajökull volcano during it’s eruption phase in 2010.
Earthquake activity is expected to continue in Tungafellsjökull volcano while Bárðarbunga volcano is active.

Earthquake map for the last 48 hours

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano and Tungafellsjökull volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Other than this there is nothing else to report at the moment.

Icelandic News about Bárðarbunga volcano

Lögreglumenn eru einir í Drekagili (Rúv.is, Icelandic, video)
Vísindamenn þreyttir á fundum vegna Bárðarbungu (Vísir.is, Icelandic)
Nornahraun nær yfir 80 ferkílómetra lands (Vísir.is, Icelandic)

Christmas update schedule

Next updates about current phase of the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano are going to be on 27-December-2014 and 29-December-2014.

Other

I have made the decision on moving my Paypal to Iceland. Since I won’t be moving back to Denmark and there is no point in keeping my Paypal account in that country. I am going to move the PayPal account tomorrow (23-December-2014) once everything has clear from it. This means that there won’t be any donation button for the next few days while I move it to Iceland. Since it takes few days to get validated by PayPal. ~~It is going to be possible to donate directly to my Danish bank account until I close it down late 2015 or early 2016. More details are going to be posted on that later.~~

As always, thanks for the support. 🙂

Article updated on 11:51 UTC on 23-December-2014.

December 19, 2014December 19, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano update 19-December-2014

Bárðarbunga volcano earthquake activity continues as before. No earthquake has reached the magnitude of 5,0 or greater since Monday 15-December-2014. Earthquake activity in the range of magnitude 3,0 and above remains high at the moment. There has been drop in earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the past few weeks, this has been followed by slower rate of subsidence according to latest measurements.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The lava field in Holuhraun continues to getting larger, it is now at the edge of being 80 km² in size. I don’t know the volume at the moment, since weather has prevented observation of it for the past few weeks and the lava field has considerable thickness in it (of few dozen meters at the most). The eruption continues at the same rate as before, there has been some reduction according to latest information, I don’t know how much reduction there has been at the moment. Lava is now flowing in lava tubes trough the lava field and breaking out at the edges and sometimes the surface.

Other things – pictures

If people remember this image that Icelandic Met Office posted few days ago.

Post by Veðurstofa Íslands.

I was there, I also got a bite of the cakes (they where good). I had made a surprise visit to the Icelandic Met Office that day. Since I just had the time to go there.

This was my angle. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see CC licence for more details.

I do have many more pictures, but the internet is slow and it takes a while for them to upload them and I am just not going do that while the internet connection is this bad.

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December 1, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano update 1-December-2014

This is going to be a short update on activity in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Observation of the eruption in Holuhraun has been difficult to impossible in the past days due to bad weather in Iceland. The lava field is now larger than 75 km². I don’t know the volume at the moment. The amount of SO2 is I think about the same as before, as for cycles of pulses I don’t know if that is currently ongoing or has stopped. The output of lava is around the same, around 50 – 130 m³/sec far as I know.

The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the past 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake today (01-December-2014) had the magnitude of 5,2 according to Icelandic Met Office. Fewer earthquakes where detected on Sunday due to the bad weather in Iceland. It looks like there has not been any change in earthquake activity for the past 48 hours, it just looks like it on the Icelandic Met Office maps due to the bad weather.

Donations: Please remember to donate or buy stuff from Amazon to support my work here. Thanks.

Comments: Please remember that everyone has a right there own view. I however ask people with some of there less proven ideas to keep them out of this website. If you see flaming or bad behaviour in the comments. Please let me know with a email and I will deal with it. I also remind people to be nice to each other here.

Moving to Iceland: Tomorrow I am going to turn off my earthquake computer and other computers that I now have running. This means that I’m going to switch the backup settings. The geophone computers are going to upload the images to the internet while my main earthquake computer is off-line. I don’t know for how long that is going to be, at least until August when I plan on start back in school. Since I am going to be moving there won’t be any update on Wednesday 3-December-2014 or on 5-December-2014. I am going to try and post short update on 6-December or 7-December-2014 (using the laptop that is falling apart). I will try to approve any comment soon as possible if your comment ends up in the comment moderation for some reason.

November 24, 2014November 24, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano update Monday 24-November-2014

This is going to be short update on Bárðarbunga volcano activity.

Activity in Holuhraun continued as before during the weekend. Currently it seems that activity is increasing in Holuhraun eruption, I don’t have it confirmed at the moment. What has been detected is a fluctuation lasting from few seconds and up to several hours in output of lava in Holhraun eruption, this possibly that the eruption is about to end. Since the feeding of the eruption becomes unstable and is unable to feed the eruption in the same stable manner as before. There have also been detected changes in gas output (mostly SO2).
This however does not mean that the dyke is closing up, but the erupting vent in Holuhraun might be doing just that. This means there is a high risk of new vents opening up along the dyke if magma is flowing into the dyke with same force as before. There is also chance that the whole dyke is sealing up and the magma is going to find new paths up the surface once that happens. There might still be months until the eruption in Holuhraun ends, even if the changes have started to take place now. The amount of SO2 suggest that the magma is coming from a deep source of more than 9 km.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Strongest earthquakes during the weekend and today had the magnitudes of 5,1 and 5,4. Earthquake activity drops after large earthquakes and then slowly builds up in matter of hours to days until a new large earthquake takes place. I don’t know why this happens, it just does. New study into Bárðarbunga suggests that magma system of the volcano is far more complex than believed earlier. This study also suggests that the caldera floor is thinner than originally believed. I don’t know what the implication of that are going to be. There is no major change in GPS data around Bárðarbunga volcano. Other than this there is nothing more to report at the moment far as I know.

New video of the Holuhraun eruption

Nýtt myndskeið af umbrotunum í Holuhrauni (Icelandic, Rúv.is, video)

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November 19, 2014November 19, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano update Wednesday 19-November-2014

This is going to be a short update.

There have not been any major changes reported in the eruption in Holuhraun. It has however been reported that amount of SO2 appears to be increasing in the eruption. This might mean that the magma is getting even more primitive than before and contains more gas in it then before. I have not heard any new numbers regarding the size of the lava field, it is however now larger then 72 – 74 square kilometres. I am not sure what number is correct at currently. New image of the crater show no change in outflow of lava in it.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the past 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano continues as it has been doing for the past three months. No earthquake with magnitude above 5,0 has happened since Sunday, that might change at any time without warning since such earthquakes happens at regular intervals. The rate of earthquakes with magnitude above 5,0 has dropped for the moment, I am not sure if it is going to increase again. That might happen and it might not happen again.

Other things

Minor stop in updates of Bárðarbunga volcano activity is going to happen between 2-December until 15-December (best estimate). The reason for this is that during this time I am going to be moving back to Iceland and I can’t work in that period while I am moving. I am going to clear comments that get stuck in moderation soon as possible in that time.

The dates of no updates are as follows.

3-December. Update might happen this date, but I am not sure yet if I have time to write it.
5-December. No update.
8-December. No update.
10-December. No update.
12-December. No update expected.
15-December. No update expected.
17-December. If I have my computer by this date I will post update.
19-December. ???

I am going to post update schedule for Christmas at later time.

Next week I am going to update my bank information for those who donate directly to me for my work here. The banking information can be found here. I am going to post information about changes to Paypal in late December-2014 or early January-2015.

Comments

As many have noted I have removed capchata word test. The reason for that was the plug-in in question did not work any more after a update. This also means spam bots have easier access to the comment section if this website. Please send me an email if you see any spam. I will try to keep an eye out for such commend and remove them soon as possible as they appear.

November 17, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano update Monday 17-November-2014

There has not been any major change in the eruption in Holuhraun. Latest reports are that the lava field is now 74 square kilometres in size. While the eruption is smaller than it was when it started, it is still considered a large eruption based on volume of lava that is now erupting. The crater rim was according to last news around 60 meters high, it might have lowered from last report that I did hear that stated it was around 100 meters high. Since the rim is made out of loose material it is unstable and might suffer from collapses at regular time intervals. SO2 pollution continues to be a big issue in Iceland depending on wind. Once I am back in Iceland I am going to start posting pictures of it for those days it is going to be in the part of Iceland where I am going to be living (north-west Iceland).

The eruption site today (17-November-2014) as it appeared on Míla web camera at 14:32 UTC. Copyright of this image belongs to Míla.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity remains the same as before in Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest earthquake on Sunday (16-November-2014) had the magnitude of 5,4. Earthquake activity is heavy at times in Bárðarbunga volcano, after a large earthquake takes place (above magnitude 5,0) earthquake activity drops for few hours in Bárðarbunga volcano, this appears to be normal. The rate of subsidence is about the same, it has slowed down in the centre of the caldera according to the news from today.

Rúv News – New video of the eruption in Holuhraun

Holuhraun eruption – fresh video (Rúv.is, English)

Other: Please note that I have removed mobile device support from this website. The plug-in was old and the newer versions did not work for older mobile devices. Due the old age of this plug-in it was a security risk. So I did remove it for that reason.

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