Category: SO2

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Donations: Please remember to support my work with donations or by using Amazon store for your region or country. Thanks for the support.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update for 16-December-2014

This is a short update on Bárðarbunga volcano. Due to weather I won’t be able to do full regular updates on Bárðarbunga volcano today. Since bad weather prevented me from getting the computer table that I need to use.

Yesterday (Monday 15-December-2014) an magnitude 5,4 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. Earthquake activity dropped in Bárðarbunga volcano following this earthquake. It has however been picking up again in the last few hours.

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

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano remains around the same. There have been fewer earthquakes detected due to bad weather happening in Iceland, since wind and ocean noise lower the detection threshold of earthquakes, making it difficult to impossible to record smaller earthquakes. Observations of Holuhraun are impossible at the moment due to bad weather. I haven’t been able to check the web-cameras since my laptop can’t handle it.

Tungafellsjökull volcano earthquake activity has been increasing for the past 48 hours. Largest earthquake in this latest earthquake swarm activity had the magnitude of 3,2. There are no signs of any other unrest in Tungafellsjökull at this moment.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update 12-December-2014

This is super short update for Bárðarbunga volcano.

  • The lava field is now around 76 km² in size. I am getting slightly conflicting reports on the size of the lava field. I don’t know why that is.
  • Lava tubes have started to form inside the lava, recent observation suggest this according to latest news.
  • Flow of the lava is now to the north (toward the Míla cameras). The lava breaks out at the edge of older and colder lava.
  • There is no change in the eruption at the moment according to best observations available at the moment.
  • Earthquake activity remains about the same as before. There has been a while since earthquake larger than magnitude 5,0 took place.

New video of the eruption can be found in the link below. Part of it is in English. Other than this there is nothing new to report. I have also not been able to properly follow the newest information on what is going on while I am moving back to Iceland.

Breytt landslag í Holuhrauni (Rúv.is, Icelandic, part in English, video)

Other: My belongings are now in transit to Hvammstangi. I am going to get them on Monday. This means I can start to provide more updates after than and on more regular basis. Since my laptop is no good for this type of job, since it is slow and not far from failing due to many faults that have appeared over the last seven years.

Donations: Please remember to donate or to by what you need from Amazon. Thanks for the support.

The storm: For those interested in how bad snow storm looks in Iceland. Please check the video below.

Farmer films crazy storm (mbl.is, English, video)

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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.

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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.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update 28-November-2014

This is going to be a short update.

There has been a lack of reports in the news today of the eruption in Holuhraun today. Web cameras show no major change in the eruption far as I can tell. The lava field is now getting thicker as is clear by this images (text is in Icelandic) where the lava is overflowing from older lava (1 – 3 month old). Far as I know the pulse behaviour continues, I don’t know to what extent it has been, or if it has changed from original observations of it.

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

Largest earthquake for the past 24 hours had the magnitude of 5,1 and happened in north-east part of the caldera. Where the most of the large earthquakes happen in recent weeks. I am not sure why that is. According to measurements that where taken yesterday the total caldera subsidence is now around 50 meters, there doesn’t seems to be any change taking place in rate of subsidence. At least that has not been covered in the news or reported far as I know. The reason why GPS signal is now longer being received is that the GPS station is now so low that it is out of line of sight for the relay station it uses to forward the signal. This also means IMO is not getting any signal from the seismometer located in the same area as the GPS station. This is according to latest report on activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Far as I know there is nothing else to report.

Donations: Please remember to support my work with donations or by using Amazon to buy stuff for Christmas. Thanks for the support.

Moving back to Iceland: Next week I move to Iceland. This means that the last update before I move is going to be on Monday 1-December-2014. I don’t think that I have time to write update on Wednesday 3-December-2014. After that the update schedule is a bit of a mystery. Once I have my things from Denmark I am going to start regular updates as I am doing now. I don’t know for sure when I get my stuff, I hope it won’t be no later than 22-December-2014.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update Wednesday 26-November-2014

This is going to be a short update on the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano and the Holuhraun fissure.

The eruption in Holuhraun continues with no end in sight. There have been a change taking place in the eruption, this has been noted both in the comments on this website and by scientists in the field. There flow of magma now comes in pulses and those pulses happens in cycles, some only last for few seconds, but some pulses have known to last up to 6 – 10 hours (raw estimate of time) [details here]. I don’t know what this means at the moment and it is unclear at the moment why this is happening, so far this has not ended the eruption. Gas output has not changed far as I know, strong winds have carried the gas faster out to sea so it has not been a big problem in Iceland because of it for the past few days. At least that is what I so far know. I might be wrong on that detail.

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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 around the same rate as before. After the magnitude 5,4 earthquake on Monday, earthquake activity dropped. This is normal and earthquake activity continues as before. There are now fewer magnitude 3,0+ earthquakes due the magnitude 5,4 earthquake. Number of magnitude 3,0+ is increasing again and that is to be expected, since this has been the pattern for the past three months now. View on the eruption in Holuhraun has been good during the last few days since weather has been good. Other than this I don’t think anything other to report at the moment.

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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.

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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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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.

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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.