After a long while of not writing about Bárðarbunga volcano it is now time for new article.
On 27-July-2021 at 19:02 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,9 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. At 22:12 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,5 took place in eastern part of Bárðarbunga volcano. EMSC is reporting this earthquake as mb4,8. That information can be found here.
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
This earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is because there is now inflation going on in Bárðarbunga volcano. This inflation is going to continue until there is a new eruption. When that happens is impossible to know.
Today (26-July-2021) at 16:35 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,0 took place in Ljósufjöll volcano. Earlier earthquake with magnitude of Mw2,2 also took place at 15:44 UTC.
Earthquake activity in Ljósufjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
In this area there is also a fault zone that is between Langjökull and Snæfellsnes. That fault zone normally doesn’t have many earthquakes. With only activity happening every few decades and sometimes even less frequency. The area where the earthquake activity is inside the volcano named Ljósufjöll. Earthquake activity in this area started in May-2021. Currently its too early to know if this means anything, since this might just be earthquake activity and nothing more might happen, even if this earthquake activity is happening in a volcano.
Since yesterday (24-July-2021) and until today (25-July-2021) there has been rather strong earthquake activity in Katla volcano. The earthquakes are not strong with largest earthquakes having a magnitude of Mw2,6. It is unclear what is going on.
Earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
One of the reasons this earthquake activity is happening is that cauldron might be emptying in the Mýrdalsfjökull glacier. That creates a drop in pressure that can start earthquake activity. I don’t know if that is what happened now. If that is what is going on it is going to take the melt water few hours to reach the rivers in Mýrdalssandur sand area. There has not been any change in harmonic tremor activity following this earthquake activity.
Since 22-July-2021 there has been an earthquake activity in Katla volcano. This earthquake activity has been mostly located to the east of the caldera and largest earthquake so far detected had a magnitude of Mw3,0.
Earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
There has not been any change in harmonic tremor activity following this earthquake activity. That strongly suggest that this is normal summer earthquake activity for Katla volcano. Earthquake activity is also far too low for it to signal any eruption risk. That might change if earthquake activity changes and grows in size.
Today (21-July-2021) few deep earthquakes took place in Fagradalsfjall mountain that is part of Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system.
This earthquake activity was not big and the largest magnitude recorded was a magnitude of Mw0,8. Most depth that appeared had a depth of 13,4km.
The earthquake activity in Fagradalsfjall mountain on Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
It is difficult to know what this means. What is possibly happening is that more magma is pushing up in the magma feeding that now exist where the eruption has been happening. If that is happening, it can result in new craters or fissure opening up and start erupting. At the writing of this article this earthquake activity seems to be ongoing, but at slow rate and small earthquakes only so far.
Fog continues to block view to the crater and Fagradalsfjall mountain. But harmonic tremor data shows that the Fagradalsfjall mountain eruption is currently not erupting.
This is going to be shortest update to the eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain that is part of Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system.
Since 9th July the eruption has been unstable. Between 10th July and 15th of July the eruption continued as before with pulsing activity.
On 15th of July at 05:00 the eruption stopped and it didn’t start again until around 10:00 on 16th of July.
At the writing of this article it seems that the eruption has stopped again based on the harmonic tremor.
The lava flows is down in Meradalir when the lava flow happens. At current rate it is going to take 1 to 4 weeks until Merdalir overflows with lava into next valley.
The east side of the crater has collapsed and that allows the lava flow direct flow down into Meradalir.
It is unclear why the eruption stops and starts again. One of my ideas is that the deep feeder system of the eruption is now empty and needs time to refill. The eruption stops when the feeder system is empty. The more empty it is the longer the eruption stops since it takes more time for the magma to fill up the magma chamber that seems to be there at 20km depth or more. How long this is going to go on I don’t know but I don’t think this can go on for many months or years. Current crater is at one point going to seal it self and the eruption is going to stop because of that.
At the writing of this article the eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain has possibly ended (please note that Icelandic Met Office has not officially called the end of this eruption). This is part of Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system.
Around 03:43 UTC on 2-July-2021 the crater started erupting a cloud of volcano ash. What was unclear until earlier today was that the eruption had ended in the crater. The reason for the ash cloud was the the crater was collapsing in on it self and sealing up.
The volcano ash cloud as it appeared on Rúv web camera during the night. Copyright of this image belongs to Rúv ohf.
The harmonic tremor has also dropped at the same time as there is no lava flowing from the crater.
The harmonic tremor noise on SIL station Fagradalsfjall mountain. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
What happens next is unclear. It is unlikely that eruption is going to start in the crater that stopped erupting. Normally they almost never erupt again. Magma is going to find it self a new path to erupt once a pressure has build up again in the deep crust. Once the pressure is enough it is highly possible that new earthquake swarm is going to start before an new eruption happens on the Reykjanes peninsula. How long this is going to take is impossible to know for sure.
This is the last article about Fagradalsfjall until an earthquake or a new eruption starts in Fagradalsfjalli mountain.
Around 06:00 few minor earthquakes took place in Hekla volcano. This is unusual since Hekla volcano normally doesn’t have earthquakes until an eruption is just about to start. No eruption happened and currently there are no signs that an eruption is about to start.
The earthquake activity in western part of Hekla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
What is going on is difficult to know but this might just be a pressure change or a fault line giving in to pressure changes. The last earthquake had the time 09:36 UTC and since then there has been no additional earthquake activity in Hekla volcano. That might change without warning as has happened before in history of Hekla volcano.
Fagradalsfjall mountain eruption
I am delaying an article about the eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain. There might be something going on there but I don’t know what yet, if there is anything going on to start with. The area has been hidden in fog all day making estimation on what is going on impossible.
This is a short update on the eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain. It is still classified as Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano eruption. That might change in the future.
There is no sign of the eruption is about to stop.
Most of the week the lava was flowing in lava tubes that where invisible from the surface. Today (Friday 18-June-2021) that changed and lava is now again overflowing over the crater.
The crater remains unstable and collapses from the inside walls are frequents, or used to be. It is possible that for now the amount of lava in the crater is holding the walls up.
Nátthagi is now flooded with lava and the lava is on its way out of Nátthagi in next few hours to days. There won’t be any attempt made to stop the lava reaching the road or the ocean.
Geldingadalir valley is now full of lava and has overflowed a little. Lava might flow into Nátthagakriki in next few days, but small dirt walls where pushed up to try and delay that from happening. It is unclear if that worked. But for now the lava has not flowed into that direction.
The crater overflowing with lava. Copyright of this image belongs to Rúv.View into Nátthagi but is in part blocked by gas pollution from the eruption. Copyright of this image belongs to Rúv.
Currently there are no other news about this eruption. Next update should be on 25-June.
There has not been a lot of change in the eruption during this week (28-May to 5-June) in the eruption of Fagradalsfjall mountain that might be part of Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system.
The crater continues to get bigger. The crater grows by collapsing on the inside and expanding it walls following that it seems. Current height of the crater is 300 to 500 meters. This is a bad estimate based on web camera views.
The main viewing area is now cut off from walking people because lava has flowed over the lowest point on the walking path.
There is now a risk because of the overflow over the walking path that the western barrier is going to be breached soon.
In general the lava doesn’t travel far but it builds up close to the erupting crater and is now at locations hundreds of meters thick.
If the eruption continues as it has been doing the whole area is going to go under lava in next 6 to 10 months. As the lava just keeps building up.
There are no signs that this eruption is ending.
There are no other news about this eruption that I know of. It continues as it has been doing since 19-March-2021. In other parts of Iceland it has also been quiet or minimal activity not worthy of reporting.
This article is a little late because I was dealing with headache issue for the last 12 hours.
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