Category: Bárðarbunga

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Update on Bárðarbunga volcano and high conductivity in Jökulsá á Fjöllum glacier river

Conductivity remains rather high in Jökulsá á Fjöllum as it has been doing since before 14th of November. The source remains at Bárðarbunga volcano. The conductivity has slowly been getting lower since it peaked before 14th of November (I’m not sure when the peak was). Yesterday (18-November) I did notice the news a little discussion about Bárðarbunga volcano. It was stated that at least one cauldron in the glacier above Bárðarbunga volcano is so hot that is makes a steam trough the glacier. I have also not hear any other details about the reason why conductivity remains rather high in Jökuls á Fjöllum glacier river from the observations yesterday.

The steaming hydrothermal systems means there is a considerable energy in Bárðarbunga volcano system at the moment. This also invites the risk that next eruption cycle in Bárðarbunga volcano is going to large. This also increases the risk of small eruptions that are also hard to detect and might not break the glacier surface, unless they happen close to one of the new hydrothermal areas.


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

When next eruption cycle starts in Bárðarbunga volcano is impossible to know.

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High conductivity in Jökulsá á Fjöllum glacier river is from Bárðarbunga volcano

It seems that the close to 10 days high conductivity in Jökulsá á Fjöllum glacier river is from Bárðarbunga volcano rather than Kverkfjöll volcano as first thought. New images from the area show this clearly as the river from Kverkfjöll volcano doesn’t show any change and the high conductivity has continued without showing any peak as is normal for glacier floods from the lake in Kverkfjöll volcano.

It remains unclear what is going on. At the moment there aren’t any sign of an eruption having taken place in Bárðarbunga volcano and it remains unclear from where the glacier flood water is coming from since weather has prevented flying over this area in recent days. It is possible that this is just a cauldron the glacier emptying it self, but given how long the high conductivity has been going on it must be a large cauldron. This might also mean bad news for the area where bridges are if a major flood happens without warning due to this change or if an eruption starts suddenly and without much warning.

Icelandic news

Upptök frekar í Bárðarbungu en Gengissigi (Ruv.is, Icelandic)

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Deep earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano system and increased conductivity in Jökulsá á fjöllum glacier river

Today (7-November-2017) there has been deep earthquakes taking place in Bárðarbunga volcano system, just south-east of the main volcano. This earthquakes are not strong and only have the magnitude of 16,4 to 18,8 km. This time none of the earthquakes that happened reached magnitude 1,0.


Location of the deep earthquakes is south-east of the main Bárðarbunga volcano. It is marked by three red dots. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is also in the news that conductivity in Jökulsá á fjöllum glacier river (map of Jökulsá á fjöllum glacier river can be found here) is at all times high and have been increasing for the last two weeks (14 days) and are now the highest ever recorded. It is unclear at the moment why this is happening as no eruption has been detected from Bárðarbunga volcano during this time. The glacier river is also unusually dark for this time of the year and smell of hydrothermal water has also been detected. Current values are 295µ/cm. This is a risky situation if something more happens under the glacier as this area goes close to Road 1 and connected bridges. If a major flood happens those bridges are going to get lost and there is always a risk of more damage happening, but that depends on factors that are impossible to predict.

Icelandic News – Google Translated can be used for raw translation

Aukin rafleiðni í Jökulsá á Fjöllum (Rúv.is)
Aukin rafleiðni í Jökulsá á fjöllum (Vísir.is)
Raf­leiðni í ánni farið hækk­andi (mbl.is)

Update 1

There is a possibility that this might be a glacier flood from Kverkfjöll volcano. That has not been confirmed as of this moment. Glacier flood from Kverkfjöll volcano happen every few years.

Updated Icelandic News

Hlaup hugsanlegt í Jökulsá á Fjöllum (Rúv.is)
Aukin rafleiðni í Jökulsá á Fjöllum bendir til hlaups (Vísir.is)

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Article updated at 22:11 UTC.

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Strongest earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano since February 2015

Yesterday (26-October-2017) and today (27-10-2017) two strongest earthquake took place in Báðarbunga volcano since end of the eruption in February 2015. The magnitudes of earthquakes so far are two Mw4.7, One magnitude Mw3,9 and one Mw3,2 earthquake. So far other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude. No harmonic tremor has been detected so far, but given the location an eruption might start in other part of the caldera without warning even if the earthquake swarm activity is happening in the northern part of the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.


The magnitude 3,9 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Dellukot. This image is under Creative Commons Licence, please see CC licence for more details.


The magnitude 3,9 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Böðvarshólar. This image is under Creative Commons Licence, please see CC licence for more details.


The second magnitude 4,7 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Dellukot. For some unknown reason (maybe bad weather) I was unable to properly record the magnitude 4,7 earthquake at 23:26 UTC. This image is under Creative Commons Licence, please see CC licence for more details.


The second magnitude 4,7 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Böðvarshólar. For some unknown reason (maybe bad weather) I was unable to properly record the magnitude 4,7 earthquake at 23:26 UTC. This image is under Creative Commons Licence, please see CC licence for more details.

At the moment no eruption has been detected. But this strong and increasing earthquake activity suggest that magma pressure inside Bárðarbunga volcano might be reaching critical point. If it has not reached critical point already. For the next 24 – 36 hours really bad weather is forecasted in Iceland. With wind gusts forecasted up to 45m/s in the highland and in northern Iceland. This bad weather is going to cause problems in detecting earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano and elsewhere.

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Earthquake activity in south part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera

Today (24-October-2017) at 14:18 UTC a magnitude 4,1 earthquake took place in south part of the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. Few moments later at 14:54 UTC a magnitude 3,4 earthquake took place and few other earthquakes followed.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

What is different now is that the earthquake activity is now happening in south part of the caldera. Close to the area where deep cauldrons have appeared due to shallow magma at this location. This makes the earthquake activity at this highly interesting and possibly highly dangerous if magma has now started to push it’s way up at this location. A small eruption at this location could result in a serious glacier flood, even if such an eruption only lasted for few hours.


The magnitude 4,1 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Dellukot. This image is under Creative Commons License, please see CC License for more details.


The magnitude 4,1 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Böðvarshólar. This trace has been filtered at 4Hz. This image is under Creative Commons License, please see CC License for more details.

It remains a question if an earthquake is going to happen in north-east part of the Báðarbunga volcano caldera in next few days. That seems to happen when a earthquakes takes place in south part of the caldera. I don’t know why that happens, it is just seems to do.

Article updated at 23:48 UTC. Text fixes.

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano on 13-October-2017

On Friday 13 of October 2017 there was an earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest earthquake in this activity had the magnitude of 3,1. Earlier earthquake had the magnitude of 2,9.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This latest earthquake is at an interesting location. This earthquake happens close to or inside the hydrothermal area in the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. This area has not seen a lot of earthquake activity in recent months. Magma at this location is at shallow depth as is shown by the hydrothermal activity. Geologists are estimating that magma is at around 1 km depth at the hydrothermal location. This hydrothermal vents have melted hundreds of meters of glacier already due to how energetic they are. The magnitude 2,9 earthquake took place in the normal north-east place in the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. There is also a interesting cluster of earthquakes in the north part of the caldera happening in last few hours.

At the moment there isn’t anything that suggest that an eruption is imminent in Bárðarbunga volcano.

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

On 05-October and 06-October-2017 there was an strong earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. The first earthquake had the magnitude of 3,7 on 5-October and the second earthquake had the magnitude of 3,4 on 6-October-2017. The first earthquake was in the south-west part of the caldera an area that for some reason does not see a lot of earthquake activity. The magnitude 3,4 earthquake was in the usual place of north-east part of the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Few other earthquakes happened in this activity, they where all smaller in magnitude. Largest of the aftershocks had the magnitude of 2,2 and all other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude.

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Two strong earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (17-September-2017) at 14:23 UTC two magnitude 3,9 earthquakes happened in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake activity was at the north-east part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera where earthquake activity has been taking place since September-2015. This earthquake activity is happening due to inflation in Bárðarbunga volcano.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Since September-2015 the rate of activity has been dropping. Now earthquake swarm happens every 11 – 18 days or so. Currently there are no clear signs that an eruption is imminent.

Small note on Þórðarhyrna volcano

On the map above a small earthquake with magnitude of 1,3 can be seen in a volcano named Þórðarhyrna. That volcano is part of Grímsfjall volcano system. Last confirmed eruption in Þórðarhyrna volcano was in the year 1902 (December) and it lasted until 12th January 1904. Not many earthquakes happen in Þórðarhyrna volcano and that suggests that an eruption might happen in this volcano without much warning. The eruption before 1902 – 1904 eruption was in 1887 and that eruption lasted until 1889. Suggesting that when eruption happen in Þórðarhyrna volcano they are long lasting and create a lot of damage as this volcano is completely covered with glacier. I make note of this because I suspect that Þórðarhyrna volcano might erupt without much warning in next few years.

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Strong earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano during the night (of 7-September-2017)

During the night of 7-September-2017 strong earthquake swarm happened in Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,5 and the second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,1. Other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude. This is the strongest earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano since August-2017.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake swarm was in north-east part of the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. This area of the volcano has been earthquake active since August-2014 when current period of activity started. This time around no harmonic tremor was detected. That might not always be the case since it is my view that there is a risk of small short lived eruptions now in Bárðarbunga volcano with connected glacier floods. This time around it just didn’t happen.

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Glacier cauldrons at top of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim

During the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano and the collapse of the caldera. A hydrothermal activity was seen on top of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. Since the eruption in Holuhraun ended in February-2015 this hydrothermal activity has dropped, it has increased if anything. At the moment there are several depressions in the Vatnajökull glacier that is on top of Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest of them are 400 meters wide, I am not sure about their length. This cauldrons are around 100 meters deep and for the first time in several hundreds of years have exposed a bed rock that is normally under the glacier. Hydrothermal activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is now such that is able to melt 100 meters of glacier in several months.

This high amount of hydrothermal activity in the main volcano increases my suspicion that Bárðarbunga volcano is far from over. Since this also means that fresh magma is reaching up to 1 km in the crust in the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. I don’t have any map of the locations of the calderas at the moment since none exist or at least has not yet been published. The main concern now is that this is going to increase the risk of sudden glacier floods from Bárðarbunga volcano. This might also increase the risk of sudden short volcano eruptions in Bárðarbunga volcano, either in its slopes or close to the caldera rim. As it is clear that magma has rather clear access to that part of the volcano.

Rúv News article (in Icelandic)

Gat í gegnum jökulinn (Rúv.is, Icelandic, video)

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Article updated at 23:51 UTC. Text fixes.