Category: Lava

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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 9-December-2014

This is super short update for Bárðarbunga volcano.

  • The eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano has now reached 100 days.
  • The lava field is now around 77 – 80 km² in size. The volume is over 1,0 km³ according to last measurements that I know of (my numbers might not be fully up to date).
  • The frequency of magnitude 5,0 is dropping and it is now longer time passing between them, at least that is the case for the moment.
  • The subsidence in Bárðarbunga volcano is now more than 50 meters.

I don’t have good chance to make better report than this at the moment. Bad weather is going to delay my trip to Hvammstangi about one day, there is going to be two day snow storm in north Iceland from tomorrow.

Donations: Please remember to donate to support my work or support my work by using the Amazon banners to side while shopping from them. If your area does not have a banner you can check for it in Amazon Webstore page that I have. Thanks for the support.

Article updated at 20:27 UTC.
Article updated at 20:34 UTC.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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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Bárðarbunga volcano update Friday 14-November-2014

This is not going to be a long update for Bárðarbunga volcano.

The eruption in Holuhraun continues with little or no change since Wednesday. The eruption continues at the same phase as before. Visibility due to weather has prevented good observation of the eruption. Last observation of the lava field showed that is now around 74 square kilometres in size. The crater rim is now around 100 meters high at highest peaks. Bad weather is going to last until tomorrow in this part of Iceland.

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

Largest earthquake in the last 48 hours had the magnitude of 5,4. Other than that earthquake activity is on the same level as before, there doesn’t seems to be a any major change taking place in the activity. Subsidence in the caldera continues around the same rate as before, there might have been a minor slowdown of subsidence, but I don’t know if that has changed again. Other than this I don’t have any other news to report at the moment.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update Wednesday 12-November-2014

Eruption activity continued in Holuhraun at the same rate as on Monday (10-November-2014) and yesterday (Tuesday 11-November-2014). While bad weather has making observation of the eruption in Holuhraun difficult and close to impossible there are no signs of the eruption ending any time soon. A lava lake has now formed that is around 400 meters long and 100 meters wide. This is the first lava lake in Iceland in a long time. I don’t know when last lava lake existed in Iceland, but that was a while ago.

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the last 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 two and half months. This means that the caldera continues to subside at unchanged rate. I do not know how much the area has grown that is now subsiding, I think there is limited information on that due to limited access to this area in the winter time. At the moment nothing seems to be changing and GPS data is supporting that view of mine. Comments on this blog and blogs posts by people how have gone to the eruption site in recent days say that new fractures are appearing south of current eruption crater. This means that rifting is continuing, this also means that new eruption south of current crater might start at any time without warning. Since magma is at shallow depth at this location, with depth being only 1 – 2 km at most, it is possible that it might even be at shallower depth closest to the eruption crater (but has not erupted yet).

Tungafellsjökull volcano

There has been minor increase in earthquake activity in Tungafellsjökull volcano. At the moment this looks just like a tectonic stresses are adjusting to all the changes in Bárðarbunga volcano. Earthquake activity in Tungafellsjökull volcano might increase in next few days or weeks. I don’t expect any eruption to take place at this point in time.

Bad weather warning

For the next two days there is going to be bad weather in Iceland. This means that detection of earthquakes is going to be limited in Holuhraun and around Bárðarbunga volcano. This means that only largest of earthquakes are going to be properly detected. Visibility to the eruption site on web-cameras is not going to be awful to none due to the snowstorm that I expect might follow this storm in the highland (it might rain, but I am not sure on that detail yet). It is storm season in Iceland so expect a lot of storms all winter.