Category: Mountain

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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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What is going on in Bárðarbunga volcano

This is not a status update article. For Monday 10-November-2014 status update, please check last article. This is not going to be a long article since I have a long way to go in order to properly analyse all the data that has resulted from the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Activity in Bárðarbunga volcano before 16-August-2014

Activity in Bárðarbunga volcano before 16-August-2014 was a pattern of regular earthquake swarms and dyke intrusions. That was considered normal behaviour in Bárðarbunga volcano. It has to be considered if this where in fact the long term signs that eruption was going to happen soon. Earthquake swarms where also common in Dyngjuháls area, often with earthquakes that had magnitude 3,0 and stronger.

Nineteen weeks before 16-August-2014

It seems that some nineteen weeks before 16-August-2014 a critical point was reached in Bárðarbunga volcano. At that point it seems that pressure had started to rise inside the volcano. This resulted in change in earthquake activity that lasted until 16-August-2014 when magma started to break outside the magma chamber and making its way to the surface. This change in activity in Bárðarbunga volcano appears clearly on Week 15 and Week 16 and onwards.

Current changes in Bárðarbunga volcano

Currently Bárðarbunga volcano is subsiding and at the moment it is not going to start a caldera collapse if it continues in the same way as it has been doing for the past two and half month. Far as I can tell, it seem that magma is now being drained from two dykes (or sill) in Bárðarbunga volcano, while the dyke exit point is rather deep, with depth around 5 – 8 km (best estimate and it might be wrong). This appears to be drainage from the top, magma is going down the mountain (far as I can tell and that might be wrong too) and into the dyke. Rather than just rising from depth and going into the dyke, but that is also happening at the moment. How much magma is at work here I don’t know, it is however clear that there is enough magma in Bárðarbunga volcano to continue the eruption in Holuhraun for many more months. The drainage of the sill(s) explains the earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano, it also means this earthquake activity is going to continue for many more months. It also means that larger earthquakes that have higher magnitude than 5,7 can happen, even if they have not done so yet.

The rifting activity

It seems that the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano has started a rifting in Eastern volcanic zone in Iceland. That activity is going to continue for decades at least. This rifting means that more fissure eruptions are going to take place, both under Vatnajökull glacier and outside it (like Holuhraun eruption).

What is going to happen next?

While there is no way to be certain what is going to happen next in Bárðarbunga volcano since its eruption history is mostly unknown and has not been observed with instruments before. As the time passes the image is going to get clearer. For the moment Icelandic emergency authorities are preparing for an eruption under Vatnajökull glacier. Since an rifting is going to start south of Bárðarbunga volcano one day, when that might happen is not clear, since the situation south of Bárðarbunga volcano is more complex and has factors at work. One of those factors is Hamarinn (loki-fögrufjöll) volcano. It is clear that Bárðarbunga might or is likely to trigger a eruption in that volcano without warning. When that might happen is not known and that is always the case with volcanoes and possible eruptions.

New activity update for Bárðarbunga volcano is going to be written tomorrow (12-November-2014).

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Bárðarbunga volcano update Monday 10-November-2014

No major change took place in the eruption in Holuhraun during the weekend. The lava field is now around 70 square kilometres wide and it keeps growing each day. I don’t know the total volume so far, since that depends on the thickness of the lava. Last calculations that I know of estimated it to be around 1,0 km³, it is save to assume that volume is now greater since the last estimate that I know of is at least one month old by now.

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

Largest earthquake this weekend had the magnitude of 5,2. Other earthquakes where smaller, but many magnitude 3,0 and larger earthquakes did happen as usual in Bárðarbunga volcano. The crust in Bárðarbunga volcano is now heavily fractured, this allows heat from the volcano easier way to the surface. This also means new hot springs are going to open up and older ones are going get more active. There is no major change in Bárðarbunga volcano eruption at the moment, as has been the case for most part of past two months.

Article on what is happening in Bárðarbunga volcano

I am working on a article (in my head at the moment) on what is happening inside Bárðarbunga volcano. It is not ready yet, I do hope to have it ready tomorrow if I can process all the data for the article, in order to properly figure out my self what is going on in Bárðarbunga volcano.

My geophone network

I run a geophone network of just two geophones in Iceland at the moment. Once I get an apartment the total number of working geophones is going to be three. I have decided that once I move from Iceland to Azores Islands[1] it is not going to be workable to keep the network running due the technical problems doing so. I am not going to stop recording earthquakes, I am just going to do so in Azores Islands. At the moment I also have four year backlog of earthquakes that I have to properly add time and location data to. That is a lot of earthquakes over this period, since large events have happened and Bárðarbunga alone added up to 2000 earthquakes to my earthquake database in August and now I add around 10 – 20 earthquakes from Bárðarbunga volcano each day (this is just average). The geophone network as it now stands is going to be running for the next 5 – 10 years while I live in Iceland, after that I am going to relocate it to Flores Island when I move there[2]. At the moment I don’t know for sure when that is going to happen, all I know now is that it is going to happen.

1: I am currently living in Denmark. I move next month to Iceland.
2: I plan up to ten years ahead so that I know what I need to do and know before I do it.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update Friday 07-November-2014

Bad weather in Iceland has been making monitoring of Bárðarbunga volcano difficult at best. Information for that reason is a bit limited at the moment.

Earthquake activity continues in Bárðarbunga volcano as it has been doing for the past two months. Largest earthquake this morning had the magnitude of 5,4 and happened at 07:11 UTC. Other earthquakes have been smaller, due to bad weather in all of Iceland fewer earthquakes have been recorded today and yesterday (06-November-2014).

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

GPS measurement are showing that subsidence in Bárðarbunga volcano continues at the same rate as before. The rate of subsidence is the same, the change however is that larger area of Bárðarbunga volcano has now started to drop, suggesting that current eruption in Holuhraun has started to drain magma from other dykes in Bárðarbunga volcano or sill in it. The details of this can be found here in latest report from Icelandic Met Office on current activity in Bárðarbunga volcano.

No change has taken place in Holuhraun, the eruption continues with same rate as before far as I know. Bad weather has blocked the web cameras and I don’t think there is anyone close the eruption site due the weather. Far as I know there is nothing else in the news about the activity in Bárðarbunga volcano.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update for Wednesday 05-November-2014

This is current status in Bárðarbunga volcano for Wednesday 05-November-2014.

There has not been any major change in the eruption in Holuhraun since Monday 03-November-2014. The eruption continues around the same phase as before. Earthquake activity continues to be strong as it has been for the past two months. With several magnitude 3 – 4,9 earthquakes happening every day, the amount of earthquakes is different between days.

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

It continues to be extremely dangerous going to the eruption site as two police men found out yesterday. They hit a pocket of dangerous gases that had removed most of the oxygen in the area where they had located them self, at the edge of the lava field and where some two to three kilometres away from main erupting crater. They almost passed out due to lack of oxygen and they where using gas masks according to the news on Rúv about this insistent.

Drop of the caldera in Bárðarbunga volcano continues at the same rate as before, the most drop is now around 44 meters in the caldera. Cauldrons in the glacier above Bárðarbunga volcano continue to getting deeper, the depth has increased around 5 – 8 meters in the past 11 days according to recent measurements. The amount of melt according to calculations is around 2 cubic meters per second (m³/sec). This is equal to energy release for few hundreds megawatts according to University of Iceland. It is now difficult getting to the eruption site due to winter in the area, travel by car is now at minimum seven hours the other way in best conditions.

Other than this I don’t think there is anything else new about Bárðarbunga volcano eruption at the moment.

Icelandic News

Færð gerir vísindamönnum erfitt fyrir (Rúv.is)
Lögreglumenn urðu fyrir súrefnisskorti (Rúv.is)

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Bárðarbunga volcano update Monday 3-November-2014

The eruption in Holuhraun continued last weekend as it has been doing for the past two months. No change happened. Due to bad weather this weekend it was difficult to monitor what was happening in Holuhraun. The eruption continues at full force from what I can see on Míla web cameras, when I was viewing it earlier today I noted that lava strokes where going up 20 – 50 meters high up. The main crater has build up around 90 meter high wall around the main eruption, blocking all view to it. I don’t know how stable this wall it, so collapses might happen in it at times without warning.

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

Largest earthquake during the weekend had the magnitude of 5,4. Other earthquakes where smaller, but there was a lot of earthquakes that had magnitude larger than 3,0. This high volume of strong earthquakes continues in Bárðarbunga volcano, so far more than 61 earthquake have been larger then magnitude 5,0, more then 228 earthquakes with magnitude 4 – 5 have happened since this started and more than 434 earthquakes have happened in Bárðarbunga volcano since August. The amount of magma that has erupted in Holuhrauni lava field is now 1,0 km³ (or more). The new lava now covers 70 square kilometre area according to last measurements that I know of. The eruption in Holuhraun is still fourteen times smaller than Laki eruption that happened 1783 – 1784. Far as I know there is currently nothing more to report.

Icelandic News

Stærsta gos síðan í Skaftáreldum (Rúv.is, Icelandic)

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Article updated at 00:37 UTC on 04-November-2014.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update for Wednesday 29-October-2014

Today (29-October-2014) marks the two months since the second eruption in Holuhraun started. Currently the eruption is ongoing with no signs of stopping, it is erupting about the same power since Monday, the eruption power is less than it was when it started two months ago and that is normal. The lava field has now covers area of 64,6 square kilometres in size. This is now largest lava in Iceland since Laki eruption of 1783 – 1784.

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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 remains strong in Bárðarbunga volcano. There is one to two magnitude five or stronger earthquake every 20 – 35 hours at present time. The caldera continues to drop around 40cm/day, most of the drop happens without any earthquake activity at all. So far no major eruption has happened under the glacier, only minor eruptions have happened that have only lasted for few hours.

I also want to point out there is only basalt lava in this eruption. This magma is up to 1600C warm when it comes up from its deep source at +20km depth. If there was any other type of magma in this eruption it would have been detected by now in the current eruption in Holuhraun. Most of Iceland eruptions are basalt only eruption, since Iceland is both on hotspot and the mid-Atlantic ridge. There are other melts and types of eruptions, but such eruptions don’t happen as frequently as normal basalt eruptions. The reason for ash cloud eruptions in volcano like Grímsfjall is due the fact that there is a glacier on top of the volcano. Same rule applies to Katla volcano, it is all basalt most of the time, but since there is a lot of glacier on top of the volcano the eruptions that happen are explosive due to that fact.

I don’t think there is anything else new about the eruption and activity in Bárðarbunga volcano since Monday.

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Bárðarbunga volcano update for 27-October-2014

During the weekend activity in Bárðarbunga volcano was in the same manner as it has been for the past two months. Largest earthquakes during the weekend had the magnitude of 5,2 and 5,3. Pollution was a big problem south of the eruption in Holuhraun and new record was set for SO2 pollution in populated areas in Iceland. The pollution levels did go up to 21.000 μg/m3 when they where the highest during the weekend. A emergency was declared for Höfn in Hornafirði when the worst pollution did go over the area. Currently there is a little bit less pollution, but air quality is poor in parts of south Iceland at the moment.

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

Largest earthquake on 27-October-2014 had the magnitude of 5,3 and happened in the south-east part of the caldera. Since it has been quiet in terms of earthquake activity. According to Icelandic Met Office this is normal and has happened before. Subsidence of the caldera happens without any earthquake activity most of the time. According to Icelandic Met Office and others (pdf file here), the caldera has now dropped some 40 meters. New cauldrons have been forming along the caldera rim and older ones (that I did not know about until today) have been getting deeper according to measurements from Friday (24-October-2014). The new and older cauldrons appear clearly on images that can be found here (text is in Icelandic). GPS data is showing minor inflation in the dyke that is currently erupting, suggesting that more magma is flowing into it then is erupting from it.

If any melt is happening in the caldera it is not appearing on the glacier yet. As for the water, it just goes down. Rock inside volcanoes leaks, a lot, so it is easy for the water to go into the crust. It doesn’t have to go anywhere else in small amounts that might be melting if the crust has warmed up enough to do so. Currently there are no evidence for that taking place, but with 850 meters of glacier on top of it is difficult to be sure. There are no other news about the eruption that I know of at the moment.

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Bárðarbunga volcano Friday update on 24-October-2014

This is the Friday update for Bárðarbunga volcano eruption.

During the past 48 hours total (when this is written) of 69 earthquakes with magnitude of larger than 3,0 have happened in Bárðarbunga volcano. Total number of earthquakes in that same time period is 286 earthquakes (when this is written). Since yesterday it appears that earthquake activity is increasing in Bárðarbunga volcano at the moment, there is minor fluctuation in activity every few hours. I do not know why that is happening.

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Green stars are earthquakes larger than magnitude 3,0. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Most of the earthquake activity is taking place in North-east part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. Few to no earthquakes are happening in the centre of the caldera. Currently the caldera continues to lower around 30 – 40cm/day according to latest news from Icelandic Met Office. Far as I know the eruption in Holuhraun continues at the same rate as yesterday with no major change taking place. Some minor earthquake activity has been taking place along the dyke for the past 48 hours. Other then this I don’t have heard any other news about current status. I am currently looking into few details about what might be happening, but I am as always waiting to see what nature does next.

Added: I forgot to mention that Holuhraun lava field is now 63 square kilometres in size. It doesn’t grow in size today as fast as it used to do. It might however be adding volume rather then size at the moment, with occasional break in the lava rim allowing it to expand slowly.

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Other: Next week I move to a different schedule since current phase is not changing a lot between days. This means that updates are going to be on following days. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Unless there is something new happening then I am going to update right away with newest information. I never know what is going to happen so I don’t keep tight schedule on updates.

Article updated at 22:51 UTC.

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Bárðarbunga volcano Monday update on 20-October-2014

I am sorry for this late update. I was working on my server computer. More details at the end of this article.

Overview of weekend (18 – 19-October-2014) activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

Strongest earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano during the weekend had the magnitude of 5,4, second largest earthquake that took place during the weekend had the magnitude of 5,2. Other earthquakes have been smaller. Eruption in Holuhraun continued as it has been doing so for the past 1,9 month. During the weekend the new lava field in Holuhraun became the biggest in Iceland for the past 200 years. Other then this, nothing major did happen far as I know.

Monday 20-October-2014 activity update

Earthquake activity has been in high today, compared to yesterday (19-October-2014). Strongest earthquake had the magnitude of 5,0 and the second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,8. Other earthquakes where smaller, but a lot of magnitude 3,0 and 4,0 have happened today. Earthquake activity along the dyke has been increasing again after few quiet days.

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Earthquake activity today in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The lava field in Holuhraun continues to grow and is now around 61 square kilometres in size. That is an (my own estimate) around 0,9 km² of lava in the Holuhraun area. Making this the largest eruption in Iceland for the past 200 years and it just keeps going on. The 16-October-2014 marked two month anniversary of start of the activity in Bárðarbunga volcano, it is going to be two months since the eruption started on 29-August-2014. The first eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano happened on 23-August-2014 and happened under the glacier, that eruption ended the same day. Other then what I report here, I don’t think there is nothing else to report about the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Notes about Bárðarbunga volcano

Please note that there is no evidence of felsic or intermediate magma in Bárðarbunga volcano. It is all just Ultramafic magma that is now erupting. For more details on magma please click here (Wikipedia). The glacier inside the caldera is moving down with the caldera. There is no evidence of any eruption taking place inside the caldera so far. It might happen in the future (and the wait might not be long), so far it just has not happened yet. There is a chance of hydrothermal activity taking place in Bárðarbunga volcano due the magma warning up the crust, that is however only of the magma is shallow as 1 – 2 km deep in the crust.

FreeBSD server

The reason why I didn’t update last weekend and late today is that I was trying to move my server from FreeBSD to Gentoo Linux. That did not work. What my server does is few things. Among the thing that my server does is to count earthquakes in Iceland like this image shows.

teljari.21.10.2014
Image of the mrtg counter script for earthquakes. This image is released under Creative Commons, see CC Licence page for more details. Mrtg is a open source software.

It also runs my Minecraft server. I Play that game since I don’t play many games now. Both due to lack of time and interest. I play the game with my friends at times, when we have time to do so.

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Lava in Minecraft. It doesn’t create lava fields. I guess that would be bad if it did that. Copyright of artwork belongs to Mojang and / or Microsoft. I took the image from the game using it screenshot function.

It is important for me to keep the earthquake counter running when I can do so. I also have to have my Minecraft server up and running so I can play when I have time to do so.

Article updated at 02:07 UTC.