Category: Mountain

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Bárðarbunga daily update 25-September-2014

This is the current status of Bárðarbunga volcano at 21:42 UTC. This information might go outdated quickly.

  • Eruption continues in Holuhraun and shows no signs of stopping. The lava field is now larger than 40 square km. I don’t have the exact number for today.
  • Subsidence continues in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. Please note that the glacier on top of the caldera moves down along with it. Cracks in the glacier have been created due the earthquake activity that is taking place. There has not been any eruption so far in the caldera. That might change one day without warning.
  • Largest earthquake today took place at 05:00 UTC and had the magnitude of 5,2. Second largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 5,0 and took place at 16:35 UTC. Other earthquakes have been smaller.
  • Earthquake activity continues to increase in the dyke. Suggesting that pressure is increasing in the dyke at fast phase. This means there is high risk of new eruptions both under the glacier and outside it.
  • Weather is going to be bad in Iceland for the next day or so, observations are going to be difficult due that.
  • Bárðarbunga volcano continues to drop around 50cm/day.
  • No other reports are for today at present time.

Earthquake activity along the dyke

The earthquake activity along the dyke continues, as can be clearly seen on this image here from Icelandic Met Office. It is moving south suggesting that current eruption in Holuhraun is not big enough for the inflow of magma that is taking place from depth. This also means some pressure built up inside the magma chamber and that might lead to eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano or in its caldera. Such eruption would happen without warning.

140925_2120
Earthquake activity moving along the dyke towards Bárðarbunga volcano as pressure increases. There is also considerable earthquake activity under the Holuhraun eruption. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

If anything major happens I am going to post update soon as I can.

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Bárðarbunga daily update 24-September-2014

This information is going to get outdated quickly.

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano at 21:47 UTC

  • Eruption in Holuhraun continues at the same phase as yesterday. There is however just one or two crater erupting at the moment. New crater might open without warning if anything changes.
  • The lava field is now around 40 square km in size. It is now second largest lava field in Iceland at the moment. Largest lava field did come from Hekla volcano in 1947 in 13 month long eruption. It is expected if anything changes that Holuhraun lava field is going to reach 80 square km size in about two weeks (or one and a half) time.
  • Largest earthquake since midnight had the magnitude 5,2. Other earthquakes today have been smaller in magnitude.
  • Bárðarbunga caldera continues to subside around 50cm/day. Total subside is now around 27 meters.
  • The lava field is going over a path that has been used by geologist to get to the eruption. The path in question is called Gæsavatnaleið. At last check that lava field had around 200 meters until it was going to go over the road and close it permanently.
  • Earthquake activity is increasing in the dyke. This suggest that pressure is increasing inside the dyke. This also means there is high risk of an eruption in new location in the dyke, inducing under the glacier with everything that follows it (glacier flood, volcano ash and so on).
  • If eruption happens under the glacier the harmonic tremor is going to jump up and glacier flood is going to be visible soon after that. Depending on where the water is flowing under the glacier.
  • No major change has taken place today.

Other things

I am sorry for this late update today. I got a hardware to watch Icelandic Television in Denmark over the internet (IPTV). But the video kept freezing and it took a while to figure that out. Turns out the problem is my current router, it just can’t handle the traffic. So I had to get a new router that did cost me 103,78€. The new router is going to solve this problem for good. The last router that I did buy did cost me 25€, I had to buy cheap router since I was broke at that time.

Article updated at 22:06 UTC. Corrected numbers about the lava field size.

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Bárðarbunga daily update 23-September-2014

This information is going to get outdated quickly.

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano at 23:03 UTC

  • Largest earthquake from midnight was a magnitude 5,2 that took place at 04:33 UTC. Second largest earthquake today took place at 13:44 UTC and had the magnitude of 4,5. Other earthquakes have been smaller.
  • Bárðarbunga caldera continues to subside at around 50cm/day.
  • No major change has been reported today regarding Holuhraun eruption. That might be due all the geologist being on a convention today in Bifröst University.
  • Harmonic tremor suggest that more magma is flowing into Bárðarbunga volcano system. Increasing the pressure in it. Interestingly this does not appear to have created any inflation in the caldera, at least not any long term inflation is taking place in the caldera. There is less magma erupting from Holuhraun at the moment than is flowing into Bárðarbunga volcano, this is based on current data. It is clear that in new magma is going somewhere, but where is a question with no answer at the moment.
  • GPS data has stopped acting strange. I am not sure why that happened or why GPS data was strange for few days.
  • Harmonic tremor signal at 22:40 suggest a minor eruption did start and stop under the glacier. This was one of minor eruption that have been taking place in Bárðarbunga volcano for the past month. I don’t expect to have broken the glacier. If there is any glacier flood from this minor eruption it is going to small, since I don’t expect large amount of glacier being melted in this minor eruption.
  • Earthquake activity is moving south along the dyke from Bárðarbunga. That is not good since it suggests that pressure has started to increase in the dyke. This means new eruptions might start without warning where the dyke is located.
  • Storm is expected in Iceland tomorrow, with wind up to 35m/s. So detection of earthquakes is going to be difficult while the storm passes over.

Other new items I have not come across today. If anything new happens, I am going to add it here or write a new article if it is big enough event.

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Common questions about Bárðarbunga answered #1

This is my attempt to answer the most common questions about Bárðarbunga volcano. I don’t have time to cover all the questions, so this is just the most common questions that I have seen on this website. Along with few questions that people who are not into geology might want to know the answers too.

Bárðarbunga volcano common questions answered

Why is Bárðarbunga erupting?

This is part of the natural process in Iceland. Since Iceland is on a Mid-Atlantic ridge (MAR) [Mid-Atlantic Ridge]. The drift is 2,5cm/year, but it doesn’t happen evenly over the ridge and it happens in jumps. So over a period of 200 – 700 years nothing happens, until one day the process start and the ground starts opening up and eruption cycle starts that might last for years. That is what happened in Bárðarbunga on 16-August-2014. Day before (15-August-2015) there was nothing suggesting to anyone that an eruption was about to start.

Is the eruption dangerous?

Yes and No. It depends on what it does and what happens. Today it is not dangerous to anything when it comes to lava flows since nothing exists where the eruption is taking place. Since the eruption is taking place in a desert in Iceland, where nothing grows or lives. Most danger at the present time is the SO2 gas, CO and CO2 gas from the eruption. Mostly SO2 since it goes long distances with the wind and is in high density. It has already created problems for people in Iceland closest to the eruption, even if that is distance of 100 – 200 km.

What about eruption under the glacier?

There have already been five (or six) eruption under the glacier since this started on 16-August-2014. None of them were big and did not break up trough the glacier or create large glacier flood. The risk is that new eruption are going to take place under the glacier and are going to create problems due to glacier floods that happen soon after. It is expected that three bridges in north Iceland are going to get lost if an large glacier flood takes place. With large being more than 60,000m³ of water each second (or what they use to calculate that type of flood). In south Iceland there is risk to dams, electric infrastructure, roads, bridges and other things in the path of the glacier flood. Glacier floods are expected to go at least two ways from the glacier in the worst case.

Is it possible to predict when next eruption happens?

No. It is not. We at best get a warning with earthquakes some hour at best before it. But as this eruption has shown, that is not always the case along the dyke.

How long is the dyke?

From start to end the dyke is around 45 km long, most of it is under a glacier. It is also creating rift valley above it. That rift valley is going to be filled with new magma as the time goes on. That might not happen in this eruption cycle.

How long is this going to last?

We don’t know for sure. At that shortest some months, at the longest for the next decade or so.

Is this eruption going to create an ash cloud?

Yes, it might. Eruption under the glacier is going to create ash cloud. How big and how high it is going to be depends on the energy of the eruption and where it goes depends on the wind.

Is it going to create a flight chaos as happened with Eyjafjallajökull in 2010?

No, that is unlikely to happen. While disruptions should be expected once an eruption starts under the glacier that appears to be powerful enough to break trough the glacier. The volcano ash from Bárðarbunga volcano is going to be different, since the magma is basalt, it is going to explode on contact with water, creating volcano. No lava is not going to be erupting while water gets into the erupting craters. This also means that the volcano ash that forms is larger and heavier as result. That means it doesn’t stay as long up in the air and does not go long distances.

What is happening to the caldera?

The caldera in Bárðarbunga volcano is collapsing. The older caldera is collapsing into a new caldera. This process seems to be independent of the rifting that is now taking place in the north zone of the Eastern Volcanic Zone (EVZ) in Iceland. For image of the rift zones in Iceland click here. Science paper on the rift zones can be found here.

The caldera is collapsing because a weakness has formed in the magma chamber. This process started some time ago, since I don’t think it is a new one. But the end process seems to be taking place now. The caldera is going to stay up for as long there is magma holding it up. It is not possible to know when the caldera is going to collapse. All we know is that it is going to take place. When and how is not something we know and that might be a problem.

Is it possible to go there?

No, it is not possible to go there. The area is closed for public traffic and for a good reason. The lava is full of dangerous gases that can kill in few moments. Wind can change and bring those gases to people without warning. What is possible is to rent an air plane to fly over the area, that is expensive and not everyone can afford it. When the eruption ends the area is going to be opened up, then it is going to be possible to check out the lava field, if anything is going to be visible after the glacier floods that might take place in this area if an major eruption takes place under the glacier.

What is a fissure eruption?

Fissure eruption is an eruption that happens along a rift in the crust. Often there is a dyke feeding it, as is the case with current Bárðarbunga volcano eruption. The dyke from Bárðarbunga volcano is 45 km long and eruptions can happen along it all the way up the main volcano. After a while, the fissure eruption often ends with just one or two crater erupting. This is now taking place in Holuhraun eruption. That is also increasing the risk of new fissures opening up without warning, both close to the current eruption site and along the 45 km long dyke.

What type of magma is erupting?

Bárðarbunga volcano is erupting magma called Basalt. That means it flows easily and is not explosive. This type of magma only gets explosive when it comes into contact with glacier or water (lakes, oceans, rivers and ground water). More informations about what types of magma that exist can be found in the link below.

Types of magma
Hawaiian eruption
Magma

Short answers about the website

How many people run this website?

It’s just me. One person.

Does it take long to work on it?

Yes. I work on it for up to 10 hours a day this past month due to the eruption in Bárðarbunga. I am always checking for new data and checking what the news says for new information. I can take me up to 6 hours to write a long article, since there is eruption taking place now and information change quickly I try to write everything that I need to write down in about one hour. This article for example has taken me around three hours to write since I started writing it (with some dinner breaks).

Why do updates take so long to appear?

I like to check the data and the news for new information. Since it takes time for me to find and check that information I often cannot update until late in the evening. I update quickly as I can if a new eruption starts or if a large earthquake takes place.

How do you fund this?

With donations, Amazon Advertisements and out of my own pocket. I only have at current just social welfare from Iceland, it is small and so small that I can at times hardly pay my bills here in Denmark.

Is is possible to support your work?

Yes. Use the PayPal button. If you don’t want to use PayPal you can support me directly with a bank transfer. Information for that can be found here.

You have your own seismometers?

I don’t have seismometers as such. What I got is called geophone. It is not as sophisticated as seismometer, it gets the job done for me and that is good enough. I plan on one day to buy a Volksmeter, they are however expensive and cost $1995 for dual channel one. My geophone website can be found here. I have been running geophones in Iceland since 2006 when I started my first one in Hvammstangi, Iceland.

What software are you using?

For the moment I am using WinSDR and Winquake for my earthquake recordings. WinSDR comes with the geophone and so did WinQuake since I was buying the hardware. More details can be found here, both on hardware and software. I plan moving to FreeBSD solution once I have learned to program my own software for this. I am going to do so when I am in Iceland. I don’t expect to have anything else to do (besides monitoring eruptions taking place and writing few books and learning German, Portuguese and Spanish).

How long are you going to continue to run your geophone?

I don’t know. I know that I can do so forever. I have already closed down Eyrarbakki geophone station and Skeiðflöt geophone station since the people hosting them where unable to do so any longer. I always have one geophone with me where I live. So I am always going to have one running, along with possible long period seismometers that I might buy at later day.

Are you in Iceland?

No, at the moment I live in Denmark. I am going to move back to Iceland in December for a short period (I hope) since I can’t afford living in Denmark on my social welfare from Iceland. I don’t know for how long I am going to stay there. I don’t expect to last there due to culture issue that I am having, even if I am born in Iceland. I am considering moving to Flores, Azores Island [to Santa Cruz das Flores] next time (the Island is a volcano and on the mid-Atlantic ridge). Even if living there is in technical aspects of it out in the middle of nowhere. I just need to have the income to live there and at the moment I don’t have it. When that is going to happen is something I don’t know at the moment.

Can I use what you write here?

Yes, you can. The only requirement is that you provide link to the source material. Since this website is under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. This however does not apply to comments and images that I don’t own. More details can be found here on how to share this website properly and in accordance with the licence that I use for it.

Article updated at 20:41 UTC.
Article updated at 21:02 UTC.

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Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 22-September-2014

This information is going to get outdated quickly.

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano at 14:47 UTC

  • The largest earthquake so far is magnitude 4,8 in Bárðarbunga caldera. There is however continued activity in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera so this number is going to change as the day goes on.
  • The eruption in Holuhraun does not show any signs of ending any time soon. The lava field is now around 37 square km in size. It is growing in size every hour. There is no sign of less production of lava coming from the active craters in Holuhraun. The lava field is not getting longer, it is getting wider instead. Since the lava does not have energy to get any further then it already has.
  • There is continued risk of new eruptions in Holuhraun and south of it, including under the glacier.
  • According to Ármann Höskuldsson geologist at University of Iceland both Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in 2010 (information here, Wikipedia) and Grímsfjall volcano eruption in 2011 (information here, Wikipedia) were smaller then current eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano and connected events.
  • It is expected that eruption is going to start in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. When is not known.
  • Bárðarbunga volcano caldera continues to subside at the same rate as before, that rate is currently 50cm/day.
  • More magma is flowing into Bárðarbunga volcano from depth (more than 10 km deep source). It is clear that current eruption and earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is going to continue for months at shortest. This might go on for years at the longest. With minor breaks as often happen in fissure eruptions.
  • On 1-October-2014 the eruption in Holuhraun has been ongoing for one month.

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano at 20:24 UTC

  • There has not been any major changes since earlier today. At 13:36 UTC a magnitude 4,7 earthquake took place. Other earthquakes so have been smaller.
  • There was (or is) a quiet period for the past few hours. This might be because more magma is flowing into the magma chamber of Bárðarbunga volcano. Increasing the pressure and at the same time creating fewer earthquakes. That might change at any time without warning.

Update at 23:13 UTC

  • The lava field at Holuhraun is now 0.5 km³. It is now the second largest lava field in Iceland during the past 150 years. Only Hekla lava field from 1947 is larger at the moment, it is 0.8 km³ in size. If the Holuhraun eruption continues as it has, it is going to get Hekla lava field size in about two weeks.

If anything new happens I am going to add that information here.

Article updated at 20:25 UTC on 22-September-2014.
Article updated at 23:13 UTC on 22-September-2014.

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Daily Bárðarbunga volcano update on 18-September-2014

This information is going to get outdated quickly.

Current status on Bárðarbunga volcano at 20:36 UTC

  • Largest earthquakes in Bárðarbunga yesterday (17-September-2014) was a magnitude 5,2. Largest earthquake today (18-September-2014) was a magnitude 5,3. Other earthquakes have been smaller.
  • Bárðarbunga volcano caldera continues to drop. When the magnitude 5,3 earthquake happened today at 14:21 UTC the caldera dropped 20 – 30 cm.
  • GPS data (more GPS data can be found here) suggest to me that the dyke at Vonarskarð might be getting ready to erupt or getting re-activated. It formed in the first two weeks when current activity started in Bárðarbunga volcano on 16-August-2014. It is already there, it however failed to start an eruption, but as I say, it might be getting ready to get active again. This has been followed by some minor earthquake activity. There is however a more complicated picture into this. The details can be found later in this article. [Please note that due to licensing issues I only link to the GPS data. This means that data on the link is going to get updated in next few hours and are going to look different from what I have written about them now.]
  • The eruption in Holuhraun continues as before. There has not been any view of the eruption for the past two days due to fog. So I don’t know for sure what is happening there.

Harmonic tremor data

I can see two things in the harmonic tremor data. The pressure is increasing in Bárðarbunga volcano system. I am also seeing pulses of harmonic tremor and that is not good. It means that magma has somewhere found a path to the surface, it just isn’t there yet, but it is working way up. It is impossible to know if this magma gets all the way up or not. Small eruptions are also not impossible, since there signature might simply be lost in the noise on the tremor plots that I am using from Icelandic Met Office.

dyn.svd.18.09.2014.at.19.46.utc
Tremor in Dyngjuháls SIL station. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

von.svd.18.09.2014.at.19.46.utc
Tremor on Vonaskarð SIL station. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

skr.svd.18.09.2014.at.20.03.utc
Harmonic tremor as it appears on Skrokkalda SIL station. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

grf.svd.18.09.2014.at.20.03.utc
Harmonic tremor on Grímsfjall SIL station. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Current status on the cauldrons

According to the news that I have heard some of the cauldrons that are in Dyngjujökull (south of Holuhraun) are still getting deeper. This suggest that there is still a lot of warm under the glacier that is melting the glacier. No glacier flood has happened due this. I don’t know if any new cauldrons have formed in recent days. Most of the cauldrons are located above the dyke, few are located above Bárðarbunga volcan in its slopes.

Tungafellsjökull volcano

I am seeing in the GPS data that Tungafellsjökull volcano might be getting more magma inflow. Since it appears to be inflating. This has not been confirmed so far. Currently there is nothing to suggest that Tungafellsjökull volcano is going to erupt at this point in time. It might simply be responding to the all the noise that Bárðarbunga is making at the moment, along with stress changes in the crust. If it erupts, it would be first documented eruption in the past 8000 years at least (maybe longer).

Next update is going to be tomorrow or sooner if anything major happens. It is possible to watch my webicorders here. They are updated every 5 min.

Article updated at 21:05 UTC.
Article updated at 21:14 UTC.

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Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 17-September-2014

This information is going to go outdated quickly.

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano at 16:36 UTC

  • The largest earthquake in past 24 hours took place yesterday (16-September-2014) at 21:34 UTC. It had the magnitude of 5,4. The largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 3,3 so far. This might change without warning.
  • Lava continues to flow out of the main crater in Holuhraun. The eruption is diminishing for the moment. That might change without warning if an new fissure opens up in the current eruption area, or in the glacier south of it. River of lava has been observed from the main erupting crater. Smaller craters that have stopped erupting are just emitting gas, two of three of the craters that have stopped erupting have lava lake in them at present time (latest report).
  • GPS data over the past few days suggest that magma flow into Bárðarbunga volcano is changing. I don’t think this is a good news. At the moment it is unclear what this means for current eruption and what is happening in the volcano.
  • Bárðarbunga volcano caldera continues to drop around 50cm/day at current rate. That is slightly slower than when it was dropping at the rate of 90cm/day about week ago.
  • Risk of eruptions under the glacier remains high and it is highly likely that eruptions might have happened under the glacier without anyone noticing them on the surface.
  • No major changes have taken place in glacier rivers that come from Bárðarbunga volcano area. Both when it comes to conductivity of water in the glacier rivers and amount of water in them.
  • There is currently no visibility to the eruption in Holuhraun due to thick fog in the area. I don’t know when the weather is going to clear up.
  • More magma continues to flow into the dyke than is erupting from it according to latests observations. This increases the risk of new eruption taking place along the dyke without warning.

Progress of the current activity

The eruption is happening in two parts in my view. The first part is the rifting episode that has now started in Bárðarbunga volcano fissure swarm. The rifting is going to happen in jumps with quiet period between them and the crust is going to crack or open up when that happens. This rifting has started in the northern part of Bárðarbunga fissure system. It has not yet started in the south part of the fissure, where features like Tröllagígar are (Tröllagíar crater row) exist. They erupted in the years 1862 – 1864. That magma that came up there closely resembles the magma that is now erupting in Holuhraun.

The second event that is happening is the collapse of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. I now think that is an separate event in it self. Something must have happened in the volcano during past period of activity in 19th century that started this collapse, even if it did not start full force until current eruption episode. The caldera collapse is not going to stop the rifting process, that is going to run it course of the next few years (3 – 5 years is my best estimate now). This collapse is however going to make bad situation worse since when the collapse happens it is going to be a major problem for the local area. Since the area south of Bárðarbunga also has several hydro-dams that are in risk of some major damage, not just from fissure eruptions but also from glacier floods when they happen. In glacier floods triggered by eruption contain a lot more than just water. Glacier floods contains fragment of the glacier, many up to several meters high (20 – 60 meters high should be expected), mud, glacier clay, rocks, volcano material of all types, gases and several other things that I don’t know what are.

Current status at 18:45 UTC.

  • Bárðarbunga volcano has dropped 25 meters according to measurements taking today by University of Iceland and Icelandic Met Office. The speed of the drop in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera has slowed down from what it was about a week ago.
  • Currently the dyke from Bárðarbunga volcano is not expanding. Scientists are also not sure now how much lava has erupted at current time.

Current status at 23:56 UTC

  • There seems to be quiet period in the rifting episode at the moment. Along with general quiet period in Bárðarbunga volcano. It does not mean this is over, the eruption in Holuhraun continues and I continue to see harmonic tremor spikes taking place. I don’t know what the harmonic tremor spikes mean yet.
  • Largest earthquakes now have the magnitude of 4,1 (at 22:51 UTC) and magnitude 3,2 earthquake at 22:28 UTC.

Article updated at 16:56 UTC. Minor fixes that I needed to do on the text.
Article updated at 18:45 UTC.
Article updated at 18:48 UTC.
Article updated at 23:56 UTC.

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Daily update on Bárðarbunga volcano, 15-September-2014

This information is going to get outdated quickly.

Current status at 12:59 UTC

  • Largest earthquake so far is a magnitude 5,4 that took place at 08:04 UTC.
  • Caldera has so far dropped 45 cm of today. Largest drop took place during the magnitude 5,4 earthquake and that lowering continued for two to three hours after the earthquake.
  • Eruption in Holuhraun continues at similar rate as yesterday (14-September-2014). Now it is mostly one crater that is erupting. The flow of lava is also not powerful enough to cross the river. So now it is spreading out from the central crater in all directions.
  • Earthquake activity has been moving south along the dyke. This means there is higher risk for earthquake eruptions under the glacier. There have been several minor eruptions under the glacier already.

Current status at 20:51 UTC

  • New vent has opened up south of current eruption. I can’t tell from Míla web cameras if this is a new vent or just old vent getting active again.
  • Most of the eruption continues in the central crater at the moment.
  • The rifting phase of the activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is going to take months to finish. In that time there are going to be more earthquakes and more fissure eruptions. There is also high risk of new dyke intrusions going into other directions from Bárðarbunga volcano.
  • If the Holuhraun eruption ends, a new one is going to start soon after in different place of that dyke. It might be on glacier free area or under the glacier. There is no way of knowing that for sure.

Still more on comments

If anyone sees a comment that might be a spam comment that has gotten trough my filter. Please let me know about it so I can remove them. I have removed several comments that I regard as spam on closer inspection. Please keep all political discussions to your self. There is plenty of space elsewhere on the internet for such discussion. This is not the website for such talk.

Article updated at 20:51 UTC.

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What to expect from Bárðarbunga volcano

I am writing this now, since I might not have time to do so on Monday. Updates are going to continue to go here until Monday. Unless something major happens.

The collapse of Bárðarbunga volcano

The collapse of Bárðarbunga volcano has already started. The caldera collapse in Bárðarbunga volcano started on 16-August-2014 and has been going on since then. Here is what I am expecting from the caldera collapse once it reaches its peak.

  • There are going to be earthquakes in the range of 5,5 and up to 6,7. Maybe larger if the crust can handle it.
  • Glacier flood are going to go south-west and north (Húsavík area) and possibly in other directions. I am expecting damage to hydrothermal plants in the pathway of the floods. How much damage there is going to be depends on the magnitude of the flood and the path it takes.
  • I am expecting long periods of no power in parts of Iceland once the flood has passed. I am also expecting lack of communications in large areas of Iceland. This is why Rúv has been telling people to get long-wave radios for the past few days. Usage of mobile network is also going to be unreliable in large parts of Iceland once the collapse starts full force in Bárðarbunga volcano. Due to damage that glacier floods are going to create.
  • I am expecting an ash cloud that might go up to 20 km or higher up in the atmosphere. It is however impossible to know for sure what happens until this starts.
  • It is difficult to know fore sure how much drop is going to take place, but it can be up to many hundreds of meters.
  • I fear that north slope of Bárðarbunga might collapse forward once this starts. Earthquakes in the area give clues about weakness forming there.

Bárðarbunga volcano is 2009 meters high above the ocean. This means there is a lot of material that is going to blow outwards once the collapse starts full force. This is might be one of largest eruptions in Iceland since it got populated more than one thousands years ago. I am hoping that the picture that I am drawing up is not as bad the reality once this starts. I am also hoping that no loss of life is going to happen. I am hoping for the best in this case, but the clues that I am getting are no good at all.

Posted on

Current status on Bárðarbunga volcano at 19:30 UTC

This information is going to get outdated quickly.

Current status on Bárðarbunga volcano

  • There are now two lava lakes (at least) in the fissure that has been erupting in Holuhraun. The eruption has not yet stopped, but it is less powerful but the flow of magma from the craters has not slowed down based on latest observations.
  • Bárðarbunga caldera is getting lower by 80 cm/day according to GPS measurements and other measurements that have been made. Total drop in the caldera so far is 21 meter. Cracks have started to form in the glacier that fills the caldera. Normally there are no cracks in that glacier. Most of the cracks are in the central caldera.
  • More magma is flowing into the dyke than out of it. Eruption has not yet increased yet, this also increases the risk of new eruptions along the dyke.
  • The central crater in the eruption continues to erupt, other craters have mostly stopped erupting and several of them are just emitting gas now.
  • Largest earthquake since midnight was a magnitude 4,7 at 09:32 UTC.
  • The lava field continues to flow into Jökulsá á Fjöllum glacier river. It is slowly blocking it, some explosions might take place, but due to the thickness of the lava that does not seem to happen often.
  • SO2 pollution is a big problem now in parts of East Iceland. The pollution goes depending on wind, so for the moment it is East Iceland that is having this issue.
  • GPS data shows that inflation continues in the dyke. This is because more magma is flowing into it than erupting from as I did mention above.

Icelandic Government preparing for major eruption

It seems that Icelandic government has started to prepare for major eruption in Iceland. This is evident when they put up a banner like this on Rúv website.

langbylgja.information.svd.12.09.2014
Rúv radio blackout alert banner due to an eruption at the bottom of this image. Screen-shot of Rúv.is website.

When the national radio of Iceland sets up a image like that. I take it as they know that things are bad in Bárðarbunga volcano. Same way as I know it. The website in question that the banner connects to can be found here, it has English text.

Updates 12-September-2014

  • The amount of SO2 in Reyðarfirði has now around 4000 µg/m³ (at 22:45 UTC). People in that village and nearby area advised to stay indoors and don’t go outside.
  • The largest crater in Holuhraun is now getting close to being 70 meters high.

Updates 13-September-2014

  • Largest earthquake since midnight was a magnitude 4,9 earthquake at 07:58 UTC. At that same time the caldera dropped 25 cm according to news on Rúv.
  • GPS stations show fast movements around Bárðarbunga  volcano. This means the current activity is far from over, even there has been a minor drop in activity at the moment.
  • Instability in Bárðarbunga volcano continues to increase.
  • There appears to be a fast inflation in Grímsfjall volcano. It is unclear why this is happening, but it might be due to influence from Bárðarbunga volcano. The sudden inflation in Grímsfjall volcano appears clearly on GPS measurement that are being done on top of the volcano. This might not lead to an eruption, since Grímsfjall volcano can take a lot of magma into its system. The eruption that took place in 2011 was the largest one in at least 140 years. Turns out this was just snow on the GPS antenna. So this is false alarm when it comes to Grímsfjall volcano.
  • Dangerous levels of SO2 are problem in eastern Iceland and where the wind blows it. Gas at the eruption site is also huge risk to anyone working in close proximity to the eruption site. It is also blocking the view to the eruption at Míla cams, along with dust storm that appears to be taking place now due to wind.
  • The eruption at Holuhraun is about the same as yesterday (12-September-2014).
  • The eruption is now confined mostly to the main crater in the fissure. Other craters have stopped erupting currently. That might change without warning.

Updates 14-September-2014

  • The eruption in Holuhraun seems to be ending. During the day the power of the eruption has dropped. The largest central crater is still erupting, but at a lot less power than yesterday and on 12-September-2014. Eruption has stopped in smaller craters in the eruption fissure.
  • The lava has stopped moving forward into Jökulsá á Fjöllum. It no longer has the energy to progress into the glacier river. New fields of lava are forming closer to the crater that continues to erupt.
  • Largest earthquake today (when this is written) is a magnitude 5,3 earthquake that took place at 14:06 UTC. Second largest earthquake today was a magnitude 4,0 earthquake that took place at 06:54 UTC.
  • The caldera continues to drop. Since this activity has continued to total drop is now 23 meters according to latest measurements (from yesterday). Most drop is taking place in north-east part of the caldera. More information can be found here, text is in Icelandic.
  • Harmonic tremor suggest that the pressure is increasing in Bárðarbunga volcano again. There is also high chance of small eruptions taking place under the glacier.
  • There is no rapid inflation taking place in Grímsfjall volcano. GPS signal got distorted by snow or ice on the GPS antenna.

News bits 12-September-2014

Stærsti gígurinn í Holuhrauni að ná 70 metra hæð og fer stækkandi (Vísir.is, video, Icelandic)

News bits 13-September-2014

“Like breathing from the exhaust pipe” (Rúv.is)
Botn Bárðarbunguöskju seig um 25 sm (Rúv.is, Icelandic)

Other

This is shorter updated today due to there has not been a lot of change since yesterday and it is Friday.

More on comments

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Article updated at 19:35 UTC on 12-September-2014.
Article updated at 22:56 UTC on 12-September-2014.
Article updated at 14:54 UTC on 13-September-2014.
Article updated at 22:33 UTC on 13-September-2014.
Article updated at 02:53 UTC on 14-September-2014.
Article updated at 18:17 UTC on 14-September-2014.
Article updated at 18:28 UTC on 14-September-2014.