Posted on by Jón Frímann

Krísuvík volcano starts to inflate at fast rate

There is currently no shortage of volcano news coming from Iceland at this moment. The newest volcano to make the news is the Krísuvík volcano. Small area of Krísuvík volcano have been inflating during the last few months with following micro-earthquakes swarms in the area where the inflation takes place. This process started last year (2009). But then the inflation was 30mm (3 centimeters). But last winter a process of deflation started and lasted until early spring this year (2010). But then it started to inflate again. I am assuming that the current levels of inflation is something similar to the inflation that was seen in the year 2009. The area in question is south-west of Kleifarvatn lake.

The inflation is currently taking place on the depth of 3 to 4 km according to geological scientists. This intrusion of magma is also having effects on geothermal features present in the area. But that makes new hot springs and makes current hot springs more active and warmer, it also changes them and often dramatically. It might also create new hot spring areas where no hot springs where before. This inflation process has been followed by a swarms of micro-earthquakes in the area where the inflation is taking place.

According to the news the Icelandic Met Office has alerted the Icelandic Civil Protection Authorities about the changes in this volcano. Two new GPS stations have also been installed in the area to monitor the inflation that is currently taking place. At current time scientists are not expecting a eruption in the area any time soon. But as history has shown that can change without warning and quickly. The authorities and IMO have increased there surveillance in the area due to this inflation. If a eruption takes place the type is going to be a Hawaiian type of eruption, unless a fissure opens up under water or in the ocean. Last eruption that took place in Krísuvík volcano was in the year 1340.

Icelandic news, in Icelandic. Please use Google Translate (at your own risk)

Grannt fylgst með landrisi við Krýsuvík (Vísir.is)
Telja eldgos ekki í uppsiglingu en ástæða að vakta svæðið vel (Víkurfréttir)

Channel 2 news video (flash) about this activity. In Icelandic.

Updated at 23:52 UTC on the 30th of November 2010. News video added and name error fixed.

221 Replies to “Krísuvík volcano starts to inflate at fast rate”

  1. Hi Jon,
    At some point when you have time on your hands (Ha! :)) would it be possible to include a map of iceland and its volcanoes for handy reference?

  2. Looking at the GPS time series on this page

    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/gps/cts/siszaeq.html

    There is inflation at the VOG site but not really much more than any other spot. This is the closest to Krísuvík that I have found.

    What does stand out is the ISAK site which has grown much more over the period of time.

    When looking at all postions out to the Vatna area, they all seem to be inflating at a significant rate.

    I am wondering if there is any insight into how much of this is magma related or due to other forces at work?

    Since the shrinkage of the glaciers on the island, is there a contribution from isostatic rebound?

    I am beginning the plans for a June/July visit to tour sites on the island and it would be great if there was an active SMALL fissure eruption to go see….I am not wishing anything too big

    1. Let me just say that isostatics are just accountable for a very small percentage of the uplift. Probably the smallest part of all. In scandinavia the uplift after the last ice-age has been a continous 0,6 to 1,0 centimetres annually and then we are talking about a hell of a lot more ice. In this case I would guess it is responsible for a couple of millimetres annually.

      The constant uplift of entire iceland is due to heat from the hotspot inflating Iceland like a hot air balloon and is very easy to spot on this GPS-plot of all icelandic stations. (Just deduct the average number of this plot and you will get the actual inflation of for instance Vatnajökull-area).
      http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/gps/cts/HM61allallaeq.html

      The average uplift of central and eastern iceland is 20mm annually.

  6. I would love to see an eruption take place at Krisuvik. I wish something would have happened when I was stationed there in 96-98. The area is simply amazing. Inflate baby, INFLATE!!!!

    2. No a very great idea. Krysuvik is only about 8-10km away from Hafnafjördur and another few more kilometers from Reykjavik. This is a densely populated area. It is also only some 25-30km away from the international airport in Keflavik.

    1. This is just the earthquake swarm that started today. But it appears to be growing bigger in number of earthquakes. But in the last hour or so there has been a increase in earthquake according to my automatic counter. Majority of those earthquakes taking place at Krísuvík volcano.

      2. Remember he is a true icelander, they go to bed every night surprised that no large catastrophe has happened during the day, but still content that it will be a new day tomorrow when it can happen.

        A Finn would just be convinced that he would die a horrible death during sleep, so he downs a litre of Koskenkorva and sleeps well.

        A Swede would be afraid of pulling his gluteus in the morning while putting on a sock, so he will lay sleepless in the night fearing tomorrows ass-pains.

      4. A true Finn would not care, as he’ll/she’ll know one thing: Would the end-of-world come, they’ll go to Heaven where only Finnish is to be spoken!

  9. Since we have been joking about unpronounciable volcanos that nobody has guessed about going off…
    Þeistareykjarbunga just had a quake 🙂
    Tuesday
    30.11.2010 19:40:26 65.862 -16.982 4.0 km 1.2 90.01 1.9 km SW of Þeistareykir

    It is mostly known for having the record of lowest VEI-number compared to volume of lava ejected. 1.8 x 10 to the power of ten m3, on a VEI-0. And that is more ejecta being thrust out than both Veidivötn, Laki and Eldgja together. On a VEI-0… Cheezh… I loath the VEI-scale now.

  10. 1.8 x 10^10 m^3 = 18 cubic kilometres. “Only”. You must have misread a zero somewhere, Carl! 😉 Then again, the Siberian traps were responsible for ~ 4 x 10^6 km3 (Masaitis 1983) over a period of 1 -1½ million years, which gives an average of no more than ~2½ – 4 cubic km per year which is not terribly impressive.

    1. 2.5 x 10^9 m3 (Veidivötn)
      5 x 10^9 m3 (Eldgja)
      1.5 ± 0.2 x 10^10 m3 (Laki)
      And that actually makes it a tie between those 3 and Þeistareykjarbunga 🙂
      Actually the lava volume seems to have been 30 cubic kilometres since that is the size of the shield volcano that was built in that one go.

      But it is probably not ready to go this soon. Seems like it likes to rest for 6000 years between the boppings.

      Sometimes it feels silly to talk about volcanos in Iceland, the entire place seems like one from time to time.

      I have actually wondered about those traps. What would an average be of the lava in iceland during the last million years? I wouldn’t be surprised if it would come to those figures of the Siberian trap.

      1. Iceland, surface area 103,001 km^2. Double that to take suboceanic continentlet extent into account, ~200,000 km^2. Average depth of crust greater than average oceanic bottom, ~20km. Net volume 4,000,000 km^3, or equal to the Masaitis 1983 estimate of original extent of Siberian traps before erosion.

        If that’s Iceland, what about Greenland? Surely it must be the greatest LIP on Earth?

      2. Just remember to deduct the 80 metres that the hotspot inflates iceland and you should have it…
        If I remember correctly parts of Greenland where never under the hotspot, but how much and so on I have no clue about. The other parts where if I remember correctly parts of some other remnants of previous supercontinents.

    1. The 2 – 4Hz spikes are the earthquakes that are currently happening in this location. They appear as spikes on the tremor plot that Icelandic Met Office has.

    2. Those are actually the quake swarms being visible as tremors. If a quake is close or is large enough you can normally see them as spikes in the tremor-plot.
      It is also affecting the lower frequencies to, but the blue overlays green and red, and green overlays red, so it looks like it is only the blue frequency that reacts, ie. and illusion. You can also see the older quake-swarms that has been happening earlier in the plot as spikes.

  12. Is it just me, or did the news-papers find it out when I “broke” the news of the 2 new CGPS-stations that Sigrún had put up? The entire article just breathed a lot of “we didn’t want to tell people just yet”…
    Seems like your blog have become a place for breaking news Jón! 🙂

      1. Might just be a funny coincidence that I found those 2 new CGPSs on Sigrúns homepage earlier.
        It would though be fun to know if the Dike-intrusion that we thought we saw on Lurkings plots is the same they have found on the CGPS-rise plots they have.
        (I wish we could see that data somehow.)

    2. As if all of this isn’t difficult enough to folllow, now I read that there’s another “Sigrún” here? However, thanks to everyone for all of this juicy Icelandic volcano news.

      1. p.s. : Just realized that there’s probably at least 5 “Sigrún’s” here, with it being such a common name. Carry on..

      3. No need for an apology, my “waste of space” comment was the result of lack of sleep. I haven’t registered here yet so I can easily change my id to something like nebel brain or whatever. Time to sleep.

      4. Sleep well and dream about fluffy Icelandic volcanos rumbling you to sleep.

        Nebel Brain? Hm… I think you should stick with Sigrún. After all, as far as I know Sigrún the Volcanologist does not write in here, just sneakily read everything (joking).

      5. O-o-oh! I think it’s only fair to warn Sigrún that where fair Icelandic vulcanologists are concerned, no volcano known to man can rival the inflation rate of Carl. 🙂

      7. @Henrik: “no volcano known to man can rival the inflation rate of Carl. :)”

        This “American Sigrún Necrohag” believes that the “Icelandic Volcanologist Sigrún” is well aware of ol’ Carl being quite the “inflated” bag of wind!

        @Carl: From my very limited (internet only) encounters with Swedish men, I’d have to say that they limit the “sex crazed” activity to pixels on a screen. But you gotta watch out for those karsk guzzling Norwegians because they will actually show up on your doorstep!

      8. Haha!
        Well after all it was the norsemen who raided to the west, and we raided to the east!
        But by rumour todays norsemen are to religious to actually be making the bacon, instead they frances the Beacon.

      9. Interesting point Dr. le Strange but I got some theories and one of ’em is that The Church of Norway is just a front for the Satanic Norske Karsk worshipping berzerkers.

      10. You know that “karsk” means bold and brave?

        One of the more Satanic ritualls they perform is actually drinking herring-oil and eat fiskebö… And that is the least palatable thing on the planet.

      11. “You know that “karsk” means bold and brave?”

        Well, maybe if the Vikings hadn’t mixed up “bold and brave” with alcohol they wouldn’t have been blinded by the “light” of the Xtian invaders. Meaning, they were not stupid (they discovered North America) so they must have just been really drunk during the religious conversions.

      12. Yeah, but so was probably the converters too since they had to make midvinter-blot into Christmas and we got to keap our Midsummer’s eve which is so blatantly pagan that it is silly.
        We even made a penis into a cross, complete with the hanging testicles, driven into the ground in a copulation of the earth. Then we dance around that testicled pole/cross together with our children while drinking schnapps in huge quantities. Later in the evening you can hear the sound of zippers cikadaying in the bushes as we get ready for some action…

        I think it was the christians who got the worse end of it… Not to mention that sweden is a mainly agnostic/atheist country to boot.

        Here is a national geographic movie showing how to celebrate midsummers eve.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I5BGsK5ZAU

      13. That was hilarious le Strange, almost as hilarious as your persistence in trying to convince me of how “religiously” different Swedes are from Norwegians. What is now painfully obvious to me, is “why” the Icelandic people (your brothers and sisters) fled to a actively volcanic island just to get away from the rest of you freaks!

      14. Actually the difference is vast. It is the largest single difference between Swedes and Norwegians.
        Freaks? Rest assured that is about what all scandinavians think when we look across the Atlantic to our old colony Fauvé au Meddows (north america).

    2. I think this is normal. Changes in strain only happen just before or after a earthquake swarm has started in Hekla volcano. At the moment that is not the case. So you might just be over reading about the strain data that you are seeing.

    1. Point being that we might have it in reverse this time.
      This is after all a larger strain-shift than 2000.
      Remember that we a couple of days ago had a strain-fall of 150 before the 0,8 quake 12 hours later.

  15. OK, thanks Jón. I saw where it said at the top of the strain page that weather systems and other factors could leave their mark. I know nothing about these instruments!

    1. Here is a link showing the unusually beautifull weather at Hekla. So it is not weatherinduced. And the strainmeters are auto-corrected for barometric pressure, which is the factor that influences them most.

  16. Thing that might be is a computer-glitch. The shear uniformity kind of indicates a slight possibility for some kind of automated level reset-function.
    If not it will probably have set off a bunch of alarms at Vedurstofa or whatever is the apropriate authority.

  17. This recent activity has a strange feel to it…can’t put my finger on it but something
    is not right or we’re missing a piece of this puzzle. Wierd

  18. Weird? I’m not even sure I got the right Krísuvík.

    “… a group of NE-SW-trending basaltic crater rows and small shield volcanoes cutting the central Reykjanes Peninsula west of Kleifarvatn lake…”

    So, based on that, the lat and long of the swarm on en.vedur.is listed as ‘in the vicinity of’ for Krýsuvík, then extracting what digital terrain I can find, I get this:

    Plan View: http://i52.tinypic.com/334hoiq.png

    View North: http://i52.tinypic.com/10yl5xc.png

    View East: http://i56.tinypic.com/2wd0wg2.png

    And no, it isn’t the sexist plot. IF there is a stack… it’s more of a mound. A lump.

    And the obligatory perspective view… looking North East… sort of.

    http://i54.tinypic.com/30ndxtt.png

    1. Looks correct to me.
      And yes, you’ve gotten the correct Krisúvik as far as I can tell.

      But the thing is that kind of up untill a month ago or so there seemed to be no volcano of Krísúvik.
      I have the nagging feeling that Sigrún (The Volcanist) saw all the action, went on a field trip, found a small hitherto missed volcano, installed the 2 new CGPS-stations and then she quietly inserted the Volcano in the GVP list so that she and all the other volcanologists wouldn’t be strangled if it blows.
      Krísúvik was probably missed sinced it is a small feature close to a bigger one, and it is also hidden among all those bubbly warm mud-thingamabits.
      I’ll bet there are more than one volcano quitly biding it’s time on Iceland that is not spotted yet, and that not counting everything hidden under Jökulls.

      5. Would you be thinking about Rjupnafell and Oldufell (RFEL & OFEL)? Those are both online; bottom row, two on the right.

    2. All plots are sexy, it is just what we find sexy that is questionable 🙂

      After taking a long look…

      I think it is exactly what we should see.
      We have one of your dikes there, and then we have a heck of a lot of small fracturing as the magma creates a new magma reservoir and/or opens up an old one.
      I might be going to far here, but it looks like it is trying to find ways. Nah, that is to “sentient”, it is breaking new pathways according to the laws of least resistence, sometimes going forth, sometimes having to break new paths and so on…
      I think that is why we are seeing the mound-lump. Reservoir-formation, it is not anywhere near yet to break to the surface.

      But I’m known since ancient times (12 o’clock last night) to be spectacularly wrong…

  19. Regarding Hekla:

    Seems as I was partly right, it was a computer glitch…
    Wonder if it scared The Watchers of the Icelandic volcanos as much as it did me. Now the strainmeters are reset again. Seems like a small tensor-shift got multiplied a factor 10 – 100 depending on the tensor-meter.
    Sorry for the scare, even though it was not my computer acting up.

  20. Right now it seems we have more signs of a possible eruption at Hekla, Krisuvik and Esjufjoll than Katla and Grimsvotn. Isn’t that funny? But we never know when will they erupt. I think within the next year, we will have both an eruption from Hekla and one at Vatnajokull.

    1. I totally agree with you, and Vatnajökull is one heck of hedge-bet!
      After all we are talking about Esjufjöll, Öraefajökull, No less then 2 Snaefell, Hamarinn, Grimsfjöll, Bardarbunga and Kverkfjöll (and probably some more hidden under there somewhere).
      But… This is Iceland, some other Volcano could at anytime beat the starting gun and just roar off into the sky.
      I am so hoping for Þeistareykjarbunga since we would have high comedy hearing american news-presenters trying that one 😉

  21. Lurking
    That perspective view is particurly informative. During the Ejafjallajokull EQ swarm ‘Korf ‘ posted a similar 3D plot in which he shadowed the data points on the north and east ‘walls’ and floor of the plot, thus:
    http://666kb.com/i/bhjjgvgx4bayjzvvo.gif
    If Krisuvik livens up you’ll be inundated with requests to see the data in 3D!

    1. I found that a bit confusing to be honest, yes it is aesthetically more pleasing, but harder to read.
      I think I prefer the “normal” Lurking 3D-plots with the surface ontop. In this case it really was good to have the surface, you could easilly see how they missed the “Krísúvik volcano”

      @Lurking:
      Could you spot which part of Krisuvik it is that is active if you crossreference your plots with the GVP-list of features of Krisuvik? And perhaps if it is possible, could you put in some of the larger features ontop of your surface on the 3D-plot? Would make it much more easy to understand then I think.
      But I know it is a tall order…

      1. Sure… as I dig them out the feature positions. I didn’t have much time to look around yesterday.

        As for the shadows on the walls of the plot, I haven’t figured out how to fake that just yet. I’m not even sure that this package can to it. If I did do the drop shadows, it would be to the floor of the plot with a map down there skewed to the appropriate dimensions. It a feature request that I put in to the software author, but it may take a large revision if it ever gets implemented.

      2. Almost drooling with anticipation, or it might be me having a whale of cold stuck up my nose that makes me drool…
        I have been trying to make heads or tails of where the inflation is and what the relation would be to the quake-swarms.

    2. Professor Cobbold, I am indeed delighted to see you returned and hope that you are well! I shall always remember your analogies and imaginative hypothesii; calcium propagation through the cell and magmatic boluses as an explanation of observed Icelandic volcanic behaviour. Your return is timely sir, with several volcanoes showing signs of unrest.

      PS. Have you finally been able to connect via LAN instead of modem?

      2. ‘Fraid not Carl, I’m a cell biologist, interested in oscillatory phenomena- hence I woke up when I saw Eyjaf EQ swarms displaying oscillatory behaviour. Purely amteur interest in Iceland’s geology.

      3. So there is one Professor Peter Cobbold in cell biology, and one geophysicist in mines and oil-wells who came up with the sill-theory?
        Ah, poot, I never seem to have read anything usefull 🙂
        Well, it was a really good paper at least, I highly recommend reading your namesakes article on sills.

      4. Hi Henrik,
        Good to meet up again
        Yes we just joined the 21 century- our own 5Mbps, 8km long daisy-chained point-to-point wireless link (with 180Mbps capacity). So now I shall be able to see the web cams that 28k dial-up denied me.
        Did you read the Nature paper on Ejaf.? Erik’s site showed a schematic figure: the red blob ‘dyke’ is what I focussed on.( my post is #271) ‘Korf”s’ plot identified that seismic structure, but it extends way below the 6km depth cut-off depicted in the nature paper. Why they ignored there own data in reference 18, also showing a deeper extent to it, I dont know…

      5. Looking forward to your interpretation of the quake-plots from under Krísuvík and Herdubreidartögl.
        We have all tried to make heads or tails out of it, but lacking the professional skills to do so. (But wild guessing have been fun.)

    3. Love that “666” Number of the Beast in the url!
      Time to crank the Iron Maiden and tune into Eyjafjallajokull in mind boggling 3D.
      Takker Mr. Cobbold!

  22. I just did read a comment on a Icelandic forum that says that a new geothermal area has formed south-west of Kleifarvatn (that lake is located on top of Krísuvík volcano). But that is a good indicator of the magma that is pushing up trough the crust in Krísuvík volcano.

    If a eruption takes place at Krísuvík volcano it is going to be something like what did happen at Krafla volcano in it’s last eruption (1974 to 1984). But that type of eruption is fissure eruption or crater rows.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krafla
    http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1703-08=

    1. A new geothermal field? How often does that happen Jón?
      I think this is the first time I have heard of one happening before a potential eruption. I thought they normally happened afterwards.
      I am really starting to like Krísuvík volcano. Nice quake-swarms, lakes changing, inflation, geothermal field formation, borehole blow-outs, and the list just goes on. Even though it might not be a spectacular volcano, or might not even erupt, but it has an enormous “fun-factor” still.

      1. I do not know how often that happens. But there was something about this happening after the large earthquakes in the year 2000 and 2008. Due to a pathways changes for the hot water after the large earthquakes in the crust. Today this does not apply as no big earthquake have taken place.

        This might not be a new geothermal field. It turns out that this is a geothermal field that is often under water. It did show up when the water levels at Kleifarvatn dropped after the year 2000 earthquakes in SISZ and the following earthquakes on Reykjanes.

      2. But hadn’t the water gone up again to normal levels?
        Wouldn’t that imply that the water levels dropped to the low levels after the 2000-quake.
        Now I am even more confused… At least I am good at being confused 🙂

    2. Oh, interesting. I heard so far only of a new field north of Kleifarvatn. And interestingly most of the geothermal activity so far is east of the lake in the mountains. I will visit this area as soon as possible and see if I can also visit some of the solfatara in the mountains. We should see there a lot more activity.

      3. The failed geothermal drilling by the road just north of the lake was developed as a tourist site, then promptly blew up just as the job had been completed. 1999 I think. Having seen the site before and after I’m not sure I’d want to be clambering around there.

  23. @Carl: I’d add one comment to your speculative list of future Icelandic eruptions and their possible effects on European airspace and/or climate.

    Last winter’s wind conditions in stratosphere were not normal (persistent northern jet stream winds). Due to this, last winter in Finland was cold, but not record-cold. But we made a few records: For instance, during a typical winter in Helsinki, there are days with temperatures at the positive side every month. The previous record for freezing temperatures was 43 or 44 days in a row. Last winter the new record became over 100 days in a row!

    So, it used to be abnormal. Yet, these conditions have continued until now. This has lead a number of climate experts to forecast, that northern Europe will this winter experience the hardest winter in at least 1000 years! The path to this record-cold winter has started pretty well, as the Åland archipelago is already surrounded by 5-15 cm of ice. Normally this happens not before than between Xmas and New Year.

    If I remember correctly, these conditions should have appeared once in a century or so. Climate change has altered this, and it is now expected, that these conditions will prevail, and winters in northern Europe will get first colder and drier, and after 50 years or so we’ll see a marked step-like change to significantly wetter and warmer winters.

    This means that our Icelandic volcanoes will surely show their power in European airspace in the coming years! And maybe even more than they should (based on typical effects at this distance), if they manage to put up their production high-enough into the stratosphere.

    1. Yeah, I’ve noticed… We have one of the coldest winter-starts ever here. Even in the seventies it was very rare with a November with minus 20, now we’ve had several days like that. Rule of thumb is that if December has minus twenty you will have minus 30 in january and february. If 30 in december…
      My only joy right now is that I am not in the army any longer so I won’t be out on a manouver when it is minus 52… Sleeping in a snow-bivac at that temperature is a pleasure I am pleased to never feel again…

      1. Seconded. Army days and the snow bivouac thingie, I mean. During a snow storm, it’s very nice to have one, but then, when you have to attend a major call of nature…

    2. Yes, here in Ireland too – we’ve had temperatures down to -10C or less during several nights in a row now, which is supposed to be a record. We get winds straight from the Arctic (via Iceland) or Siberia (via Scandinavia). We also have about 20cm of snow (which, for me as a non-Irish person coming from a snow-rich country, is nothing, but for people here is absolutely paralysing, since noone knows how to deal with snow, i.e. there are no snow ploughs, no winter tires, no proper snow clothes/shoes, shallow water pipes that freeze, etc.). Some colleagues in their 50-60s said today this is the most snow they have ever seen here in their lives.

      Last year we had a similar situation wind-wise, but there was less snow, since it started later in the winter and so the seas around Ireland were colder – snow showers here now are mainly due to convection from the relatively warm Irish sea or Atlantic (with water temperatures around 10C) into the passing cold Arctic/Siberian air. And the weather forecasters say there is no end in sight just yet.

  24. Wednesday
    01.12.2010 13:38:54 63.883 -22.090 5.8 km 2.6 99.0 1.3 km WSW of Krýsuvík

  25. Earthquake swarm continuing there… can anyone tell if the inflating continues in this volcano? How can we know if an eruption begins? Thank’s!

    1. Yes the inflation continues so far, I think I even see it on the Vogsosar-GPS now. I just wished that Sigrún H would put the two new CGPSs online so we would see it better. Remember that the inflation apparantly have been going on for some time now. If I understood correctly at least since during the summer.
      I think we would see it as an enormous increase in the tremor-plot for Krisuvik.
      http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/kri.gif
      But I guess that Jón would present a link to an Icelandic newscast before we had the time to say “Is this…?”

  26. Sigrún H looked happy about the concept of Krísuvík acting up. I guess it is a nicer and easier place to visit than schlepping across Vatnajökull in the middle of the winter.
    Nice photage of the 1999 borehole blow-out.

      1. Oh, I thought you said that Krísuvík volcano central vent was under the lake?
        I am still trying to get an understanding of where exactly the set of sub-features are and where the actual volcano is… It is very confusing since I do not have a map to put small dots and circles on.
        The GVP though have a brand spanking new list of good co-ordinates from (the probable) excursion into the field by Sigrún Hreinsdottir.

  28. This has been an exciting day. We had one of the largest snowstorms of the last years, 30cm acumulation (Austria) and hearing these news of Hekla and Krisuvik before I am going to Iceland in January that is promising! Like you guys say in icelandic: straubert!

  29. I’d like to return to our bolus-discussion of pre-Fimvörduhalsi days. IIRC, Peter referred to the work of a fellow scientist who had hypothesised boluses of magma rising which would result in the type of and oscillations observed. We then got around to speculating about the size of such a bolus, from a few km in radius to Iceland-wide. Now, if we deduct the EQs known or suspected, due to their location in either Tjörnes Fracture Zone or Western Seismic Zone/Reykjanes ridge, to be seismic in origin, we find an interesting picture:

    Approximately six months after the Eyjafjallajökull eruptions, we have confirmed magma movement at two points roughly equidistant from Eyjafjallajökull; Krisuvik and Grímsfjall/Hamarinn/Esjufjöll. Connect these as two points on a circle segment with Godabunga as center and, voila, the strange eqs under Blöndulón lake fall on the same circle. Coincidence, correlation or causation?

    1. Henrik. The concept you refer to is an alternative explanation to the ‘hot spot’ concept, here:
      http://www.mantleplumes.org/Iceland1.html
      (I see the author Prof Foulger has new book out, published in Sept)
      I focussed on the role of magma diapirs rising from an archaic subduction zone, as perhaps a source of the sudden peaks in Eyjaf’s EQ frequency. It was pure speculation-!
      But it would be very interesting to see real-tine plots of EQ rate at Krisuvik too, along the lines of those presented by ‘Socuel’. Unlike Eyjaf the Krysuvik EQs are already near surface- Eyjaf started around 15km mean depth and steadily migrated up over several weeks: then went silent at around 4km.

    2. Almost correct Henrik, you have to extend beyond Vatnajökull into Askja and Herdubreid to cover the inflation spots.
      You should read up on Prof Hazel Rymers work on Askja and Herdubreid. (She has a book in printing on her since 1985 Askja research, have pre-ordered it)
      But Askja does not do a large difference.
      Problem is just that this mega-bolus or multi-bolii coincides quite exactly with the heat-inflation spot of the hotspot. Only way to detect tro bolus of that size would to be meticulously subtract hotspot inflation and then you will see that there probably is 2 bolii. One stretching from Geirfuglasker out in Reykjaness Ridge to Raudholar north of Reykjavik and of course to Krisuvik and Hekla. The other is central for The Vatna-complex with Askja.

  32. I wonder how much Icelandic volcanoes influence the jet stream. Also a lot of steam sent up high, to come back down as snow?

    In January this year they had snow in Korea where it was not known before and the north island of Japan was under several meters of snow – which they dug their way out of very neatly, as they do everything in Japan.

    Two years ago in October we had ice and hail in the UK and in Morocco it was record downpours of rain and low temperatures. So my observation is we ahve already had 2 winters which have lasted longer than usual.

    When I asked about winter tyres last winter I was told that the UK prohibits import as they damage the tarmac if driving where there isn’t snow.

    1. Well the icelandic volcanoes has yet to cause any impact like the one you speak of. The problem caused was airtraffic disruption but it wouldnt be anything more than that. If a volcano in Iceland were to make a difference in Korea it would have to blow the island apart basically…

      The ejecta from Eyjafjallajökull might have had some influence in the atmosphere but i doubt it since the ash column never really reached that high.

      So my thoughts are that the volcanic activity in Iceland has nothing to do with the freaky wather.

      I have heard that the cold is due to the north atlantich oscillation and that it has a negative trend which causes the westernly atlantic winds which is mild to weer of to the south rather than normally to the north.

    2. Alyson,
      Studded tyres are not permitted in UK (yet?), but winter tyres are available with stickier rubber and are legal – but I doubt they make much difference. Worst thing I find for driving on snow/ice is ABS . It’s dreadful not being able to disable it and build up a wedge of snow in front of the tyres to help braking.
      Snow chains are allowed if you are prepared to take them off when road is clear. And there are spray-on adhesion enhancers, but I’ve no idea if they work.
      Try ‘omega block’ and ‘north atlantic oscillation’ for insights into our weather.

      2. Winter tyres, even without studs, do make a difference. I’ve used such for years. The only circumstances where studs are better is on ice, black or gray, and even there winter tyres are superior to any summer tyres.
        ABS is the greatest thing since sliced bread – as warning: if ABS kicks in, you’ve been going too fast. As to the wedge of snow helping in braking – wishful thinking, and the same goes for the spray-on.

      3. Not being a native of “The North,” my experience with driving in snow and ice is lacking. I did have a tour in New Jersey and wound up having to drive in it to and from work.

        My impression was that it was like white and gray mud. Mud is something that I have had a lot of experience with, and approached this phenomena the same as I would a muddy dirt road down in the bottom land. (Mississippi)

        No problem. Though I did see quite a few people who managed to pull off some of those slow rolls. You know, flip the vehicle up on it’s side because they slid into a curb.

    3. @Alyson: The winter two years ago was record-warm in Finland, and other parts of Scandinavia, too.

      @Peter: That snow-wedge does not shorten your braking distance at all. Instead, I like ABS on snow & ice, as it permits steering while braking! Much safer that way!

      1. The problem I have is in descending steep, ungritted, single track, rural, tarmac roads where snow lies over ice. ABS kicks in at less than walking pace and with engine tickover being too fast and acting to speed up the car -even in bottom gear – it can be impossible to bring car to a halt. So we slither slowly down the hill and pray no-one is coming up the hill.
        Would sticky winter rubber help in that situation?

      2. Yes.

        The new winter tire technology is so improved that the Province of Quebec has made their usage mandatory during the winter months.

      3. The “stickiness” is a result of the rubber being softer and the surface geometry helping the snow to pack into the grooves of the tire; it’s not adhesive sticky in any way. If the conditions are an inch of dry snow on ice, chains are the only solution, as everything else just packs the snow under the tire and there is practically no friction between snow and ice. Still, modern winter tires work much better than anything else.

        Winter tires are mandatory here as well, has been for quite a while already.

  33. If you look at google maps there are several clear marks of a past fissure eruption. Look at the south-east of the lake tip and up to the northeast. There are several very visible cones. A very clear evidence that here has been atleast one fissure eruption in history. Looks exactly like the Laki fissure although it is a bit smaller.

    1. That is how this volcano erupt. With crater rows and lava fountains. Like the first phase we did see when Eyjafjallajökull erupted earlier this year.

  34. I’m sure you have all seen the moment tensor plots for Grímsvötn where the run up of energy in days past the the previous eruption are compared to the run up for the one preceding it. The units are in dyne / cm² if I remember correctly.

    Well, I can’t do that plot. For one, I lost the link and don’t know what the size of the area is, and two, I’m not real comfortable in converting from the quake energy in Joules over to those units…. so rather than spit out what could be really bad info, I’ll just plot the energy accumulation for Krýsuvík all the way back to the beginning of my data.

    It’s a similar plot, but it is not the same. Keep that in mind before you try to compare the two.

    http://i54.tinypic.com/6f9t7q.png

  35. Okay… again, not the prettiest work, but it conveys info, and that’s what I’m after.

    This is a screen grab from Google Earth, Geo-referenced in Diva-GIS, with the Krýsuvík quakes. I found a picture of a school “Krísuvík School” in a photo sharing gallery ( http://photo.blog.is/blog/photo/entry/543022/ ) that I was able to identify on Google Earth and label.

    The depth of the quakes is not my normal resolution, (thanks to the visual info getting busy pretty fast) so Red and Yellow are the pallet. Yellow is shallower, red is deeper.

    Hopefully this will do away with spatial ambiguities as to where everything is at.

    http://i53.tinypic.com/vii3rp.png

    1. On Lurking’s Gearth map the ‘K’ of his label ‘Krisuvik School’ is bang on top of the green lake Graenavtn. To the north is a wisp of steam just west of the road- the Seltun tourist site that exploded in 1999.

  36. several months in the past i saw a sat map of the gulf stream and a comparison to it in the 80’s it showed a massive slowdown. This was attributed to a disruption of the salinity of the north atlantic due to artic ice melting . Cold salty water sinks then flows to the south where it rises gets warmed and flows north. thus warming Britannia and northern Europe. If the northern thermohaline sinking is disrupted the flow of the gulf stream slows. The lesson mess with the mother at your peril

    1. Depends.

      CERN’s CLOUD experiment is looking into what effects cosmic radiation has on seeding cloud formation.

      Lacking the results of that ongoing experiment, we do have a paper from Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union) that statistically shows a direct link to Galactic Cosmic Rays and mid latitude cloud formation.

      http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/10941/2010/acp-10-10941-2010.html

      Significance? Cloud cover directly affects how much solar radiation makes it to the surface, and how well it can heat the ocean. Since the Gulf Stream is generally accepted as being a product of differences in heat, loose some of that driving force and you loose some intensity in the flow rate.

      And… as has been noted by several sources, the GCR rate is inversely proportional to Solar activity. I don’t have access to the plot data right now (it’s on a failed drive that I have been trying to recover for 3 days), but I can tell you that as Solar Cycles go, this one (24) is far behind the activity levels of the previous 23. We are talking 2 standard deviation land. It can not be said that it’s not normal, but it’s nothing rally like what we have seen in the last 250+ years. It looks a bit like cycle 4… but that’s very old data.

      Your millage may vary.

      4. The first link is nonsense, as a tilt of 26° degrees would change the climate and the daytime in Europe a lot. That has not happened.

        The changes due to large earthquakes and the following shift in mass is really, really, really small and people won’t notice it at all.

        The axis tilt of the Earth does change. But it takes 42,000 years to do so and the change is only from 22.1° degree and to 24.5° degree.

        More information here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt

  38. At the moment Krýsuvík is all quiet, but looking back you can see periods of higher activity (swarms) at ~15 to ~18 hours intervals. Somehow this looks awfully familiar. Are we seeing a repeat performance of the ‘bolus’ mechanism that was blogged about (as Peter Cobbold reminded us) for Eyjafjallajökull.

    If this conjecture is correct, then we should see another uptick in seismic activity at Krýsuvík in a few hours (starting at ~6 to ~10 AM, local time). Well, it’s wait and see….

  40. @Holger N California

    “looking back you can see periods of higher activity (swarms) at ~15 to ~18 hours intervals.”

    Visually I can see a pattern… sort of. But I ran an FFT on the hourly quake counts and got an interval somewhere closer to 5.3 hours. (fundamental frequency)

    Since I do not have any confidence about processing artifacts I’m not putting up the graphic for it.

    But I will put up the hourly quake count graphic with a few labels on the peaks.

    The hour that the peak occurred is noted along with the date. Maybe you (or someone) can have better luck discerning a meaning from it.

    http://i55.tinypic.com/2yvs2o3.png

    1. Lurking
      That EQrate plot is very useful, and will be more so if/when rate picks up.
      Please keep them coming.
      At Ejaf. the rates rose to around 100per hour and had very sharp onset, and cessation after ca 24 hours. Quiet periods of days in between.
      Krisuvik shows hints of pulses of EQ rate, possibly with each pulse starting at fast rate followed by a slower tail. But numbers are small, so no point in speculating over what could be imaginary patterns.

  41. The cold weather observed over the northern hemisphere is likely due to north atlantic and pacific cold oscilations. Accordingly to both cycle, the most cold will come by 2020 and 2030. Low solar activity may be also a contributing factor.

    Nothing to do with gulf stream, because the cold affects other regions in the world, nothing to do with Eyjafjallajokull because last winter in Europe was already very cold.

    In Europe the cold atlantic situation creates a NAO (north atlantic oscilation) negative, with high pressure over Iceland, Greenland and Scandinavia and low pressures in southwestern Europe. This pushes the cold polar air into south Europe, while warming Iceland and Greenland. Winters become dry in the north, wet in the south.

    1. Thanks for this but as usual, I’m confused. I thought we were approaching a solar max cycle by 2011 (or so it seems by what NASA says). Are you saying that the solar max will actually cause conditions to cool off certain areas of the planet?

      “History shows that big sunspot cycles ‘ramp up’ faster than small ones,” he says. “I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011.”
      http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10mar_stormwarning/

  42. The Solar Max of Solar Cycle 24 does not speak until the end of 2012.

    Some might dispute it, but there IS evidence the Gulf Stream is slowing down, and will eventually turn off. Don’t underestimate Mother Nature!

    1. Are you referring to the Bryden Nature paper of Jan 2006? If so their suggestion of GS slowing did not hold up. But I agree that it is a possible consequence of global heating that is to be taken seriuosly.

  44. And here we go again..2012 doomsday…*sigh*

    In january 2013 I will be sitting at home laughing at all the dissapointed 2012 prophets who was robbed of their end of the world crap…

    1. Nope you wont. Because the 2012ers always win in the end. How? When 2012 ends they will just find the next doomsday to hope for… Sigh… All you can do about them is drink a lot of beer…

    2. Hey you guys, I didn’t mention “doomsday” anywhere nor do I believe any of the 2012 doomsday theories. Neither the CNN link nor the NASA links mentions “doomsday” either.

      3. Oh ok, then. Just don’t tell anyone that I talk to the “little people”- such as trolls, hobbits, garden faeries etc. Tack!

      5. @Carl: Yeah baby, I ride.. I ride the wind that brings the rain, a creature of chaos and I cannot be tamed!

  45. Found this very interesting paper that tends to scupper 2012 predictions as well as raising some interesting ideas.
    http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/extinctions-nemesis.html
    That said, the gulf stream did stall earlier this year – and this was cited by US authorities as a reason why the oil spill in the gulf of mexico would not enter the gulf stream earlier this year – but they also said that eddy formation and such stalls were common and it was expected to restart. Will find the refs and post as soon as I can, but have to go and brave the snow to get to a meeting now.

    2. Totall balony, there is simply not enough energy on the planet to stop nor start the gulf stream in that manner.
      The energy equivalent of the gulf stream is the same as all the incoming energy from the sun during one year. And that is why it took 15000 years from the beginning of the end of the last ice age for it to get going to todays size, speed and energy-levels. And that is also why it would take a very long time for it to stop, even if the driving force of the Greenland salination pump disapeared altogether.
      AFAIK, the Gulf stream is missnamed, it is the central stream that circumnavigates the entire globe, but that was not discovered untill not so long ago.
      The Gulf stream is constantly monitored since the 80s and the changes in speed, direction and size is minimal.

      Learn to do the math.

    3. Well, no Nemesis needed. Solar system crosses galactic plane every 55-70 Myears. This proposed 26-30 Myears is pretty conveniently half of that. Among astronomers, it ha<s been suspected decades, that galactic plane crossings introduces new cometary material to the innards of Solar system.

      1. And the difference would actually be minute…
        There is simply so much Crapotkins running around out there in space that even a doubling of the cosmic debree wouldn’t do that much difference more than in frequency of terran hits.
        Actually we would really need better protection against small stellar objects hitting us, but that wont happen untill a city is hit. I just hope that it is “just” a 1000-ton rock and that it hits a small town or something, rather than a multi million tonner hitting a heavilly populated area…

        And that is why I despice the 2012ers, there are more “true and existing” dangers to worry about.

      2. @Carl: “a multi million tonner hitting a heavilly populated area…”

        We couldn’t blast it apart in space with a large nuke on a rocket? I thought we had that technology.

      3. We’d need Space Cowboys for that; haven’t got any. Besides, the EMP from a large nuke would prolly fry most of the electronics on half the globe and that might be worse.

      4. No, that is a modern fairy tale from Hollywood.

        Best (worst) a nuke would do is crack loose some smaller debree. And that would be worse since we then would have a buckshoot of hail instead of a singel bullet.
        Let’s say that we had one incomming that would take out Bloomington Illinois for instance. If that was nuked and it fractured into a 1000 meteorites weighing each 1000-tonnes that would pretty much blow away all of US instead of just one town getting whacked. The weather impact would though be the same even if the impact destruction would be greater.
        And that is why US and Sovjet stopped going for ultra-large nukes and went into MIRVS. More destruction with ten 700-kiloton nukes than one 7-megaton. There are several physical rules behind this phenomenon, but I am a tad sick and lazy today so no stamina to write that long.

        So, it takes rocketry attached at early stage to divert a brute like that.

      5. @Jack & Carl: What you’re both saying makes sense. With everything in this Universe (including this solar system) swirling around in space, we’re bound to get slammed with something sooner or later. Last early spring, a very small meteor went whizzing by my head in Central Park. I’d never seen one that close up. I would have searched for it but it landed too far away and it was very dark that night.

      6. Yeah, that Galactic plane crossing is generally pretty closly timed to mass extinction events. At least you hear that quite a bit from the doom crowd.

        If true, I would say things are going to get really interesting around here in about 5 to 15 million years.

      7. As far as I know it is only one extinction clearly linked to that mexican meteoro-mabit. The rest if I remember correctly are linked to trap-formations and iceage-cycles, not galactic plane passings.

        I just love the conspirationalist crowd 🙂

        Public Health Warning, what is written below contains “irony” and is meant solely for the Nadjiwoons out there:
        Attacking any 2012 facts is probably just NWO, “The Man”, Bilderberg and Free Masons conspiring together to hide the truth about Chem-trails!

      9. Several years ago, my dad related the fact that in formation marches, a lot of time they would break cadence when crossing a bridge. (no longer be in step) This was from the belief that the simultaneous forces from a lot of people could stress the bridge and cause damage, and to be on the safe side, it just wasn’t done.

        So when I saw this scene, I had a chuckle. I fully expected a Benny Hill class event. The singer even looked like a pudgy Ozzy… sort of like Hill would have represented him in character. (snicker)

        http://i51.tinypic.com/261noue.png

        Ehh, the little bridge held up though.

      11. Well, at least he has a better character about him…. not a lampoon of some aging UK rock star that had his dog’s fecal dropping featured on US National TV. (that’s the only episode I saw… and that was because I was crossing the living room at the time)

        At first, I thought this was an Emigrate video… then I realized that I couldn’t understand a single word that he was screaming. (could be the language barrier)

        On a positive note (yeah, it’s a pun), the video had a better artistic presentation of “doom.” Not the campy cliche of church shots and faux graveyards.

        Say.. since we have strayed this far… is it me or did the most recent Resident Evil seem a bit lacking? They had to recruit the primary villain from the Matrix in order to have something to fight. Oh, and I have never seen a catapult launched propeller driven VTOL aircraft… there might be a slight problem with the physics on that idea. Not that it can’t be done, but having your rotor in full lift mode is about as smart as cat launching a helo. And if you’re in horizontal flight mode, well, those props hang a bit low. (Think “Osprey”)

        Eh… back to the quakes.

        Mag 3.1 confidence 99 for Herðubreiðartögl?

        Interesting…

      12. @Lurking & Carl: Ooo, I was serious. I love the Swedish doom metal band Candlemass, the guitar player smokes!

      13. As you well know, even if one of the plane crossings matched in time with the age of the Chicxulub crater, it would not imply causation between the two!

      14. Yes, the best estimate I have seen would just double the amount of debree in the solar system and that would make amount of things hitting the planet to increase with only 7,5 percent. So the chixculubs we have had in history is more likely to be normal impacts than having anything to do with ecpliptic passages.

  46. If Krisuvik does erupt, could it be a large eruption with how long it has been dorment, which was for over 700 years?

    1. Most probably not, the most probable explanation for this long period of dormancy is an activity cycle, also the eruptions at Reykjanes Peninsula are not known to be explosive, most often they are effusive Hawaiian eruptions. But who knows, volcano’s have suprised us before, however I doubt that this time.

    2. Actually I’m gonna have to differ with the explosivity idea. It could be.

      A while back, Kleifarvatn had an issue with loosing quite a bit of water. Likely due to cracks/fissures in the lake bed. It has since recovered it’s volume. If water from that lake gets involved, that could make an other wise docile eruption a bit more violent.

      1. Totally agree, and the entire ground is water-logged to say the least, hence all those mudpools. Need water to make good mud…
        I would go for a good likelyhood of it being explosive in the beginning at least.

        Now for some stereo-ing!

    1. Eddies are something completely different than a stop… Cheech… and Chong for that matter.
      The entire friggin’ stream system of the planet is eddied you… argh!

      (Must breath, must breath… my heart…)

  48. By the way, just in case there was any confusion for those of you where English is not a first language – I am NOT a 2012 advocate, but quite the opposite! As lurking said, we may have interesting times in another 12 million years or so, but not now based on the evidence !

  49. I said the Solar Max is to occur at the end of 2012 because it is, I don’t believe any of that end of the world nonsense, but some people will use the Solar max to fuel their absurd fantasies about the end of the world!

    Another big swarm of quakes near Askja again….

  50. I always enjoyed Hathaway’s (NASA) magical mystery moving prognostication of Cycle 24. It got to the point where started running a trend curve to see where his next prediction might land. After a while he gave up and went silent until Cycle 24 actually started.

    Now… with the advent of SDO and other technology, you have to ask yourself just how many of those diminutive spots that are being counted, would have actually been seen 100 years ago. This is important because todays data is tacked on to historical data. Even with the Wolf calculations there is a very good chance of a technology skew, yielding higher numbers that artificially inflate the counts.

    But.. even with that (as I believe) skew, the Cycle 24 counts are lower than a typical (average) cycle. On a month to month basis, each one has been outside the 1 SD range of what you would expect. In some cases, 2 SD.

    Sure, I’m an amateur, but when you start adding up the probability of that happening, the Z-scores get way out there. That tells me that either I am an idiot… which is likely, or that something is very abnormal with Cycle 24.

    1. Really good take on what is rapidly becoming a problem in longterm statistical science. How do we offset the bias of todays ultra-precise equipment?
      I think the “solar-spotters” in science would do well to actually factor in that.

      Nice critical thinking there Lurking! Cudos 🙂

      1. I guess this constitutes a “necro-post,” you know, bringing it back from the dead.

        I mentioned that I had a file showing the oddity of Cycle 24 compared to it’s predecessors, buried on a drive of questionable integrity.

        Well, I didn’t find it. But I found it’s direct ancestor. With a little bit of filling in with the latest data from the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC) at Royal Observatory of Belgium, I was able to reconstruct the info and the plot.

        The red trace is the current monthly sunspot number for the indicated month of the cycle. the other traces are labeled and consist of data for that month of all cycles back to cycle 1… Starting in May of 1755. That’s about 255 years worth of data.

        Make your own decisions about how Cycle 24 and the looming SOLAR MAX are going to turn out.

        http://i51.tinypic.com/6e15ac.png

      2. Looks like it is totally within the normal-span of the cycle to me. No looming dooming there 🙂

        This is why I like your plots, when our speculations become to wild you hit us with a plot, and we go back to speculating on that plot, new plot enters, more speculation… And in the end we have a pretty clear and probably pretty correct interpretation of things.

        Yeah, I am always amazed at how news and politicians bend the facts to suit their needs. Going back to raw data and do one owns extrapolation is always better. At least as long as one knows how to do it and remembers that one might be wrong. What I mean is, you know what you are doing, but some people have a tendency to find an outlayer and run with becoming their own “politicians”. I think that is how all the conspirational and/or doom-theories come about.

      3. BTW… the data file was originally made quite some time ago, and the name (though misspelled) is how I found it.

      4. @Lurking: Thanks, I do so much enjoy your graphs. Your ID should be “Master of Plots”.

        “That tells me that either I am an idiot… which is likely, or that something is very abnormal with Cycle 24.”

        Highly doubt that you’re an idiot but I think trying to predict *exactly* what cycle 24 will bring (even for the NASA guys) is like trying to predict *exact* dates for volcanic eruptions. In other words there are too many unknown factors involved and so part of it is “guess work”?

      5. Generally I plot to see if I am being lied to. There are tons (and tonnes) of information and prognostication out there from people trying to sell an opinion.

        My plots allow me to do a simple “sniff test.”

        Not delving into politics, but plotting actual government collected data verses what is fed to us on the “news” is a real eye opener.

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