Posted on by Jón Frímann

Eruption update for Bárðarbunga volcano at 18:52 UTC

This information is going to get outdated fast.

This is latest information that I got on Bárðarbunga volcano eruption. The status of the eruption and the volcano is always changing so I do not have up to date information on what is going on. The area is also remote and subject to bad weather at times and often for days.

  • There is no change in the eruption it self. There is also no sign that this eruption is about to end. It has now been going on for the past four days.
  • The lava field is just few days away from entering Jökulsá á Fjöllum glacier river. It has already entered smaller streams in the area. When the lava enters the river it is going to create steam explosions and small local ash clouds.
  • More magma is flowing into the dyke at depth than is erupting from it. This means that there is extremely high risk of the magma breaking a new path to the surface south of current eruption. The most likely place for new eruption to start is in the rift valley that has formed.
  • The rift valley that has been created continues to grow. This also shows that magma is just 2 km under the surface at the most. Large parts of this rift valley is under the glacier.
  • Currently there is no explanation on why harmonic tremor increased yesterday (03-September-2014). No eruption under the glacier seems to have taken place. At least no sign of such event has been observed as of yet.
  • People have been trying to enter the area in illegal way. This is extremely dangerous. Since an eruption under the glacier might start without warning, there is also risk of quick sand around this area due to all the changes that are now taking place in the crust at Holuhraun lava field.
  • Bárðarbunga volcano caldera continues to have earthquakes. Largest earthquake since midnight had the magnitude of 4,8 at 03:44 UTC, second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,4 at 10:28 UTC. Other earthquakes have been smaller.
  • There has been a slight increase in earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. Most of this earthquake activity is micro-earthquakes.
  • The glacier inside Bárðarbunga volcano caldera is up to 850 meters thick according to the news report I did hear today.
  • Since the eruption started there has been drop in earthquake activity. Most of the earthquake activity is taking place south of current eruption in an forming rift valley at that same location.
  • Eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera is still a possibility and has not been ruled out. Eruption under the glacier south of current eruption has not been ruled and is expected to take place at some point in the future if the current eruption continues as it has been doing.

News bits in English and Icelandic

“Everything changes when night falls” (Rúv.is, video)
(Full) frontal breakout of Pāhoehoe lava (Rúv.is, video)
Up to 130 meter high lava fountains (Rúv.is)

Hraunið nálg­ast Jök­ulsá (mbl.is, Icelandic, picture)

Updates 04-September-2014

Evening news on Rúv, 04-September-2013. Has some great video(s) of the eruption. Second news starts at 05:50.

  • Toxic gas has been measured up to 6 km above the eruption craters. Most of the toxic gas that is being released is SO2 (see Wikipedia information here). There is also some CO (Wikipedia information here) along with minor amounts of hydrogen. There is also some water vapour getting released from the lava in this eruption.

Updates 05-September-2014

  • Two new fissures have opened up according to Rúv News. This new fissures are now erupting and are closer to the glacier than the fissure that started erupting almost one week ago.

Article updated at 20:48 UTC on 04-September-2014.
Article updated at 20:50 UTC on 04-September-2014.
Article updated at 21:58 UTC on 04-September-2014.
Article updated at 08:09 UTC on 05-September-2014.

244 Replies to “Eruption update for Bárðarbunga volcano at 18:52 UTC”

  1. Great piece of work Jon, is there anymore information on the new cauldron that you announced yesterday.

  2. Thanks Jon, with more magma going into the dyke than what’s erupting something is going to give sooner or later.

  4. As someone said before Mother Nature will have the last word even the scientists don’t really know where all this will end .

    It is a waiting game for all of us.

    1. I pass the time with sorting my pictures of Iceland and the Laki volcanoes from this year, while I’m looking from time to time to the webcam…a little bit ironic 🙂

      1. I’m trying to brave myself to learn earthquake focal mechanism beach ball diagram programming in python, having recently learned very roughly what beachballs are, but mostly just watching the cams and tremor graphs, like you. 🙂

  5. Jon, how can it be that more magma is entering the system than leaves via the eruption and meanwhile Bardarbunga is subsiding? Is it the ‘rift valey’ where the pressure is going up? And does this mean that Bardarbunga will not explode, but maybe implode? Or am I missing the point completely?

    1. I could be wrong, but I am fairly sure bardarbunga isn’t actually subsiding as much as it is just shifting around a bit. As for the lava that is erupting, its coming from the mantle, not from bardarbunga’s magma chamber. It is just passing through the chamber, and quickly, if it is passing through at all. The rift valley is where the crust has widened enough to allow a chunk to subside. It’s a weak point now. It might have more pressure underneath it, and might not. Its got a large chance of erupting, because the faults at the side will likely stretch all the way down to the dyke. That’s access that the magma might leverage into a way to the surface. Magma dykes/chambers don’t need to be inflated until they pop like a balloon. As they inflate, displacing rock, the leverage will shift and change until it has the leverage it needs to open up an existing fault/path to move some more.

    2. Ment to add, the main difference between shifting leverage vs balloon popping is that as the dyke continues to inflate, leverage continues to shift. Its quite possible for the increasing pressure to leverage existing paths closed, pinching off an eruption, before forcing another path open somewhere else

    3. It is subsiding, but it is not a lot. Few meters maybe at most (best guess). This however means that eruption might happen in Bárðarbunga volcano it self, not just in the dyke where it is currently erupting.

    4. Thank you, StridAst and Jon. I still don’t quite get it though, but I will keep reading and learning over here!

    5. One possible scenario with the main caldera is it’s lid collapses causing an eruption to start that is not at first very explosive, but then as those hundreds of meters of ice on top melt into it, huge ashy explosions occur. Or so I’ve read.

    6. Bardarbunga is probably on the rift itself and is sinking because the land in the rift is sinking. Probably because the ground below it melts and goes into the mantle. This appears to be more a tectonic event than a volcanic one.

      1. Aha! The Atlantic fracture zone goes all the way down to the south Atlantic – Antarctica. If a fracture zone is a quake fault – tectonic – it appears to pass thru Bardabunga. Perhaps earth is expanding as some websites have suggested. This would explain some things globally.

        Most of what I am reading is beyond my knowledge, so I wait for a post I can comprehend and try to extrapalate.

      2. I can’t seem to find a map that shows the divergent and Bardarbnunga. Based on two different maps it seems that Bardarbunga is exactly as you said; right on top.

  7. Great job Jon! Thanks for the updates. Been following this page with awe of the knowledge and excitement of the situation.

  8. What’s the latest on the seismic activity just past Askja,is that still ongoing or has that stopped. And as for the magma coming from the mantle mean this could go on for days, week or even months nobody knows, thats up to the God’s.

  9. I’ve spent the last three weeks reading about mantle plumes.It’s disconcerting.It’s the same as listening to economists.I thought I was learning something and all I discovered is that geologists can agree on NOTHING.It’s frustrating to an amateur.is their a plume under iceland that used to be under Greenland? Is their no such thing?.If i studied geology,would my thesis be a result of “current thinking” as per my lecturer defending his phd ?. Help?

    2. If Baroarbunga goes off big it will vaporize all the ice right above it sending it 70,000 feet in the air mixed with ash. Don’t worry though stuff like that has happened in the past and will happen in the future. Sounds scary but it’s not that bad. No one lives near the volcano.

    3. Rough calculation: ice to steam requires 334 J/g (melt) + 400 J/g (heat from 0 to 100 C) + 2260 J/g (vaporize), or a total of about 3000 J/g.

      Rocky things (granite, concrete, sand, soil) have a heat capacity around 0.8 J/gK, so lava at 1000 C might contain about 700 J/g that it can release to boiling water (900 K * 0.8 J/gK). That suggests that you need about 4 grams of lava to boil 1 gram of ice.

      If the density of lava is around 4 g/cc (maybe?), then you would need about an equal volume of lava and ice to boil off the ice.

      But, if you can get rid of the ice while only melting it, you end up needing about 1/4 to 1/3 the volume of lava to melt the ice.

      (Ruv reported the Holuhraun volume at 45-70 million cubic meters in their 15:47 report. That would be enough to vaporize a volume of ice 850m deep and 1/4 km on a side. Or it could melt a volume 850m deep and 1/2 km on a side.)

      1. In addition to this one should take into account that at the bottom of glacier the static pressure is in the ballpark of 70 bar. Water won’t boil at 100 oC but closer to 300 oC: it can absorb much more heat without boiling …and when it boils it won’t expand that much. Most volcanic gases can also be condensed so they won’t expand that much either. Hence, I think the ice cover can dissipate a fairly powerful eruption without anyone outside really noticing it – apart from the tell-tale meltwater.

    4. Isn’t some if not all of the ice being evaporated internally? If yes, over time there won’t be 850 meters of ice on top. I think this is going to be a long drawn out process.

  12. The rain falling our there around the eruption area has to be some mighty nasty stuff with all that gas production!!

  14. Yes there is such things as mantle plumes, also known as hot spots Hawaii,Iceland and even Yellowstone, the latter being unusual by not being near any fault lines.

  16. I know some links for SO2 mapping have been given, but I like going to the main one here.
    http://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/OMI/OMISO2/index.html

    It’s been heading into the northern seas with the weather pattern. Concentrations staying up at long distances. The VOG that is currently hanging around the eruption area should spread out soon when the winds increase at some point again and get convected up a bit higher like the rest of it has, and spread in whatever direction the upper winds are blowing at the time.

    1. Looks like vehicle lights. They bug out every evening after dark it seems like traveling this same route that is on the right of the cam.

      1. No – now there is a 2nd one way off to the right – not looking like vehicle (but I have been known to be wrong…..)

      2. If it were a new opening, you should see a plume in the glow, even a faint one. Don’t see that.

    1. So it is getting up there pretty well on it’s own. Add in a little help from the weather itself, and you have a pretty good steady plume that will encircle the northern latitudes for a while and probably get convected a little higher into the lower stratosphere, as it is around 10km or so at these latitudes.

      1. So far from what I have seen this eruption will have ZERO effect on global climate. That could change but so far nothing.

      2. Not global, but higher latitudes of the north. That is if it keeps going for some time. SO2 content is high and will have some effect if it does.

      3. For this the SO2 needs to get into much higher layers of the atmosphere than is actually does. The reports from the IMO indicate that it reaches an altitude of 6000m.

  19. Looking at B-2 I think we are heading too a central vent. Vent on left and right are much smaller.

  21. To everyone who has been unable to view the Mila webcams:

    I had been experiencing this problem for a while (both IE11 and Chrome on my PC) and finally found the issue.
    Go to Adobe.com and download and install the latest Flash player.

    I did this and all works well now

    1. Doesn’t Chrome have the Flash player built-in? Mila is working great for me at this time using Chrome under Linux. I suspect many of the problems before were simply Mila not being able to handle the load.

  23. Use an iPad -_-
    Mila camera worked for me an hour ago. Very very frustrating.

    Messy seismic wave on IDYN and IASK just now. Something happened

    1. http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=398462

      Magnitude mb 4.3
      Region ICELAND
      Date time 2014-09-04 23:33:26.3 UTC
      Location 64.63 N ; 17.45 W
      Depth 10 km
      Distances 221 km E of Reykjavík, Iceland / pop: 113,906 / local time: 23:33:26.3 2014-09-04
      121 km S of Akureyri / pop: 16,563 / local time: 23:33:00.0 2014-09-04
      116 km W of Höfn, Iceland / pop: 1,695 / local time: 23:33:26.3 2014-09-04

  24. Yes I have seen that come up,also I also looking on the computer that seismic activity starting to increase again.

  25. Lava flow has become very irregular since ~4M earthquake happened. There are some stronger/weaker cycles of lava stream on the fissure eruption …

  26. Lava flow has become very irrugular since the ~4M earthquake happened. There are some stronger/weaker lava stream cycles on the fissure eruption …

  27. Suddenly, nothing more on both webcams 1 and 2 in just 15 seconds … Extinction, ash, steam, rain ? Really strange …

    1. There is thick fog in the area at the moment from the looks of it. Harmonic tremor says that the eruption is still going on, stronger than before based on the tremor that I am seeing.

  28. Yes, you’re True Jon. I’ve forgotten there is obvioysly fog at this time and it can appear very suddenly 😉

  32. Magnitude mb 4.8
    Region ICELAND
    Date time 2014-09-05 01:19:43.8 UTC
    Location 64.68 N ; 16.90 W
    Depth 40 km
    Distances 248 km E of Reykjavík, Iceland / pop: 113,906 / local time: 01:19:43.8 2014-09-05
    125 km SE of Akureyri / pop: 16,563 / local time: 01:19:00.0 2014-09-05
    94 km NW of Höfn, Iceland / pop: 1,695 / local time: 01:19:43.8 2014-09-05

    1. Yes, it appears a new eruption on the existing line, more close to the south, to the glacier.

    2. Yes, I am seeing the new vent, too — to the left and further back south. Definitely NOT vehicle lights. Have to wait for morning light to see how close to the glacier edge it actually is.

    4. I saw it but then the camera went down….and the youtube video feed seems frozen from about an hour ago 🙁

  36. Not seeing it now. It sure seemed like the furthest vent left of the fissure eruption I’ve seen on cam 1. And kinda back away from the others. Really hard to tell, but if it’s the beginning of more activity away from the usual area, it wouldn’t surprise me. Ground has large cracks (rifts) all over around there as seen from the air.

  37. The amount of energy calculated for the 2011 Japanese Tsunami earthquake was 9.32×10 to the power of 6 joules or 9,320 gigatons of TNT (600 million times larger than the Hiroshima bomb)
    The amount of energy calculated for the 2004 Sumatran Earthquake was 9.56×10 to the power of 6 joules or 9,560 gigatons TNT

    Should be enough energy under a caldera to go through some ice on top.

    Bárðarbunga has the distinction of having the largest eruption of the Holocene.

  38. I was on Mila when I seen it. Servers are under heavy load, so I’m having trouble viewing for any length of time.

    1. Ok, me too….thanks. I was hoping this late at night, it wouldn’t be so busy on the servers….ah well.

      1. But that is old feed….that is before the new fissure popped up…and it’s daylight there now…unless you are seeing something different from what I am seeing. When I go to the youtube feed it is still night time…and it is frozen.

  40. Jon, please look at video’s about HAWAII where you will see that lava in contact with water does NOT create big steam clouds. So when the lavastream comes in contact with Jokulsa, no problem. It will just create gullies in the river, because the river has less space to flow.

    It only does so when this steam cannot escape. Or rather: underground.

    1. Also, There are underwater volcanoes. Erupted lava comes in direct contact with seawater – doesn’t always explode spectacularly.

      A bit like fuel. Raw petrol will not ignite with a flame – it’s the fumes – oxygen/gas mixture ratio.

      Same with a phreatic explosion – the erupted material gas content mixes with just the right amount of steam to give the really big bangs.

    2. I’m not the expert here…but doesn’t have to do (also) with the ratio of water to lava or lava to water? For instance in Hawaii, you have small lava flowing into huge ocean, the lava is overcome. But, it’s different when you have more lava than water….it DOES become explosive and can cause huge steam clouds. Think Krakatoa….Mt. St. Helens….one of the reasons they became so explosive (I think I am remembering this right, I have read so much over the last several days) was because the ice in their calderas had finally been dislodged into the magma chambers.

  42. Does anyone know what is happening just north of Askja where all the seismic activity has been, is there another fissure opening up there. And how stable is Askja itself.

  47. If SO2 (Sulpur?) is thrown up into the air – it will return – somewhere – as rain.
    Isnt that what is called – ACID RAIN? If so it is bad for living things – human, animal, plant life, the seas.

  48. Not sure if this has been posted

    This morning journalists from Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RUV), who were flying over the eruption site in Holuhraun, saw that a new fissure south of the old one had opened during the night. The new fissure is closer to the Dyngjujökull glacier. Scientists and representatives from Civil Protection are now flying over the area to collect data on the new fissure.

    The District Commissioner in Husavik has decided to further restrict access to the eruption site northwest of Vatnajökull glacier, due to increased unrest at the eruption site in Holuhraun. The media and scientists have been given a limited access with special permissions to the area, subject to certain terms and conditions. While this uncertainty remains no one will be allowed into the closed area. Road F910 by Vaðalda has also been closed.

    This decision will be reviewed in light of new information.

    The District Commissioner in Husavik

    National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management.

  50. It looks to me like the new fissure eruption produce more black smoke, or is it my imagination

Comments are closed.