Status update on Bárðarbunga volcano at 22:11 UTC

180 Replies to “Status update on Bárðarbunga volcano at 22:11 UTC”

1. Well that doesn’t sound good Jon and what about the continuing seismic activity north of Askja, surely that’s not normal.

   1. That is in fact normal activity at Herðubreið. There is no magma involved there, it just tectonic movement. There might be more activity taking place now due to stress changes in Bárðarbunga volcano.

2. thank you for the update Jon, great work!
   just an idea about the large earthquakes being roughly 12 hrs apart. Iceland has semidiurnal tides meaning high tide every 12 hours or so.

   only possible explanation for timings I can think of!

   1. does fluid lava undergoes the same tidal attraction from the moon as water?

      1. No. It is too heavy to do so. It has more mass then water and is more sticky. There are ideas and there have been studies into this. But I don’t think they have proofed this idea yet.

      2. In many graphs on low frequencies i see 12 hour patterns. Or could those been caused by day-sun-warm/night-cool effects on ground then? (btw great blog! i read it with pleasure and interest every day last weeks!)

      3. I would have thought if it is sinking at a steady rate and the material is generally the same then you would also get the tension released at similar kind of periods, thus explaining the rhythm of the quakes. Especially since they are in a ring around the Caldera. well just my theory..

3. Thanks Jon.

4. When was the last time Bárðarbunga had a full-scale central vent eruption?

   Have there been well-monitored caldera collapse events anywhere in the world? …and have any of them been at rifting zones (rather than at subduction zones)?

   1. Not sure if there’s been an eruption like this potential one before (others will be more informed than I), but what’s interesting about this is that it’s so atypical – Calderas are generally formed AFTER a cataclysmic eruption whereby the magma chamber becomes emptied to a point where the ground above gives way. Although there is a “minor” eruption ongoing now which in a way can be attributed to this, it’s rather unusual that the caldera forming event looks to trigger the main eruption here rather than the other way around 🙂

      And on your point regarding rifting/subduction zones…Again, this is more a case of me musing, but I would reason that caldera forming events are presumably more common in subduction zones rather than rifting zones, purely because the mechanisms of eruption are generally more conducive to larger explosive eruptions in the former category. It’s for this reason that Iceland’s largest eruptions have, on the whole, been effusive types (eg. Laki, though this also had phreato-explosive elements due to interaction between the magma and groundwater) rather than particularly explosive.

      *Awaits the more informed to correct me [hides]*

5. It seems you are convinced the worst case scenario is going to play out, Jon. What piece of information caused you to make this decision? I have enjoyed your blog and plan to donate now that I know I can send € from the US

   1. The people at Icelandic Met Office are concerned (and University of Iceland). It is at that level when I get terrified. There is also nothing suggesting that current sequence of events is about to stop.

      1. Plus. I would suggest in some back offices in Icelandic government circles there will be a committee working on worst case scenario.

         Every predicted scenario published by the I.M.O. is including a clause which states that “any possibility could happen”.

         It’s no use playing Pollyanna when we have witnessed so far in this century alone, the 2012 Japanese Tsunami and 2004 Sumateran Tsunami. We are all aware of the potential for “The Big One” in California or the various highly dangerous situations around the rest of the world e.g. Campi Flegrei, Popocatepetl etc etc.

         We also all know that earth studies are an inexact science – Those qualified experts claim to know much but the reality is that nature is a Chaos system.

         It’s no use making predictions that nothing serious will eventuate if the smallest or remotest possibility of a cataclysmic disaster might occur. After all some geo-scientists were jailed in Italy for not predicting an earthquake that produced fatalities.

         My family has a house line of sight to Sinabung. A peak that reputedly hadn’t erupted for thousands if years.

      2. Actually the senior scientists in Italy were convicted for shutting up, kicking from the job and starting a trial against a younger Italian scientist that correctly warned the population of the incoming earthquake 5 days before the event although he was forbidden by them to do so. After doing all this they declared the day before the earthquake that there was nothing to worry about.

      3. Let alone Seattle and Tokyo. Both are separately at serious risk of a tsunami similar in size to the one that struck Japan in 2011. Tokyo all the more so since counterintuitively, 2011 increased tension along the part of the fault near Tokyo. When though? Could be centuries.

         A geophysicist (expert on tsunamis from sea mounts among other things) once showed me an article showing how amortization of a potential meteor strike meant one is at far greater risk of dying from that than from a toxic Superfund cleanup site. A single big meteor could take out a large city in a flash, and they know the math for the likelihood of that, and it’s high enough there’s significant risk of it happening within a human lifetime or two.

         However, most meteors don’t reach the ground let alone explode, and there are volcanoes around the world all the time and most of the time hardly anyone cares. Even if BB goes off like Mt Pinatubo as it could, enough to change the climate, it would only be a blip at the global/historical scale. A Laki-like event, with multiple fissures and volcanoes going off at once, on the other hand, could collapse the global economy.

         Meanwhile as with meteors there’s a host of lesser possibilities that remain more likely — including everything just quietly drying up and cooling down again for the foreseeable future. The null hypothesis should never be neglected. “Any possibility” definitely includes some pretty dull ones and we volcanism addicts need to brace ourselves for those ones too.

6. Jon, looking at the 3d view of the earthquakes in Bardabunga, note the large quakes seem to be on edge of caldera, but there is almost a line of small quakes to the left of the major quake area. In a line, small quakes like the latest 2.8 seem to be making a channel or route to the west a little. I really dont know how to describe this correctly, is this a small dyke forming, or what? Will this vent some pressure from Bardabunga or could it?

   1. This might be a dyke formation in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. I am not sure at the moment about that volcano. I am just waiting to see what happens there, since I don’t know what is going on there at the moment.

7. When the Icelandic Met Office and Iclandic University are concerned the omens don’t look good. If that is the case the rest of Europe should pay attention.

   1. John Q public tries to ignore this type of thing until its staring them in the face. Main stream media like to keep them comfortable and ignorant.

      1. Zyfly, you are so true with main stream media, such as here in germany. I remember ONE evening prime time news show in the past 3 weeks of action around vatnajökull presenting a glimpse look at some volcano on iceland spitting some lava. And this was days ago. No more news since then. Ukraine, Russia and iraq everyday, creating concerns and fears. But i think people are kept blindfolded and dumb to a potential european or even global event like a bad or worst case on iceland.

         Jon, great job! All the best to you.

8. Many Tremors are picking up since the end of the afternoon. Maybe a burst of earthquakes in a few next hours … ?

9. Too right Zyfly, ignorance is just as deadly as erupting volcano. When Big B does decide to blow at least we would be prepared to limit the risks. They need to sit up a pay attention to what is unfolding in Iceland, because this could be big and nasty.

   1. Recently I rewatched some of the videos from the 2004 tsunami. How could anyone not know what they were seeing?? Yet they didn’t, almost no one did. I’ve known as long as I can remember when the ocean rushes out you do *not* go pick up the flopping fish. Makes me wonder about humanity sometimes. Same thing with Mt St Helens.

      1. It’s even written in stone:

         http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/21/world/21stonesspan/21stones-articleLarge.jpg

10. http://skemman.is/stream/get/1946/11137/27366/1/The_Fissure_Swarm_of_Tungnafellsjokull.pdf Interesting to read…

    1. Very interesting read, explains a lot about the geology of the area.

11. Jon auto spell alert
    “”Earthquake activity today. Notice how the green starts (earthquake above magnitude 3,0) form a circle around the caldera that is about to collapse into it self.”Earthquake activity today. Notice how the green STARS. caps are the highlight.

    1. Thanks for this. I am going to correct it.

12. I now have it on my mobile TvS. It looks a very interesting read, I will go through it properly in the morning.

13. Thanks for all of your info Jon. I don’t know if this is appropriate to ask but my son is flying to the USA next week from Paris via Iceland. Would it be safer taking a direct flight from Paris to New York City, avoiding Iceland altogether? I’ve been reading everything I can on the recent seismic activity in Iceland and it’s worrisome.

    1. I don’t think there is more then a week until this goes off full power. So I can’t advice on flight routes. There is no way to know when this goes off, it might happen tomorrow or we might have to wait six months for it.

       1. I would fly direct, Better safe than sorry.

14. Another perspicacious & logical blog Jon. You’re excelling yourself, & your talent for captivating writing is what gives Icelandic eruptions a certain piquancy! I am checking your blog up to 20 times a day at the moment!
    And I am arranging to go shopping to stock up on survival foods, water, & glow sticks!

    All joking aside, this seems to be a very gargantuan event taking place. I keep imagining the scenario of pushing the cork of a bottle of champagne inwards, & seeing the same effect as if it were pulled out – release in pressure.

    The SO2 levels is what concerns me the most however. They’re off the chart so to speak. Similar to the paper I read on Mount Pinatubo. And that was a catastrophic eruption. I am still uncertain what exactly this volcano under the ice is capable of. We’ve seen very small sub-glacial eruptions around the VEI1 & 2 mark. But we both know this is a major eruption.

    I guess we just have to be objective, & wait for her to reveal her secrets to us. 🙂

15. That’s what makes the situation dangerous, she could blow tomorrow, next week or next month. She give warning or may blow with little or no warning. The fuse has now been lit, now we just wait and see how this play’s out.

16. Very reminiscent of waiting to see what Mt St. Helens was going to do. We heard that exposion 200 miles north when people right nearby heard nothing. Friends and family were involved in the ashfall and had a friend who needed to escape the pyroclastic flow down the mountain. Scary.

17. Looks like the large earthquakes, at least those that are on today’s graph, are actually 18 hours apart, not 12.

18. Margaret, that would make sense that you heard the explosion as you were North of the volcano. The N side experienced a huge lateral blast as the side of the mountain collapsed in a massive landslide.

19. This is interesting because I can not think of any time where we have been able to actually witness the formation of a caldera of this size, ever, anywhere in the world. The one thing is we also don’t know if there will be a large eruption at the caldera. This does seem like a response to the large amouts of magma being injected into the new dyke and whatever is being erupted at the surface. I am not a volcanologists, so I am not asking what I am say to be taking in any scientific sense. In any case, from all the central volcanoes that have developed calderas, this does see like a standard response to such a large displacement of magma/lava. In the end, there is a good chance that a large ash eruption will not take place in the central caldera itself, and just subside into the void that is being left by the magmatic injection. The one really cool thing is I would assume this has the possibility to be one of the largest lava flows that has erupted in Iceland over the last 10,000 years. That is the scary thing since this lava seem to be very gas rich and looks to be already causing serious problems.

    1. Mount Tambora comes to mind. But the caldera that formed in 1815 was smaller then what we are seeing in Bárðarbunga. The mechanism are not the same. I don’t know if it is going to be as big as Tambora, but I do know and estimate that is going to be big.

       On Mount Tambora. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tambora

       1. Tambora is an awesome volcano, but yes these are two different species for sure. I agree that Bardarbunga is something big, but from the aspect of the lava that is being injected/erupted. I kinda look at this like how a caldera would form on a large basaltic shield volcano such as Mauna Loa. There are some similarities in the sense of rift zones (fissure swarms for Iceland) and how the magma is transferred away and erupts at a location away from the “central vent”. Obviously there is major weakness above the central part of the Bardarbunga system with this amazing amount of magma that is moving. Does this lead to some full scale collapse that leads to magma making its way up the ring faults? Who knows. It has never been seen before. I just feel this is what would be a standard caldera subsidence in this type of volcanic system that is having a “big” eruption/magmatic intrusion event. I guess there will be glacier melt for sure as I can only assume there will be some heat somewhere in the subsiding caldera. It is fun to see the scientists are as knowledgeable as we are on this event at this point. No matter what, it is a great learning experience for us all.

       2. Tambora obviously didn’t have those mega-tonnes of ice on top of the crater floor.
          From Volcano Cafe Carl’s Blog http://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/bardarbunga-holuhraun-update-140910/

          Here’s option 3 from
          Professor Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson, professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland´s Institute of Earth Sciences and the foremost Icelandic expert on subglacial eruptions outlines the three following scenarios:

          3) The deflation reaches a critical point where part of the roof of the Bardarbunga caldera collapses which allows water, liquid or in the form of ice, to interact directly with the magmatic main body. Now Carl’s addendum : (This will lead to a series of very violent explosions which will only stop when either the body of water/ice or the body of magma are exhausted, our note).

20. Is bard 1 cam down? Seems windy on cam 2.

    1. Bard 1 is running for me.

    2. At this moment I got both cams – but – nothing visible on 2 –
       its jumpy and full of – ? – cloud, gasses, ash?

21. Thanks for your great insights! One English grammatical tip – when comparing things, it’s “than”, as in (meira) en. “Then” only deals with causality/time. 🙂

22. Just came back. At least for me. I’m still crossing my fingers on my flight from US to Europe on Saturday. This has been really interesting to follow, just hoping Bard waits to go until after I get to my destination. It’s allowed to leave me stuck on vacation on the way back though!

23. Speaking of learning experience: any advice on a site that will detail how to interpret all these different charts with a basic understanding?

24. Regarding the weirdness of this undergoing a relatively quick caldera collapse in the absence of any similar quick drain on the chamber…

    How many other large caldera are known to have had lakes or glacier on top of the old caldera floor before they collapsed? One cubic kilometer water = 1 billion metric tons, after all.

    Could the enormous weight on the caldera be causing premature collapse?

    1. Pinatubo lake has been drained recently to avert a crater floor collapse and also to prevent a cataclysmic flood in case of a crater wall breech.

25. I read a comment somewhere that said it’s possible the mantle plume that was responsible for the Siberian Traps (K-T extinction event) is now under Bárðarbunga due to plate movement. Anyone know anything about this? If so, we could be in for a loooong ride.

    1. When posting stuff about extinction events remember there are people reading these blogs that are genuinely and rightly scared of what could happen here.

       We all know the possibilities. Jons is an accurate assessment based on his knowledge and data. Likewise the IMO. No-one is talking extinction, we know it could be bad we also know it could peter out.

       We could get run over today, or struck by lightning, or fall down the stairs. Equally we may win the lottery, get married, have kids, or just have a fun day.

       1. I’m not trying to be sensationalist, it was a genuine scinetific question. I have a degree in geology and think in geological time. To me, extinction events are just part of the scenario of Planet Earth, but I do realize not everyone thinks that way.

    2. If so it’s a distant faded echo of what it once was. That was 252 million years ago. The plume under Yellowstone is an echo of the Columbia River flood basalts, I believe 17 or 18 million years ago. Yellowstone’s still a far greater threat to the continuation of civilization than Iceland is, but nothing like what it was. (That’s another one for the antipodal resonance hypothesis by the way, I believe there’s an impact crater in the South Indian Ocean that could have caused it, although I’ve also heard strenuous objections to that claim). It would stand to reason impact generated (in theory) hotspots like the K-T one and Yellowstone would fade over time.

       And for those who don’t know, although the 640,000 years since its last mega-eruption means it’s overdue, Yellowstone is not regular like the Old Faithful geyser there, and a lot of specific known things would have to happen first over many years before it got anywhere near to the caldera inflation, dome building and pancaking collapse of which it’s capable.

       Volcanoes erupt in Iceland all the time. This one is big in terms of lava and potential, but odds are it won’t be any worse than others we hardly hear about. Eyjafjallajökull was an exception due to wind direction and because the airline industry had only recently learned how dangerous volcanic ash could be to planes, and they overcompensated, an error since corrected.

26. Thanks Jon for your consistent informative and scientific updates.

    Not only do you do the interested a great service, but the world at large, who would possibly in future, also become more alerted and prepared by delving deeply into the content of your fantastic blog and the amazing comments added (around patterns of future natural disasters such as this one, which is obviously, by scientific evidence, crescending).

    This unfolding situation is most concerning and almost a tragedy – as whilst the Iceland University, and the Icelandic Met Office are obviously alarmed and very uneasy about the scenario – there is a tragedy developing here as well: Of poorly – perhaps “apathetic” Icelandic residents/surrounding-nations taking this situation very lightly, which could catch them unawares as it could cause a lot of terrible situations.

    I’m an amateur – following your blog with keen interest since 2010. Keep up the wonderful work!

    1. If the worst case scenario possible happens (a 10-20km3 eruption) it happens, we do not fear it in Iceland. It has happened before and will happen again, and people carry on. It is just a mountain exploding violently magma upwards. Part of life for Iceland. Why stress?

       Fear leads nowhere. I will die one day eventually. I grow some food and I stockpile some food, but I will not go paranoic over this. If it happens, let it be. I think that we might see a 1-5km3 eruption perhaps, thick ash fall, and airplane disruption. And then we carry on. Perhaps by late 2014 or early 2015. Or maybe nothing else happens. No worries.

       It’s a spectacle of nature. And anyways most of Iceland is more than 150km away from the caldera. I am actually more concerned by human made disasters. Like climate change (the volcano comes and goes, the atmosphetic pollution is a slowly persistent unfolding disaster). Humans usually worry only short-term and big style stuff.

       Also, calderas can sink without eruption (e.g. Krafla), but I have the feeling that this one will erupt in a rather big way (1km3+). The need to people to see natural disasters reflects their need for experiencing nature more closer, people have been too far removed from nature, if they would have been closer to it, they wouldn’t have that fascination.

       1. Great comment

    2. Irpsit is a resident of Iceland, so you may want to think about the phlegmatic tone of his reply to you. If it had been me I would have found it hard to restrain myself in the face of your apparently uninformed and insultingly patronising attitude to Icelanders and to the “surrounding nations”. (I assume you know that Iceland is an island and therefore has no surrounding nations.)

       Have you read any of the Icelandic media reports of this event? Do you know anything about the work of IMO or of the Icelandic Civil Protection people? Do you think that shows Icelanders to be “apathetic”?

       Have you read the recent British Geological Survey report for the British government? Do you think it too is “apathetic”?

       Oh, and Jón is Icelandic, too.

       1. Come on, history is full of stories of people failing to recognize the magnitude of disasters until it’s too late. Just watch videos of the 2004 tsunami if you want a chilling reminder of that. It’s a valid concern. But yeah, tracking volcanoes seems to be a national sport in Iceland and they have the best volcanologists in the world. I wouldn’t lecture Floridians about hurricanes, and I certainly wouldn’t lecture Icelandic people about volcanoes.

    3. We have nothing to fear but fear itself :O

27. The noise on the drumplots, is it the weather?

    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/drumplot/vatnajokull.html

28. Tambora was a 100km**3, St. Helens 1km**3. The addition of 60km**3 ice on the top to what some have estimated here as 20-30km**3 magma makes this look like a krakatoa. When it goes all of europe will hear it

    1. All I can add to that is this –
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7RIgs3eygo

29. Hi,
    thank you Jon for a very good and interesting blogg!
    I have one question that I am concerned about and that I haven’t seen any answers to, but I guess it is a concern of others so it may already exist answers to it…. The question is, the hotspot connected to Bardarbunga does it connect to the magma chamber or where does it go, anyone knows????

30. Hello, thank you for this blog.

    To offset 12:00 earthquakes, I think we can see it as if the magma chamber was an inflatable balloon (IMHO). The walls of the dyke are ridges of hard rock and if the room has softer walls, lava keeps an even flow in the dyke but the pressure increases slightly in the chamber at regular intervals, causing collapses and can be washed finds another route to the west.
    Maybe we can also see it as a cap on the road, the front can still move forward, but behind any slowdown stope all cars.
    This hypothesis opens several scenarii:
    1) the lava find an another way to the west (there will be two faults as early ouvertent)
    2) eruption in the caldera
    3) if more than earthquake, the fountain of the main dyke accelerates its speed until the end of the eruption or increased flow of magma (back scenario 1);-))
    …

    written with google translate (from France), excuse me if it’s very bad but my english is not sure.

    thank you again to all boys and girls for your comments

31. Great update thanks. She’s dragging it out thats for sure!

    Just found this via twitter – the moment PNG volcano erupted last month captured on video. Pretty good footage you can see the shockwave…..
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUREX8aFbMs#t=48

    Ric

32. i live in the U.K., and i don’t see what the government can do at the moment, except take a wait and see approach, with wind direction and many other factors to take into account.
    With Laki the problem was gas, and i suppose we would be told to stay indoors should a similar event occur. A Lady earlier in the thread was joking about stockpiling stores, its not such a crazy idea if you use the stuff anyway.If big bad Bard does blow, i will stock up on non perishable stuff immediately

    1. They knew about this ages ago and commissioned a study –
       http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/volcanoes/LakiEruptionScenarioPlanning.html

       1. It’s called emergency planning. They did not know about this particular event ages ago.

          Personally I’m thinking collapse rather than Laki style, So maybe BGS should produce another report.

          As for emergeny planning in the UK. If you search the government websites, they do have quite a lot of info about emergency preparation. They suggest 3 days supply of food in storage, although I suspect that is more for flooding than volcanic eruptions.

       2. SAGE was set up in 2010, that’s ages ago for me but there were previous uni studies dating much further back. The VMSG was for example set up in 1964.

          I know about emergency planning being ex fire service, there are plans for everything from this to the UK’s nuclear power stations.

33. Low frequency tremor rising at a number of Sil stations now.

34. Next week the weather is a COL situation in Iceland. Any gases will sit there and hardly any wind at all by Tuesday/Wed. Atnospheric pressure generally high. Followed by a weak flabby low system means light winds and gases will not go far away. Then high pressure for rest of the week. So it would be best for Icelanders if nothing big happens next week.

    1. It’s a very good idea keeping an eye on the weather as this event unfolds. It will play a critical role in the damage caused by any eruption.

       For that purpose I use this jetstream forcast.

       http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream;sess=

       If others know some good weather sites, particularly government and reseach ones, please could you post the links. Thanks in advance.

       1. I use
          http://www.sat24.com/en/eu?ir=true

       2. Thanks for that one, it’s book marked.

       3. * http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavneur.html

          Here, you can find different models to forecast the wind at different atmospheric levels. GFS (Global Forecast System) is the american model with several fileds (200 hPa ~ level of the jet stream ; 500 hPa ~ 5500 m high)

          * http://www.wetter24.de/profikarten/gfs-ncep.html

          Here, you can consult two models : GFS (Global Forecast System) and ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast) which is the british forecast model.
          There, you can also find some wind fields for different levels ( wind 300 hPa ~ level of jet stream ; wind 500 hPa ~5500 m high ; wind 700 hPa ~3000 m high ; wind 850 hPa ~ wind 1250 m high)
          As you can see, you can choose what continent you are interested in to analyze these fields .

       4. More for general consumption, but Jeff Masters’ blog at Weather Underground will probably have good coverage in the event of an eruption. He specializes in hurricanes but often covers other important topics and has a great understanding of the jet stream and how climate change is affecting it. http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

          It might also be useful to look at Neven’s Arctic sea ice graphs page which has links to a number of weather sites including jet stream maps (towards the bottom). https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/

35. Is something happening here http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/von.gif ? High freq ha gone up the last hour.

    1. That looks like a sudden jump, could it be noise.

       I am no expert concerning these charts, so any explanation would be very helpful.

       1. It’s likely caused by strong winds. The tremor plots are unreliable when it’s windy.

36. Time now 8AM BST 5 – 7 hours for next big quake

    1. Will it happen.. 🙂 Just a bit of fun

       1. If 4.7 counts as big it’s arrived 3 hours ahead of your guess.

          There really isn’t a regular time pattern from what I have observed. Nature studies her own clock, not ours.

       2. No only 5+ count haha.. Very unscientific 🙂

       3. Get ready 🙂

       4. Still waiting…

37. Hi! I know this is not tripadvisor – I’ve been a loyal Friman-blog-reader for years, but I wonder is there anyone out there who has been on a Holohraun flight to see the eruption – tell us what was it like? So I can envy you 😉 I’m thinking all day long should I take the risk and fly to Iceland, now or never. I regretted all these years I didn’t go to see Eyjafjälla until it was too late.. also then I thought it might be too dangerous, a one-way-flight only.. Icelanders love their volcanoes and I’m sure they would not be afraid now if scenario wasn’t serious. Iceland is the most beautiful country I’ve ever visited, I really hope this will turn out to be one of those spectacular but not lifethreathing events that make iceland a true paradise for a volcano enthusiast..

38. It’s quiet.

    Too quiet.

39. No Earthquakes…its all gone quiet? have the instruments failed ?

40. Great Blog and I agree that we should keep an eye on the weather. Trouble is no weather agencies seem to be saying anything about volcanism. This site has been saying a bit especially about a major eruption and the high sulfur and how it will alter climate in UK and US apparently

    https://www.facebook.com/ExactaWeather

    http://www.exactaweather.com/UK_Long_Range_Forecast.html

41. http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/drumplot/vatnajokull.html

    Looks like it could be wind interering with the plots making detection difficult.

    So unless theres a large quake measured further away not a lot to see at all.

42. Increased tremor at Smjorgil in the SW of the island.

43. Must have heard us from IMO

    Friday
    12.09.2014 09:22:24 64.853 -16.847 6.3 km 1.5 90.01 18.9 km ENE of Kistufell
    Friday
    12.09.2014 09:18:32 64.790 -16.925 10.7 km 1.6 79.95 13.5 km E of Kistufell
    Friday
    12.09.2014 09:11:08 64.686 -17.473 1.7 km 1.0 56.42 5.7 km NNE of Bárðarbunga

44. Sept. 12 dawn in USA
    I cant see anything on cam2 and not much on cam1
    If I lived on Iceland I would leave NOW – with any animals. I would not wait until Pompeii
    My friend emailed me this link. Hahaha! He didnt know I’ve been watching it.
    I do not know if its over hype or not. I pray it doesnt really explode.

    Here is an American blog with an article, comments and a very good video.
    This video looks like it may have been taken by the helicopter I saw flying low back n forth on cams 1 and 2 yesterday.
    http://tinyurl.com/Iceld-volc

    Image – MAP
    That website has this map – you may want to save it
    http://meteobergamasco.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/761458-300×200.jpg

    Jon – If this is over-hype, let me know. I will emailed to my friend.

    It Will Be Unlike Anything Ever Seen in Recorded History
    “This is lava draining out from under the crater of Bardabunga 25 miles away!
    The scale of what is going on is unlike anything seen in modern times.

    “The lava under the Bardabunga crater is draining out from the crater floor (the Caldera) which is over 6 miles in diameter and filled 2500 feet thick with ice covering the crater floor.

    “That FLOOR has dropped 25 meters (80 Feet) this week.

    “Scientists are now gravely concerned that the crater floor will soon collapse into a miles deep underground cavern filled with boiling white hot magma.

    “There’s 1 trillion gallons of water in the ice in Bardabunga crater.
    “When that falls into a lake of magma it will instantly flash into steam expanding 600 times in volume.

    “The magma, suddenly no longer contained by the crater floor and 1 trillion gallons of water will act like a shaken soft drink can when the top is popped.
    “It will be an event unlike anything ever seen in recorded history.

    The current eruption is happening on a fissure that is located a tiny bit North-East of Bárdarbunga. The fissure is not located under Vatnajökull which is Europe’s largest Glacier. Bárdarbunga is located under this glacier and that is why it’s causing concern.
    This eruption is happening more than 100 miles away from Reykjavik in the SE portion of the island.

    Aviation colour code map
    Askja – yellow and Bar still orange, no other alerts
    Warning – Fissure eruption in Holuhraun (north of Vatnajökull).
    Warning – A high concentration of sulphur dioxide is forecast from the Holuhraun eruption. Air pollution is likely in the East Fjords, extending north to Vopnafjörður. This is valid for tonight and tomorrow (Friday). A larger pollution area cannot be ruled out.
    http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/volcanic-eruptions

    Lots of articles here
    http://www.ruv.is/volcano

    I know 3 links mean Jon has to approve. *sigh* O well.
    New people come to this blog and they want links.

    1. That’s remarkably un-moonbatty for random Internet chains. The errors are mostly technical rather than “radiation diluted in the Pacific will kill us all!!!11” junk.

       There are multiple frighteningly large, violent caldera formations in “recorded history.” I think Krakatoa is the only one to have had firsthand observers that lived, but they do exist.

       The “trillion gallons” is actually low. 264 gallons/cubic meter. 1 billion cubic meters in cubic kilometer. Rather many of those in the glacier…

       It won’t all flash to steam at once, but the volume expansion of what does is broadly right. Water and magma reservoirs don’t get along and compared to the delta T involved with achieving superheating, the delta T between ice and water is not that great.

       With him being actually low on the gallons involved by a large margin, it doesn’t need total cooperation.

       His thrust (huge glacier + bad lid + big volcano = caldera goes boom with largest event we’ve ever seen) is super worst-case scenario on the manner of failure, but it’s not “wrong.”

45. This one has also offered some coverage but mainly to stuff that Jon has already covered http://www.weather.com/news/icelandic-bardarbunga-volcano-new-fractures-and-sinkholes-spotted-20140827

46. And again from the Imo

    Friday
    12.09.2014 09:32:56 64.676 -17.448 1.1 km 2.2 90.13 5.5 km NE of Bárðarbunga

    Normal service has resumed.

    1. The last one, was at least 4mag EQ. IMO will correct in an hour or two.

       1. Looking at the drumplot might even hit the M5.

       2. 5 is usual detected fast by EMSC, this was not. Maybe under 4.5 also.

       3. Is EMSC slowing posts down? perhaps intentionally? Trying not to cause panics?
          Unknown – guessing only. Questioning actually.
          2 quakes over 4 in past 12 hours.
          http://www.emsc-csem.org/#2

47. It must of heard us 5.1 quake last night though. It won’t print my comments but am doing calculation test ok

48. Variations in the quakes are really down to how easily the magma is flowing. And, if you look before late August, there were very few quakes in the system.

    We went from that to over 2500 quakes in a 48 hour period, I’d expect it to drop again, as stresses in the system are relieved

    Of more concern are the ring fault quakes, as Jon says they appear to be on a 12-18 hour cycle for the big >M5, it may just take that long for stress to rebuild after the previous quake, but it’s unusual.

    My initial thoughts were of a flank collapse on the North East side as that’s where the quakes were most prevalent early on, but now with what almost looks like a circle of quakes, I think Jon is correct with the caldera collapse scenario.

    The biggest problem of course is that we have no prior scientific data to help us understand

49. Have you all noticed that while the total number of quakes is going down, the total over M3 is gradually creeping up.

    1. The convex shape of the caldera lid under the 60 billion tons of ice is becoming progressively more extreme. It is *not* subsiding evenly and that means the rock isn’t happy.

50. Most recent large quake confirmed as 4.7M

    Quake activity looks generally quieter due to strong wind. The wind interferes with the sensors and stops them differentiating small quakes.

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