Posted on by Jón Frímann

Bárðarbunga daily update on 29-September-2014

I am sorry for this late update. I did spend several hours trying to figure out a problem that does not appear to be on my end regarding my IPv6 tunnel connection. I hope this problem is solved by my tunnel provider (Hurricane Electric) soon. Now back to Bárðarbunga volcano.

Overview of the activity of 29-September-2014

  • Largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 5,5 and the depth of 5,6 km. Second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,9 and depth of 3,1 km. Other earthquakes where smaller. The largest earthquake was felt in Akureyri and surrounding area.
  • Due to bad weather it was close to impossible to make any observations about the eruption according to the news. Scientists where unable to go to there area today far as I know.
  • The eruption in Holuhraun continues as it has been doing for almost a month now.
  • 29-September-2014 means there is now one month since the first eruption in Holuhraun started and finished within few hours. The first eruption started and ended on 29-August-2014 and it erupted in craters that had last erupted in the year 1797.
  • Due to bad weather fewer earthquakes where recorded. Only earthquakes that did go above the wind noise where seen on the SIL network and my geophones.
  • The lava-field in Holuhraun is now larger than 44 square kilometres in size.
  • Bárðarbunga caldera continues to drop at same rate since that process started on 16-August-2014.
  • Nothing else to report far as I know

Images of the eruption

Here are few images of the eruption. Due to copyright I only link to them from this website.

Gengu á rauðglóandi hrauni í tæpa viku (People walking on red glowing lava for a week) – Vísir.is (Icelandic)

Winter arrives at Holuhraun (Rúv.is)

There are many pictures of the eruption on University of Iceland Twitter feed.

192 Replies to “Bárðarbunga daily update on 29-September-2014”

  1. Why those awaiting an eruption of Bardabunga are going to be denied that spectacle.
    ================================

    The on-going fissure eruption at Holuhraun is likely to fill the fissure, cool, and shut it down for some time.
    Then, not until the tectonic plates part some more, will we see further action there. This could take years.

    I do not think Bardabunga is going to erupt any time soon (not what most who are far away want to hear). All that ice in its caldera will chill any magma and thus, as soon as the Holuhraun fissure seals, we may see Bardabunga cease dropping, and perhaps start to rise again.

    The Earth’s crust is 30 to 50 Km thick (and even thinner at 15-20 Km in Iceland) and tends to float on the Mantle. The mantle is much hotter than the crust and molten.
    As the crust cracks, heavier sections drop down into the mantle, and displaces the molten mantle matter, which rises. It’s all fluid dynamics and natural equilibrium. That is why Bardabunga has been dropping. The molten mantle material supporting it has been leaking out through the Holuhraun fissure crack.

    If the eathquakes at Bardabunga persist beyond several days after the fissure seals, then there may be cause for concern of a Bardabunga eruption.

    If the plate tectonics movement cause a crack below Bardabunga, that would allow the weight of the crust in that region to push down on the molten mantle.
    Then we would see an eruption. Just because there is a fissure erruption about 20-30 Km from Bardabunga does not directly correlate to a volcanic eruption at Bardabunga.

    2. The Holurhaun eruption was expected by the IMO to last 7-10 days, it has lasted a month with no apparent reduction in flow. This eruption is now confirmed through analysis to be deep sourced and is not now being fed from B.

      The crust is divided into the Lithosphere and Asthenosphere, the latter being a zone of semi crystalline mush and some fluid area.
      http://snag.gy/6Monz.jpg

      Tectonic faults cause subduction zones and as in the case of Iceland the Divergent Mid Atlantic Ridge, quite well illustrated by the diver in this article –
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1385589/The-growing-gap-Eurasia-North-American-tectonic-plates.html

      In Iceland the current situation is the ripping apart of the North American and Eurasian plates, which has led to a scenario which has thus far never been recorded before. Some experts believe the process began in 1995 and this is an part of that. They also believe Bardarbunga may have been dropping before the 16th August, for several years, but there has been no gps on the caldera to check this.

      The current gps also uses the gps unit on Vonaskard as a reference point and is quite accurate because of this.

      I have learned that this situation is far far more complex than simple deduction. There is no cast iron scenario, it would be highly desirable if it were to end without a major eruption. However, the longer it continues the more likely a major event will happen.

      The magma chamber of Bardarbunga is massive, for the centre to fall as much as it has done means that the contents of that chamber (magma is incompressible) must be being pushed into fissures in the walls of the caldera and/or hydraulically moving between the upper and lower chambers. The intial fissure which has been suggested fed the Holurhaun is not now doing so, the signs therefore are that the chamber is full.

      This may help you –
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4eqJ-L3leo&list=UUft1DTmR-ulbJix1SvKLL9A

      We are all learning from this one, even the best experts in the world who are risking their lives out there. All I am saying my friend is these forums let us comment and suggest and debate, but neither you nor I know what is going to happen. Jon is very knowledgeable about this subject, and also others who spend a lot of time delving into the complexities.

      1. I found your comments interesting and helpful. Any minor errors went unnoticed by me [and perhaps most others as well]. It seems opposing conventional wisdom often isn’t appreciated. But it’s necessary sometimes. As you said, “We are all learning from this one, even the best experts in the world …”.

      2. thanks for the explanations.
        Re: “the longer it continues the more likely a major event will happen” but things are somewhat stable so I wonder why current situation might continue to release pressure/etc rather than a major eruption event. Also would be nice if experts quantified probabilities to some degree. We all know probability of glacial flood is greater than 0% and less than 100%. Can’t an estimate/guestimate be given to reduce this uncertainty?
        How about 20% to 40% within next month?
        Or should this be increased or decreased or shifted?
        And how about within next year? 33% to 67%? or what would better fit you guys’ experience. I realize there are not existing models that fit exactly where you can give a single number with a great deal of certainty. But seems you could improve on the 0% to 100%.

    3. So, in other words, you have no clue either?

      You categorically state there will be no eruption, then go on to tell us 2 scenarios where one might occur. Very scientific!

      The bottom line, is that you may have made a lucky guess. No one knows what will happen here. A situation like it has never been observed before.

    4. Thank you for the helpful comment. No one seems to know what will happen next. All ideas are welcome!

      1. @Scots John

        Ok, but citing “Daily Fail”? ehm …. (now I am tempted myself t
        to use at least 5 exclamation marks … )

        ” … this British scuba diver is actually between two tectonic plates.”

        The faults at Thingvellir are all of them in a way between two tectonic plates, divergent plate boundaries can’t be defined so clearly. It is not like you are here and this is on the American Plate and your friend there, 2 m apart from you stands on the Eurasian Plate. This is just what some guides tell tourists, but it does not work like that. The zones are between 20 to 50 km wide and a l l of the lots of faults and fissures (often lying parallel to the rift, but sometimes also oblique to the rift ) are part of it.

        BTW also re. subduction zones: It is the other way round, the subduction zones (and other zones where plates meet) cause the faults and fissures. The bigger movements cause the smaller ones, not the other way round. Think about a cold and sneezing.

        And yes, there have been GPS recordings indicating the caldera dropping, eg. the magn. 5 quake in 1996 was interpreted this way.

        There is also something I don’t understand:
        – What means “the situation is far more complex than simple deduction”?
        – Where did you find the information that the magma chamber of Bárdarbunga is “massive” and that there is one (as a big sort of cavern) in the first place and not more like a magma reservoir which would be a complicated system of multiple dikes and sills stacked like in a mine? As far as I know, nobody knows exactly what sort of magma storage there is and as a consequence, lots of different theories about it are to be find out there.
        – How do you know that Bárdarbunga has actually stopped feeding the dyke (anyway partially)? Do you have access to petrological analysis showing that without a doubt?

      2. @ Inge B

        I don’t know why you are digging at me, I was trying in the simplest terms possible to explain to this person the basic details. By deduction I was referring to his deductions stated as fact in his post. I used the Daily Mail article because it illustrated the fault, and I could not find the article that I wanted because so much has been written in such a short period.

        Regards the caldera dropping since 1995/6 –
        http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X10004516

        Like me, I am sure you have read a great deal I am not even going to try to answer your ‘don’t understand’ points because I know I have read them but I am not wasting hours looking for them for your benefit. You know as well as I do that IMO have stated the magma is deep sourced now, you will have read it as well as me. I did and do have a problem with the initial diagnosis over the Holuhraun being fed by B since the eq’s patterns only supported that when viewed from above, when split over the depth they occurred at it did not make sense to me and the first sample analysis did not 100% support it either since certain compounds that should have been there were not, and what was there could have come from adiabatic decompression melt which can melt up to 30% of surround material on its way up (I read this on a uni tutorial. I am not putting another link in or Jon will get fed up approving my posts, you search it).

        Finally like me, you do not know what will happen for sure, nor does anyone else including the IMO. We are in here talking and debating in a friendly manner, can we keep it that way? I am not an expert, I have been following Jons blog and other places for several years out of fascination.

    5. Ice does not chill magma significantly. This is impossible in the thermodynamic universe we occupy.

  2. I’d not be quite so sanguine about this eruption. BB has a long history of large eruptions, if memory serves, and most of them include eruptions on the associated fissure swarm like we see at Holuhraun. Even though this is an effusive event so far, and seems harmless, one must bear in mind the Iceland has had massive and deadly fissure eruption in historical times – Laki, and Eldgjá come to mind.

    In addition BB usually gets in on the action. None of us can predict what will happen, but Icelandic fissure eruptions are famous for their volumes of lava and lengthy eruptions that can last for months or years. Meanwhile the GPS data shows that BB is quite literally heaving despite the overall subsidence during the past weeks. To me this shows the caldera is like much like the lid on a boiling cauldron. If we are lucky the lid stays on, and perhaps the magma dissipates into the rift or fissure dyke system at Holuhraun, but there is clear danger that the main caldera will become involved. Because of all the ice and and presumably water this would be a very violent event. Time will tell, but I’m hoping for a effusive fire show to continue at Holuhraun without BB blowing up.

    1. I think all of us are hoping BB will quiet down. And as to Holuhraun: Even if it looks good on cameras, we have to think about the poor Icelanders esp. in the east of the country who are suffering from the gas …

  3. We try to establish the facts rather than promote personal authority. The fact is thst this situation has not happend in iceland in modern times and there are many possible outcomes in a chaotic system. All we can do is observe and record. I hope your guess for all our sakes is the right one.

    1. I absolutely agree with this. Nobody knows the full extent of what is really going on, they can only guess and make estimates based on what they think are the greatest probabilities. They can’t know with any certainty and the entire nature of the eruption could change tomorrow or an hour from now. We have seen volcanoes erupt out of seemingly nowhere. We have seen volcanoes go into rather vigorous unrest and then go silent without erupting at all. But we do know that the system at Bárðarbunga has the *potential* for very large eruptions. Exactly as you stated, we simply have to sit and watch and wait and see. People seem to be spoiled and expect someone to some computer model to give an prediction. Not with volcanoes.

      1. Geologic time moves very very slowly. We humans are like a little colony of ants dashing about collecting food and nesting materials. It is so difficult for us to comprehend this event at BB, because this event is part of a very large complex movement of the planet’s crust. We can only wait this out, perhaps for a very long period of time. Time will slowly let us in on the secrets and mystery of what BB is up to. I think, from my ant prospective, that it is hard to be patient!

      2. But it would be helpful, of value, to quantify to some degree.
        Like a range on the probability of certain type of event within
        certain time period. See if there is any type of consensus that
        might be obtained. Be bold!

    2. @Stephen Thomas
      Why don’t you present us with a nice probabilistic model?
      q(t) is the probability that BB erupts on day t>0=today,
      E_t is the corresponding event.
      q(t) is a measure of our ignorance, no real probabilities exist in the laws of physics.
      Find a reasonable recursion for q(t+1)=f(q(t)) by conditioning on the event that BB has not erupted at 0,1,…,t.
      Then we can play around with all sorts of predictions.

  4. The EQ count over 24 hours has really dropped a lot in the last two days. Is that just because of the storms or is activity dying down gradually? Or maybe the fissure is about to stop soon and all quake activity will be around the caldera?

    1. The small EQs are not detected in the storm. Last time (21th sep) there was a M5.5 EQ it was 30 hours since last M5+ and almost 40 hours to next M5+. So I don’t think the EQ activity is down around yesterdays M5.5.

    2. Storm interference does mask eq’s. Less eq activity does not mean it is slowing down or stopped. When magma finds a clear route there are less eq’s.

    3. As others have stated, the storm makes it harder to see the smaller quakes in all the noise it creates in the seismographs. It also masks harmonic tremor, too.

    1. I agree, this graph has been driving me crazy for the past few hours. I’ve been telling myself it’s because of the extremely strong winds, but hoping someone could say for sure — again. Jeez…

      1. Winds look fairly strong in the camera, plume is nearly horizontal, but it doesn’t look like there would be a lot of icing condition right now. Sky is fairly clear, it looks like.

    2. Curve fitting is a difficult excercise. The graph for the entire 18-day period that has been measured seems to indicate a steady decline, slightly decelerating. 4-day periods indicate the same thing. While your observation is also certainly correct. What period is most relevant generally requires knowledge of the underlying process, precisely what is missing here.

  6. I love Icelandic weather. The storm appears to have passed now. On Mila 1 camera at the moment (7:30am UTC) there’s blue sky and almost all the snow has gone. With the wind now blowing from left to right, the fissure eruption is nice and visible too.

    1. It is a good view, not obscured by fume or cloud. It seems to me that there are two distinct plumes visible; a big one, and a smaller one in front and slightly to the right. It’s not clear if the nearer one is a separate vent, or just a particularly vigorous patch of steaming or degassing. Time will tell.

      Mila Barda 2 cam zoomed in could probably tell us more, but unfortunately it is too fogged up to be useful.

  8. Thanks for this site, I’ve been following it for some weeks now with students from my class and we’ve all been learning a lot.

  9. I think JohnGee has been looking up African Rift Valley formation. What is going on mat be similar, but more likely it is a normal caldera collapse, none of us know. The Rift Valley could have been caused by the dyke from the magma chamber, but it could be from the MAR spreading, and Barbarbungas magma just found it an easy route to surface, then having part emptied the magma chamber(s), that could be falling in. I can’t help thinking that the depth of the initial earthquakes could mean this is a Rift Valley event under the ice, rather than a below ground magma leakage event though.

  10. I’ve seen mention over at DailyKos (and others) that there was a significant rise in the river level last night. However, none of the links I have clicked on have worked. Anyone have any information on this?

    3. You can find it here. You have to write
      Notandi: vatnshaed
      Lykilorð: rennsli
      in the right places.
      Then choose Jökulsa a Fjöllum- Upptypingar and I change the skale (skali) minimum to weeks (vika/vikur) or 1 month (manudur).
      So you can see that there is a short up-spike in rennsli (m3/sec.) but also a short down-spike at “leidni” (conductivity). As I understand it the conductivity must go up, if there is volcanic material in the river.
      Correct me if I’m wrong…

    4. I am not so sure about that it was just because of precipitation, because the conductivity in Jökulsá á Fjöllum went up at the same time.
      http://vmkerfi.vedur.is/vatn/vdv.php?p=0&station_id=222&page_id=342&direct=1
      (Station Upptyppingar, next to Holuhraun and the glacier)
      The water discharge doubled within some hours last night from around 100 m3/sec -> 214 m3/sec., and the conductivity went up from 200 to 210. (I think it has been so high lately, because the river touches the lava.
      I don’t think though that this was a jökulhlaup, more like a mixture of water from the precipitation on the glacier and water from geothermal systems under it or one of these mysterious water pockets emptying which must have been there from the small eruptions which caused the building of cauldrons in Dyngjujökull.

  11. This is a large system,possibly containing a large volume of evolved higher viscosity magma.This high viscosity magma is dependent on temperature,gas content and the crustal pressure to be in the right proportion for there to be an explosive eruption,”perfect storm”conditions.Those do not necessarily exist,but what possibly is happening is a major change in the dynamic of the caldera magmatic system.Will this lead to a large eruption?,possibly,possibly not.

  12. If we look at the history of BB we know it´s still an active volcano. The question is not if, it´s when? Is is ready to erupt now, in 10 years, in 100 years? The time factor is the big unknown here.

  13. Until the magma stops entering the dyke, this isn’t over. Everyday the magma continues rising, the chance of additional eruptions continues.

    Everything is conjecture at this point.

    Keep up the great work Jon, and good luck with everything going on with your system.

  14. I would say when the dyke stops it could only be the beginning. Eyja in 2010 began with a fissure eruption if I’m not mistaken. That stopped and then a couple of weeks later the volcano erupted.

    1. On the other hand, the situation now is much more complicated, much more different factors involved like rifting, other volcanoes (?), a triple junction etc.

  15. This is probably a very silly question… but I’m going to ask it anyway on this interested blogg (-:

    Is lava like the ‘frothy’ top on a milkshake, ie; is it less dense than the magma and all we’re seeing is the runny (frothy) stuff being forced out into the dyke by the pressure of the denser Magma below Bárðarbunga?

    1. It’s magma before it erupts and lava once it exits the earth.

      Some lava is frothy like this, and some has much less volatiles in it and behaves sedately.

  16. It seems they are not too worried about BB caldera eruption. That would be a large but short eruption, it would be over in a day or two. The worst scenario would probably be the dyke opening up under the glacier, because there is so much magma coming through. It could take months with heavy ash raining down and repeated floods coming down, potentially in more than one direction. That would be the most devastating scenario.

    1. I don’t know where you are getting the idea that a large caldera eruption wouldn’t worry them. Beyond that that kind of prompt SO2 release could cause mass fatalities if it isn’t blasted far enough away, thermal energy is thermal energy. A large prompt eruption will cause a massive prompt outburst flood.

  17. Jokulsa-a-Fjollum river plain is filling up with lava. As was noted earlier here in comments, it has made it well NE now and is in the process of cutting off another outlet river from the glacier. This plain is rather large, so it’ll take some time to fill it up enough to start a lake. Iceland maps are going to need updating next year.

  18. I’m not saying I know much, other than being a non practicing geologist, but the IMO has a nice chapter on the eruption history of BB during the Holocene. From the statistics presented there we can see that BB itself has been involved in the majority of eruptions on this volcanic system.

    The fissure swarm has been responsible for around 10% of eruptions. In the case of BB most eruptions have been small, but it has produced very large eruptions with > 10km3 of tephra. The fissure swarm has produced eruptions of >20km3 of basalt, so I can see why the local emergency services are wary. Everything about this volcano, based on past performance, says it can host very large eruptions. Thankfully the majority of action in the caldera, although explosive, seems to result in relatively small eruptions.

  21. Many of the low frequency tremor plots across iceland from katla to the north coast are showing a consistent linear increase of more than 10% from 21.09 until today. Any takes on that ?

    1. Noticed that too. Even though there is wind noise mixed in there, the trend is up. I think magma movement is rather robust from deep, and the current eruption is going to have a long life, whether from current site or a new one.

      1. Yes there is a trend of increase, especially the low frequency (red on IMO plots) on top of which there are high-tremoer periods due to storms. The trend remain between the storms even in very calm period. I think Jon and/or IMO already mentioned a possible sign of pressure increase due to this tremor behaviour.

  22. Hi guys and thanks for the all the knowledge share on here, especially Jon. On Mila 1 now there is a clear plum (the only one) from a different location (from the caldera, ice cap?), certainly not from the fissure eruption. I could be wrong, please confirm.

  23. Hi Jon, is this just one of those normal things … in the middle of the night?

    hen

    “Update, 11:15: “Something” happened on the river last night – in four hours (9 PM to 1 AM) the meter at Upptyppingar jumped from 112 m³/s to 214 m³/s and the water height from 184 to 241 cm. That’s a surplus of 1 1/2 million cubic meters of water (400 million gallons), the volume of a cube 114 meters on each side. I can’t explain this with weather – normally when the weather gets cold flow rates become lower and steadier. And temperatures were below freezing the whole time. But maybe there’s some weather explanation I’m not seeing. Otherwise, it looks like a flow pattern change due to the advancing lava flow, as if a good chunk of the “lake” drained out. Either that or a little jökulhlaup.

    Hopefully we’ll get a clarification soon.”
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/29/1333246/-B-r-arbunga-A-Song-of-Ice-and-Fire?showAll=yes

  24. When looking at Mila 1 now, if I didn´t know any better, I would think the whole area is erupting. These low clouds are moving fast.

    1. Its incredible how fast the weather changes there. Half an hour ago there was really cloudy and it looked like there was snowing. Now the weather is pretty clear. But that webcam is in total darkness, helps to see surrounding area better.

    1. It’s not possible to link direct on the chart you have chosen. Could you please tell which station and skale? I don’t think that one can take the 2-day-chart…

      2. If you change the skale to 1 manudur (month), you can see the spike going shortly up in height and flow, conductivity goes down at the same time. So I think it’s the melting snow of the last days that is collected of a great area.
        Jökulsa has also a great inflow from the Kverkfjöll glacier and geothermal area.

  26. We’ve had so many Faldo alarms that I hate to bring up what may turn out to be another one. But it does look to me as though another vent may have opened up to the south of the existing one, to the left of the radome. There is steam from the water, but also dark smoke. We’ll have to wait until the sun moves a little more–there’s a sun dog practically on top of it right now.

    2. Ah, faldo alarm 😉
      I think the lavaflow is pushing in the river in a stronger way…more lava…perhaps…more water…more steam…
      But there is a webcam-reflection at this point…so as ever…wait and see what happened when it’s get dark.

      1. Yes, will have to wait. I wouldn’t have said anything just for steam. It was the dark smoke boiling up that made me wonder about another vent.

      4. Pity that cam 2 isn’t working. Would be interesting, if it could zoom on that suspicious steam/plume left of R2D2

    3. I saw the steam there several hours aga, but I reckon it’s about 10 km ENE of the vent, where a tonge of lava is pushing into the river.

  27. About the river flow. You will recall that a couple of days ago, much of the area outside of the glacier was snow covered. Since that time there was a storm and that snow cover is now gone. Where could it have gone? One place to look for it might be the river. And the rain associated with that storm has probably also added to the flow. The temperature is obviously warmer now than it was a couple of days ago there and the glacier has likely resumed melting at the margins.

    There is another, larger, storm that will probably bring a *lot* of snow ahead of it and cold temperatures behind it. We’ll see how it goes but I suspect that as temperatures get colder and the melt rate of the glacier declines we will see a reduction in the flow but in the meantime at this time of year, things could fluctuate as the weather alternates between below and above the freezing point.

    As for news sources, anyplace can post accurate data regardless if one “likes” the leanings of the source. I see people here referencing stuff from Daily Kos which is probably one of the most slanted sources of information on the planet, much more so than the Mail. If information is accurate, it is accurate, the data should be what is important and we can be free to disregard commentary on what the data “means”. Any source is capable (even accidentally) of posting accurate data once in a while.

    2. I just wanted to know if it was typical. But yes, it was a stupid question. I am not used to glaciers and snow, for that matter. Logical too, since all rivers do that. Even here.

    1. Maybe the new lava flow reaches the river at a point where the water is deeper and causes more violent reaction than at the first lava/river encounter ? Maybe pseudo-crater formation this time.

    1. The right translation would be “differential value”. It seems the gps is sending a whole lot of readings that are all over the place, drawn in light blue/grey, the red line is a 30 minute median and the blue line is a 180 minute median of those readings.

  30. I think there might be a new vent, but not the foreground where the steam is coming from. Look beyond that in the sky. The foreground plume tends to mask it but once in a while it clears enough to see another plume behind it. That one appears to have more of the bluish haze associated with SO2 emission. Not positive, but it looks like there might possibly be another vent.

  31. We will know with more certainty once night falls and we can see if there really is any eruption.

    1. But this great cloud/storm front in the background is coming nearer…I fear we can see nothing …

      1. This next storm is to be much stronger than the last one. This might be just a squall line, I believe the main storm is still out at sea.

  32. New development on Mila Cam 1?! New fissure maybe opening up on the left? I’ve just switched on. Maybe this is old news?

      1. Is there a bit of ash in the clouds coming from this new activity site? They have such a typically fringy appearance.

      2. The webcam pictures are to “noisy”. But I think it was all steam, even if it looks like explosions of vapour.

      3. The explosions (that would also be a kind a phreatic ones) could pulverise parts of the lava which would explain a little bit of ash within the clouds.

  34. It´s steam. If you look closely you can see it comes directly from the river. It´s the same you´ve been seeing in the far left bottom all along.

    1. Well, now there is a red glow visible in that “cloud”. Would that be the front of the lava flow hitting the river or could it really be a new eruption?

    1. A 5.5 releases almost three 5.2 in energy. I would be concerned if it did not slow down big quake frequency.

  36. As I stand on Barad dûr staring into the Ragnarök, the Cracks of Doom I see….damn, my Palantir has gone on the blink again. Bloody internet ….

  37. Consensus?With this type of event,one day is as a thousand years a years is as one day.Translation ,this event is millennia in the making,but one day in the culmination.The question is how close is that day?

    1. The color of the glow would indicate it is lava from the fissure to the right in the camera view. If you look at the fissure, you will see it is a bright orange to yellow. That is an indication of the temperature of the magma being erupted. The current new plume comes from what appears to be a dull red glow, which would be rock that is much cooler. It will probably make a liar out of me as soon as I type this, though. 🙂

      1. Nah, you are probably right – as soon as the light drops I guess it is easier to spot the existing flow.

      2. Now the foreground feature has become so large it is very hard to interprete as the front of the flow.

        But the temperature argument remains valid.
        Could it be that coller magma is reaching the surface?
        But even as I type it is turning yellow.

        This is dramatic.
        This mournful land will soon be rid of western civ.

      3. Tnx for pics and advice. Use an iPad now. The damnable thing being that the connection worked briefly and infrequently in the early days but mostly not so. Still not so.

        Most people seem to have no trouble with it now. That is good to know 🙂

    3. I’m still going for lava flowing into the stream, OR, the ponded stream now flowing over the Lava …

  39. Looks pretty newish eruptish (that’s a technical term) to me, and we’ll have to wait and see if the GPS drop happening is real. It would be an interesting pairing, if either are true! Lol.

  40. On the far left of Mila1 – I would say rather definitely that is a new plume breaking out – either that or some very strong interaction with water,

    1. This must be a massive stream of lava plunging into the river then!
      What a spectacular view tonight.

    2. It looks very bright, but it still could be just steam reflecting the lava glow. Which is also the case for the old eruption itself when it´s getting dark. But: Just my impression, no expert opinion 😉

    3. After staring at it for a good 10 minutes, I swear there is the faint glow of something further back toward the glacier as well – some new development for sure but hard to say exactly what is going on at this point. I’m ready to call the area near r2d2 to be a new fissure.

  43. It´s the end of the powerful lava stream hitting the river. You can see in this satellite image the front end, it´s massive, no wonder there is a lot of steam when this thing hits the river.

    http://snag.gy/IAvWh.jpg

    1. From that image, it looks hotter than whats currently errupting. That looks like something new.

    2. We would be much better served with infrared cameras.
      A fog seems to have overspread this fearful glow.

  45. The activity on the left of cam1 is much nearer than the main event on the left.
    does any body know the distances involved?

    The steam clouds came from below the horizon on which R2D2 sits.
    this activity is above that horizon. so further away??

  46. I think the lavastream is flowing in the mainriver of Jökulsa now and if he took the riverbed he may go in direction of the cam. So we can see the front.

  49. A while ago the Mila 2 cam was slewing around to different features. Now, both cams are black. I think the pros have taken over the cameras to look over the new features. We’ll know more soon.

  50. Do the esteemed members of the forum also feel that seismic activity world wide is on the increase?
    We have had an awful lot of big quakes in the last 50 years.

    1. There are always lots of big quakes. This is nothing new. Not sure why so many people think that the # of earthquakes erupting or # of volcanoes currently erupting is abnormal. It’s not. It never has been, and if anything, we’re probably in a bit of a “lull”.

    2. The only thing that happened in the last 50 years is that we´ve been able to monitor earthquakes, which has never been done before.

    3. No – Media, Internet, phones, news services etc the speed of life – just let us know about more of the quakes and their effects.

      We get to know the people and lives far more easily then we did just a few decades ago.

      There are not more – we just hear about more of them.

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