Posted on by Jón Frímann

Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 1-October-2014

Please note that this information might get outdated quickly if anything changes in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Bárðarbunga volcano current status at 21:53 UTC

  • The second eruption in Holuhraun has now been going on for one month and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. There is also one and a half month since activity started in Báðarbunga volcano (16-August-2014).
  • The lava field in Holuhraun is now 47,8 square kilometres wide. It grows every day, I don’t know how much.
  • There is now a large cinder cone (also information here from Wikipedia) (also called scoria cone) building up in Holuhraun. It is my best guess that is around 60 – 80 meters high already. It might be higher, it hard for me to be sure since I am just basing my view of recent videos of the eruption area.
  • The erupting fissure appears to be 400 – 600 meters long, based on videos that have been posted on-line in recent days.
  • There is earthquake activity along the dyke, some of it is now under the glacier and that is worrying. Since it might mean that magma is trying to find a new path to the surface. This happens because the current eruption in Holuhraun is not big enough and the dyke can only expand so much to the sides.
  • Largest earthquake today took place at 17:59 UTC and had the magnitude of 4,8. Second largest earthquake today took place at 02:44 UTC and had the magnitude of 4,2.
  • Storm weather has prevented any good observations from the ground of the eruption, or at least limited them. New storm is expected tomorrow (02-October-2014) on Friday (03-October-2014). The storm on Friday is going to be snow storm in north Iceland and up in high mountains. This includes Holuhraun.
  • Bárðarbunga volcano caldera continues to drop around the same rate as before.
  • SO2 pollution is a big problem in Iceland now. With highest peak going up to 5800 micrograms per square meter (μg/m3) for an average of 10 minutes today.
  • Nothing else to report far as I know.

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Article updated at 22:01 UTC.

147 Replies to “Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 1-October-2014”

  1. How do you know that the new earthquakes in the dyke are due to increasing pressure and not the contrary, decreasing pressure due to the release of magma in the eruption?
    I don’t understand how there could be an increase in pressure in the sistem and not an increase in the activity of Holuhraun at the same time, they are supposedly to be conected.

    1. It was reported some time back that it was thought that the feed to the eruption was slowly being choked. This would explane why Jon has said there was magma looking for a way out further back up the dyke. As pressure builds the magma looks for a different way out, and as there has already been some small eruptions under the ice Jon has said again and again he feels this is the area most likely for the magma to find a way out. But only time will tell. Stay safe all those working there and many thanks for the updates Jon.

    2. They are still seeing inflation in the area along the dike so that means that magma is entering there faster than it is being erupted.

  2. Thank you very much for very useful information about the erupting volcanoes in Iceland, I have question: If the erupted magma and Lava become very huge, can its weight cause more subsidence of the caldera and push the crust and create large fault?

  4. Is there an eruption right in front of the camera or is that a trick of the light?

    1. Mila cam1 I have a screen grab as it disappeared quite suddenly after. But it was definately lava much much closer to the cam than I have seen over last few weeks. Could the storm be moving lava about ( Kind of like embers in a fire) ?

      I can’t figure out how to post a copy of the screen grab?

      3. That wasn’t cam 1; it was a collage put out on a youtube stream. The bit apparently right in fron of the camera came fro mila cam 2. Those streams can be useful, but for wat you see on them you are at the mercy of whoever put them together.

      4. Thanks Peter. I can access the mila cams directly so I have to rely on the youtube streams unfortunately. Thanks again.

  7. In looking at GPS stations, it looks like deflation occurring at DYNC, VONC, GSIG, HAFS, JOKU, GJAC, and even a little at HAUC, URHC, SKRO. Deflation, to inflation, back to deflation for the month of Sept is what I see. Like a slow moving piston.

    1. DYNC, VONC, HAFS, JOKU, GJAC, HAUC, KIDC, SKRO, and STKA have all shown deflation in late Sept and most going east (N/S). DYNC shows more due south. The others, HRIC (stopped 27th), THOC, GSIG, and URHC are up and down (being closest to the eruption and affected by magma intrusion here) but have shown more southerly movements late Sept to present. Lots of land mass moving in the direction of Big B as it subsides, and deep magma pressurizing and depressurizing slowly which has created the piston like effect on the land away from the eruption area during Sept.

  8. Is it just bad visability or is the power decreasing in eruption ? Looks like that on both cams.

  9. “SO2 pollution is a big problem in Iceland now. With highest peak going up to 5800 micrograms per square meter (m³) for an average of 10 minutes today.”

    Typo there…. m³ is cubic meter, m² is square meter 🙂

      1. Shouldn’t it be m3 though? Since if you are measuring air pollution you are measuring weight per volume of air. Square meters don’t apply here. Just cubic meters. It’s kind of hard to measure air in square meters.

  11. As someone noted earlier the 5s have stopped but the 3s and 4s increased. This phenomena was noted in the paper I quoted earlier about basaltic caldera collapse as a sign that the collapse point is near.

    2. Agreed on the please post that link comment! 🙂 although I would like to point out that this is not the first pause of m5+ quakes for more then a day. September 12 and 13 also lacked m5+ quakes. So perhaps its just another pause and we will be back to the daily m5 quakes tomorrow. 🙂

    3. I also think that collapse is close, at least the mountain is getting the carachteristics needed for a collapse. More and smaller quakes are indicating that the lid is moving easier and with less friction.

      This is pure physics and it actually has little to do with knowledge about volcanism…
      …which is good for me as a newbie in that area…

      1. ..just a thought, but would a decrease reduction in friction lead to an increase in the caldera subsidence rate? Assuming all other variables remain more or less the same of course.

      2. Tom: very good question. This ice here, but I don’t think so. As long as there is an average friction that is higher than the G-force, this should not happen. It is rather so that when the speed increases it will increase quickly and result in a collapse in a very short time. Based on my experience from physics you will see a very obvious knee on the curve when that happens.

      3. Ok, so another question; what pattern of seismic activity would we expect to see if the whole event was coming to a gradual end (i.e the first scenraio listed by IMO)?

      4. Another good question.

        I would guess (pure speculation based on my experience in other areas) that frequency AND strength of the quakes would decline. And most importantly you would see that caldera floor drop would decline in speed (probably an exponential curve).

        But all of this is of course based on that the current activities are based on lacking support from below. It might also be that it is only a (magma chamber) breathing pattern from Bardarbunga. No one really knows…

  12. I am sure, that the eq, mentioned Corkee (5:56) and that is prettty seen on Jón’s 2nd webicorder – time 00:37, will be added to IMO results.
    btw, this eq was according emsc M4,9 in the depth 2 km. This means, that it was M5+.

    1. IMO will catch up with the quakes shortly and back fill the plot with last nights quakes. It’s happened before. Clearly short staffed last night and not had anyone available to manually verify the numbers.

  14. It’s gone awfully quiet eq-wise. Some small ones posted at IMO so it’s not the case they aren’t updating, but none of what we’ve come to expect. Yet the eruption continues. Calm before the storm like Andy suggests?

    Most likely just another statistical blip but since the eruption if it comes could happen fast, one does feel the need to look for patterns, or lack thereof.

    … since starting this comment IMO revised itself and added a couple of mag ~2 eqs. Still, light.

    Very nearly completely off topic, sorry: I had an odd experience looking unsuccessfully for the paper about 3/4 mag eqs presaging a caldera collapse Andy mentioned. I got bored with that and did a search on the name of the geophysicist with whom I shared a cube wall for a couple of years a few years back, because I knew he’d done some work on seamounts and tsunamis in grad school. I found a paper he’d written, and he was discussing those “beach ball” earthquake focal mechanisms I’ve been going on about here in recent weeks, but back in 1992! Over 150 citations of the paper too, per google scholar. No wonder I had so much trouble understanding what he was talking about — the dude was smart. Slowly, slowly, I follow.

  15. First, my apologies for my bad English.
    If fresh magma continues to enter the dike and does not drain through the cracks at Holurhaun, there should be not only earthquakes but also localized swelling along the entire dike .
    Are there any GPS sensors positioned on this area to understand wht really happen ?

    On the other hand, the magma from the mantle at the Bardarbunga must at one time or another interact with that present in the magma chamber. When I was a student (long time ago …) I was working on the “contamination” and “assimilation” (sorry, I do not know how to translate these words into English) at the Caribbean arc (la montagne pelée). What happen for Bardarbunga? We have an upwelling of basaltic magma in ryolithe surroundings if I analyze the environment at Landamannalaugar and Askja. The melting points of these rocks are very different. What is it likely to happen then? How this mixture can react with ice and water if the caldera collapses ?

    Eric

  16. Don’t forget that the storm winds are preventing detection of many of the smaller quakes. They’re still occuring, just that they’re not being captured.

    Notable that since the 5.5 there hasn’t been a 5+, rather a larger number of 4+ quakes. Wonder if the 5.5 did some damage?

  17. Mila cam 1: The plume from the fissure is darker, denser at present with a blue haze on the boundaries when the light allows it to be seen.

    SO2 emissions likely on the increase at present, again heading ENE

  18. Google basaltic caldera collapse. You should get http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JB007636/full

    Big difference here is deep magma feed not just chamber emptying.
    I think that the sides of the piston are smoothing plus generation of silicic acid from water mixing with silica in the magma making a form of silica gel lubricant. Pistons and lubricants…. Im stopping tight there with my “theories” ☺

  21. Maybe its possible that during the storms even the big earthquakes cant be detected with right strength?
    In the last few days there were some M4.8 quakes shown on EMSC and GFZ. IMO listed those quakes also as M4.8.
    During the time where no storm was taking place, every quake on IMO was stronger than it was shown on EMSC or GFZ.

  22. Interesting that earthquake swarm starts in TFZ in Grimsey Lineament after earthquake activity in Bardarbunga dies down.

    But TFZ has been quiet for a while. Its time for another swarm is guess. I wonder if this stops soon, or continues for weeks. The swarm is in interesting place, right in start of Grimsey Lineament, it would make sense if it started moving towards west-northwest.

    I don’t remember when was last swarm in TFZ, anyone else?

      1. Yeah its active. But in that post its different part of TFZ, the Flatey fault to be more specific. This swarm is in Grimsey lineament. Seems like the swarm has stopped, but we see in couple hours if it continues.

      2. Desription of the region of the new earthquake swarm eg. here ( http://jardvis.hi.is/sites/jardvis.hi.is/files/Pdf_skjol/Jokull58_pdf/jokull58-einarsson.pdf ), p. 49, Páll Einarsson calls it Grímsey Oblique Rift and says it touches the Krafla fissure swarm at its SE end (within the bay called Öxarfjördur / Axarfjördur ) and the Kolbeinsey Ridge south of Kolbeinsey in the Arctic Sea to the north of Iceland. GOR on the map, p. 37.

        The southeastern end within Öxarfjördur is a well known earthquake location.

  23. Nice to seem the reference to the cinder cone development,rather than the tiresome and presumptive shield volcano reference ,preferred by a another blog.

  24. If you see the weather on mila cam 1, it was probably wise to take R2D2 into a save harbour.

  27. Baugur – the currently erupting vent as possible shield volcano versus cinder cone. Or is it simply still to early to tell?

    When I looked it up I found: “Cinder cones are simple volcanoes which have a bowl-shaped crater at the summit and only grow to about a thousand feet, the size of a hill. They usually are created of eruptions from a single opening, unlike a strato-volcano or shield volcano which can erupt from many different openings.”

    Now I am confused. There was another vent in the fissure that erupted. Would that rule out that the vent now erupting would not be making a cinder cone but be part of a possible new shield volcano. Could this erupting vent be seen as a ‘single opening’, i.e. ‘cinder cone’ origin?

    I would really appreciate clarification from an expert.

    OBC hen

      1. In one of his science papers, Magnús Tumi Gudmundsson defined a flood basalt as a effusive eruption producing over 10 km3 of lava. I looked for the source link, but don’t find it up to now, I’ll try to come up with it later.

        At the moment, the Holuhraun eruption is around 0,6 km3, so that would still be a long way to go.

      2. I see there could be a slight misunderstanding here:
        a lava river is the same as a lava channel, it is just a special kind of transport of lava, whereas when we use the expression “flood basalt”, scientifically speaking it is a about lava production of a certain (enorme) quantity.

        Famous flood basalts in Iceland were Laki (around 14 km3), Eldgjá (around 16 km3) and Þjórsárhraun (around 20 km3). Some prehistorian flood basalts were still a lot bigger like the Siberian Traps or the Dekkan Traps.

  28. Reduced friction could lead to a faster drop. However we’re not seeing that yet. Possibly because the chamber is not just emptying but being fed by deeper magma helping keep the plug up. Perhaps the plug is being slowly dissolved from below.

    1. It looks like getting faster. Almost 60 cm in the last 24 hours. And more continuously and not clearly synchronized with large quakes. Could be compatible with the friction theory. Perhaps… And it´s not updating anymore. Whatever it means.

    2. Perhaps this all started as a caldera collapse. Consider a coffe plunger slowely lowering as Coffee escapes from underneath, thus letting the plunger go down at a steady rate. Consider the weight caldera might be held up be the magma below, but sink gradually as magma is forced down the dyke. I have no idea how accurate this analogy is however, so don’t quote it elsewhere.

      1. Is the magma in the dike still being fed from the chamber? I’ve seen it asserted several times it has its own deep source now. The fact the dike is erupting and the piston is subsiding seems to indicate they’re still connected, but then there’s a gap in the locations of the eqs, and that big left turn the dike took early on. If they’re no longer connected, why is the piston subsiding and where is that magma going?

      2. I imagine there is kind of a mixture of these going on.
        A fresh injection of magma into an upper magma chamber in Bárdarbunga, this pressing the famous piston (ie. the (gabbroic ?) rocky part between the upper magma chamber and the lower magma reservoir) down into the lower magma reservoir therewise pressing magma into the intrusion, which widens, because there is not enough open conduits in front so that only part of it can squirt out by the Holuhraun craters; and these last ones at the same time are also fed from a very big underlying deep magma reservoir with less evolved magma.

        These conduits, dykes and sills seemingly are building up very complicated and connected systems (I imagine it a bit like a bee hive), where magma mixing can occur in different ways.

        Hope, this was not too far off (no geologist here).

  29. Slightly O.T.
    Shameless Plug
    Support Jon and his work and this site.
    He is supplying a valuable service that you are all enjoying and participating in.
    He is a one man band who is underemployed in the mainstream and spends many of his valuable hours here where he should be gainfully employed
    Donate $20.00 today.

    1. Jón does a fantastic job maintaining this site and his geophones, and I respect him for the work he does.

      Unfortunatly many are probably in the same or a worse position than Jón, with currently no income at all. Certainly if I can find a job and some income I will make a donation.

      For all those who are fortunate enough to have some spare cash please do make a donation to Jón.

      1. Well said, unfortunately right now my income is probably less than Jon’s! – Although I have donated in the past.

      2. It’s a scandal that the European economy can’t provide more jobs.
        The sun is setting on this once great civilization.
        May now be fittingly buried under ash too!

    1. Interesting. This has never happened before. Could have run out of batteries. Or maybe things are happening???

      1. Rest of IMO site working again once they resolved to 4 quakes which occurred together. GPS problem is a data display problem because the bottom graph carried on recording long after the top one.

  31. At hen,
    Could it not be that all shieldvolcanoes start out as a cindercone?
    Some die at that stage and some grow to be big…..

  33. People don’t have to donate if they don’t want to or can’t afford too do so. I know all too well how it is to be broke, so I understand if people cannot do so. I just wanted to point out other options that I have in the case people don’t trust PayPal or don’t want to use it.

    1. Iceland should make you a national treasure — or at the least you should be getting kickbacks from the helicopter tour industry 🙂

  34. Cinder cones –

    Source of original quote: http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/interior/cinder_cone.html (“Cinder cones are simple volcanoes which have a bowl-shaped crater at the summit and only grow to about a thousand feet, the size of a hill. They usually are created of eruptions from a single opening, unlike a strato-volcano or shield volcano which can erupt from many different openings.”)

    “SUBORDINATE VOLCANO TYPES — Lava and tephra can erupt from vents other than these three main volcano types. A fissure eruption, for example, can generate huge volumes of basalt lava; however, this type of eruption is not associated with the construction of a volcanic edifice around a single central vent system.” – Which would be a cinder cone.”

    “SUBORDINATE VOLCANO TYPES — Lava and tephra can erupt from vents other than these three main volcano types. A fissure eruption, for example, can generate huge volumes of basalt lava; however, this type of eruption is not associated with the construction of a volcanic edifice around a single central vent system.” http://skywalker.cochise.edu/wellerr/students/volcano-types/project.htm

    From the above, I still understand that the current eruption at Holuhraun is not really what one would call a ‘cinder cone’ – but I may very well be totally wrong. It is confusing, since I also read that cinder cones can occur at the edges of strato or shield volcanoes, according to the last quoted source.

    I understood it from the beginning as it was explained to me with these words in VC where I had asked the same question:
    “If you accept a layman’s explanation, cinder cones are usually used for monogenetic volcanoes, usually present in subduction zones, or small temporary craters formed through side vents on stratovolcanoes (like in Etna). As far as I know, the formation of a cinder cone is due to tephra deposits, not mafic lava as we see now in Iceland, yet I could be wrong. ” (Renato Rio)

    OBC hen

    1. “Cinder cones are built from particles and blobs of congealed lava ejected from a single vent. As the gas-charged lava is blown violently into the air, it breaks into small fragments that solidify and fall as cinders around the vent to form a circular or oval cone.”

      “Shield volcanoes are built almost entirely of fluid lava flows. Flow after flow pours out in all directions from a central summit vent, or group of vents, building a broad, gently sloping cone of flat, domical shape, with a profile much like that of a warrior’s shield. They are built up slowly by the accretion of thousands of highly fluid lava flows called basalt lava that spread widely over great distances, and then cool as thin, gently dipping sheets. “

  36. Hi jon

    Have You Seen the beginning of high seismicity in törnest Frakturen Zone since 8 a Clock this Morning? What does this mean.? Is there a relationchip to bardabunga?

  37. Looks like there was a large blast at the fissure just a few minutes ago when I opened up the mila cam. Now back to regular smoking.

      2. Looks like the rifts are definitely heating up a bit and the right side of the cone is breached.

  38. Earthquake activity seems relatively unchanged.
    We have had 8-11 EQs > Mag 3 daily.
    This pattern persists.
    Admittedly no 5+ but we do have 4.8+.
    No need to raise the alarm.

    1. Not raising an alarm, this is just more rift activity. The elevated area behind and to the left of the rifts disappearing in a cloud of smoke would be a reason to raise an alarm. 😉

    2. Concern would be a few hundred quakes a day.Drums are relatively quiet,once the magnitude 5 quakes subside and no other vigorous activity replaces them then its time to follow another story?

      1. Not according to the theory Andy brought us — when the caldera quakes shift to 3s and 4s, that may mean a collapse is imminent due to less energy needed to break blockages as melt progresses (or some such).

  39. As ever, caveat emptor, but even though the short term graph is stalled, the caldera gps long term graph is still functioning, and the latest data show a sharp upward movement, already finished, that sort of stands out. Bigger than most other jumps, although not much bigger. Usually the ascending phases follow drops, but not in this case, which may be why it caught my eye. Of course given that the short term graph is broken, even though probably on the server side, the display is more questionable than usual.

    Nothing obvious on other data feeds to corroborate whatever it might be, that I could spot right away. http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Bardarb/BARC/

    1. That gps is a joke really,it is only giving a snapshot on one very small area of the caldera.Without all the other information for context,
      its meaningless.

      1. But according to the IMO plot that we’ve all been following, it is placed “í miðri öskjunni” which by my very elementary Icelandic translates as “in the middle of the caldera”. Where, relative to the centre of the caldera is the subsidence occurring?

        And would IMO et al. have gone to all the risk, trouble and expense of putting the seismometer up there if they’d only wanted to amuse amateurs?

      3. Yes but is the centre of the current caldera the centre of the current activity?That is the question my friend

    2. I think that the lowe graph only updates every half hour, which means it’s just about due to update as I write. We’ll have to see what results.

      1. This whole scenario wasn´t planned. They have been keeping an close eye on Katla and Grimsvötn, but Bardarbunga was only slightly on their radar. After the series of quakes started they did a flyover with a radar, looking for melt holes on the surface of the glacier, which is how they discovered the caldera subsidence in the first place. A few days later they repeated the flyover and found that the caldera had dropped even further. You have to bear in mind that this was an unexpected situation. So they decided to place a gps roughly around the deepest spot so they could at least have a rough idea how fast it was dropping. I think it´s only meant to show the rough subsidence, it´s not placed on rock so it´s obviously not very accurate. But it´s there and we have access to the data so at least it´s something.

      2. Oh I see you were trying to direct us there. “Remove ‘BARC’ from the end of the url”. Sorry for misreading!

    2. The graph says:

      Caldera : 6 e+17 newton meters (energy)
      Intrusion: 1.3 e+16 newton meters

      Thus: caldera energy = 40 Intrusion energy

      The caldera collapse is driving it all and then some.

  41. Just had a look at the videos contained in the link posted by Fred early this morning, great footage.
    The system used looked like something not disimilar to what was used during the Somerset floods last winter!

  42. Looks like there is increased EQ activity in the dike throughout most of today. I am not sure what this means. Jon has stated that he thought that there could be an eruption under the glacier as pressure and quake activity grew. I am wondering if we are now seeing a major increase in dike pressure. Also, it was just stated that there had been some activity at the eruption sight with one of the cone sides breaking away. Perhaps, this could be connected?

  43. Well, it’s giving us a picture of (at least) where the stress in the system owing to the mass of the ice is greatest, and so of where the ice is likely to have maximum effect on the other processes in play – processes which, *with* “all the other information for context” is doubtless highly meaningful to the people who have all the data. So not a joke, really, which is not to say that amateurs ought to infer too much from it, even if it does tell some of the story.

  44. Mila 1 at sunset just now with a very faint greenish tinge of Northern Lights. According to Spaceweather.com there is quite a high chance of Aurora over Iceland tonight

  46. Caldera subsidence is clearly non-linear in the bard 180 min plot.
    It’s looking like the very beginning of a wide u-shape.
    Just have “an almost parallel look from the lower right edge” to your screen.
    The plot is clearly and systematically bent.

  49. There appears to be some big fountains on the left side of the crater so pressure growing?
    Surely something has to give way? Because of the pressure coming from the flow of magma going north west in the dike, would it be more likely that the fissure would further un-zip going north west? In my limited knowledge it seems the magma has a nice easy smooth path to the current crater.

      1. Would that mean that the magma is now coming from a shallower reservoir, ie. within Bárdarbunga? Magma mixing going on?

      2. Possibly,the fissure is still part of the Bardabunga complex,so a link between caldera activity and the fissure is present,whether directly feeding of the magma chamber or being influenced by it?

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