Posted on by Jón Frímann

Friday update for Bárðarbunga volcano on 10-October-2014

This is current status on Bárðarbunga volcano on 10-October-2014.

  • There is no change or little in the eruption in Holuhraun far as I know. Visibility has been low today due to bad weather and snow.
  • Largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 4,8 at 11:26 UTC. Second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,7 at 02:24 UTC. Other earthquakes have been smaller.
  • Earthquake activity is increasing in Tungafellsjökull volcano. Current idea about this activity is that it is responding to tension changes in Bárðarbunga volcano. I don’t know how good this idea is. It might explain some of the earthquake activity. I am unsure if it explains all of the current earthquake in Tungafellsjökull. Currently I am just waiting to see what happens next with this volcano.
  • Earthquake activity along the dyke was minimal from what I can tell. Most of it took place under the glacier and that might not be a good sign if an eruption starts in that area. Since it would start a glacier flood and later a minor volcano ash eruption.
  • No further reports far as I know about current status in Bárðarbunga volcano.

141010.225800.bhrz.psn
Earthquake from Tungafellsjökull volcano at 22:58:28 UTC. There is some signature different in the earthquakes and the one from Bárðarbunga volcano. The main different at the moment is that the earthquakes in Tungafellsjökull volcano appears to be more tectonic and not due to magma movement. That has however been changing since the earthquake activity changed. Latest earthquakes show less pure tectonic activity than before. It is my assessment that magma might be on the move in Tungafellsjökull volcano. There is currently nothing to suggest that an eruption is going to take place even if that is the case. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see CC Licence for more details.

Saturday 11-October-2014 update

  • No change reported in the eruption according to the news today. The eruption fissure is now one 400 meter long fissure and all the craters that where in that area have merged together into one crater.
  • Largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 5,0. Second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,7. Other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.
  • New video of the eruption can be found here on Vísir.is. Audio and text is in Icelandic.
  • The eruption might last for months according to scientists in Iceland.
  • When scientists flew over Bárðarbunga volcano on Friday they noted some new cauldrons in the glacier. I suspect this has more to do with minor eruptions in the area rather then hydrothermal or hot spring activity. Such activity cannot be ruled out and possibly is taking place along the dyke. If any hydrothermal activity is taking place in Bárðarbunga volcano it means that magma has now reached depth of 1 – 2 km or less.

Sunday 12-October-2014 update

  • Largest earthquakes on 12-October-2014 had the magnitude of 5,2 and the second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,7.
  • Slightly higher earthquake activity has been detected today compared to yesterday. There has been more earthquake activity along the dyke then yesterday.
  • Due to bad weather there has not been any visible observation on Míla web cameras.
  • I suspect that minor eruptions are taking place under the glacier. I don’t know where they are taking place. A flight over the glacier is needed for such observation to see new or deepened cauldrons in the glacier.
  • Nothing else to report far as I know.

I wish everyone a good weekend.

Article updated at 22:42 UTC.
Article updated at 00:29 UTC on 13-October-2014.

261 Replies to “Friday update for Bárðarbunga volcano on 10-October-2014”

  1. Jon, Thank you for sharing your observations and insights and for explaining in a way that is understandable to those of us who are not volcanologists. What is happening in Iceland with Bárðarbunga is very interesting and significant. Your devotion to providing updates is very much appreciated. I’ve learned a lot from your site. Thank you very much.

  2. Captchas: both arithmetic and a type-the-letters. Cool.

    Thank you, Jon, for your blog. I hope that your move to Iceland will work out well for you. (I know you have said you prefer to live in Denmark, but sometimes what we think we prefer doesn’t work out as well as working the potential of the less-preferred that we find ourselves in.)

    Am I the only one who is beginning to think that BB/Holuhraun is turning into the Kilauea of the Great White North?

    It just seems to be settling into a habit, so to speak, of continual runny magma/lava and not really much else. And it seems to be settling into that habit for the long term.

    But I could be wrong, it would hardly be the first time.

    1. So far Bardarbunga has been *much more powerful* than Kilauea, it could become a VEI-5 eruption soon.
      Only to give you an idea, the present output of SO2 at Holuhraun is greater than all European countries combined (a factor of ~ 1.5 greater: approx. 12,800 kT / year of SO2 at Holuhraun versus approx. 8,000 kT / year for the entire Europe, according to this site:
      http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/eea-32-sulphur-dioxide-so2-emissions/eea-32-sulphur-dioxide-so2).
      I believe what you say can become true in the future, but only after the present eruption ends.

  3. Jon I’ve been following your blog the last couple months. Despite writing and hosting a scientific forum, your personable humanity really shines through. (No dig at scientists – I just mean that scientific writing is intended to be ‘objective’, whatever that is, without emotion 🙂 )
    Jon you demonstrate a sensitivity, thoughtfulness, astuteness and open mindedness that is special. I feel a empathy for the hints you drop about your life challenges, and love how you can be so open. I love your passion for volcanos and your spirit is why so many are fond of your work. Good on you. Good luck with your return to your native land.

  4. Morning Jon, You’re on the money with that analysis.

    I have long thought that tectonics were going to play a bigger role in this, we’ve been looking at too small an area, it has to move into WVZ and/or NVZ – there has been too much horizontal movement for it not to. I’ve been watching Tungnafellsjokul for a while as I do think it presents a future risk.

    1. NVZ, I think is not very probable. There were rifting events in all important volcanic systems there during the last years, esp. in Askja in the 1870s and the 1920s as well as Krafla 1975-84. Even Theistareykir is thought to have had one (without eruption though).

      WVZ is a bit more probable, but only just a bit. The eruption frequency there tended to zero after the 13th century.

      Most probable would be – and I regret to say that – a movement along Bárdarbunga’s own fissure swarm in direction southwest. Let’s hope, that that will not be the case, but the rift jump under way at the moment – actually since some 2-3 mill. years, but very well to be seen these last centuries and now, is bending our view in this direction.

      If there were now an eruption in Tungnafellsjökull, it would still be next to the EVZ, though it is often described as part of yet another volcanic region, the MIB (Mid Iceland Belt), also called CIVZ (Central Iceland Volcanic Zone).

      Some literature re. the rift and volcanic zones in Iceland:
      http://jardvis.hi.is/sites/jardvis.hi.is/files/Pdf_skjol/Jokull58_pdf/jokull58-einarsson.pdf

      1. On the other hand, nobody knows, when or where the ongoing eruption will stop and the next begin. Could be tomorrow or after 200 years …

        Probability is just a bit higher for sometime not too far away re. Bárdarbunga…

    2. I was referring to tectonics when I spoke of NVZ and WVZ, not eruptions. I thought I had made that clear. The only potential eruptive activity as I said was Tungnafelljokul which I see as a future risk.

      Observing the tectonics over a wider area may be more informative than we realise whilst we are overloading on Bardarbinga information.

      1. In Iceland, tectonics and volcanism are very strongly connected, as you may see eg. in the text I linked in. When I am eg. talking about a rift jump, this is tectonics. But there is always the possiblility of magmatic components.

        And we are also watching the tectonics here, eg. the earthquakes in Öxarfjördur, this could be part of an activity in the Northern Volcanic Zone, but as I said, there has been rifting there in the near past, so it is not necessary to expect that there will be something like that now.

        And a rift jump means here, that the tectonic as well as the volcanic activity is more concentrated on the eastern branch of the rift. So the dirction of future movements would be more probable to the south of Bárdarbunga and not somewhere on the WVZ.

        And of course Bárdarbunga is not the “illness” so to say, but it is the most important symptom at the moment.

      2. Yes I am aware of the connections. What is making me pay attention to the wider area is that at the start of activity (in the current episode from 16th Aug) there was very little eq activity anywhere else.

        Now, having studied all the (graphs, 3D imagery, rift zones, fault lines and all the other plethora of info) data that has come out over this period, it is noticeable that activity is picking up again, and over a wide expanse if you include activity hundreds of kilometres out onto Reykjanes ridge.

        To the North East, Jan Mayen and Svalbard there has been practically nothing. My observations from this are that you cannot move the quantity of mother earth that has been moved (substantially) with creating stresses elsewhere. For instance the recent ‘jump’ in TFZ was no surprise to me at all and reinforced my view.

        That was the purpose of my comment to simply say we should be watching a much wider area as well as the Bardarbunga event. I know I am not the only one to have noticed this.

  5. I have some small concern…

    The GPS data seems to show expansion of the Tungnafellsjökull volcano, if I am interpreting these readings correctly.

    See the 3 month series of GPS stations at http:http://strokkur.raunvis.hi.is/~sigrun/#VATN

    These stations show lots of movement since the latter half of August when the first quake swarm hit at Bárðarbunga.

    In particular Station Vonarskarð (VONC) seems to be moving south, east and a bit down from Tungnafellsjökull volcano.

    Station Fjórðungasalda (FJOC) shows movement to the west and north and a little bit down.

    This is consistent with the volcano inflating.

    Station Gjallandi (GJAC) is drifting a bit south and went west. Also Station Háumýrar (HAUC) went west.

    Has anyone looked at the height changes at Tungnafellsjökull ??

    The latest quake map at 6 UTC Oct 11th shows activity at the volcano and the Bundarbunga caldera, see http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/vatnajokull/ and that activity hints at a connection between the two volcanoes.

    I am most certainly open for other interpretations here.

    1. That would be so cool if tung all of a sudden just erupted 🙂

      A volcano with no known historical eruptions going boom… how cool an event to see.

  6. GPS movement has stalled. Quakes have returned to the rest of the country. The opening act is over. Now for a brief intermission ….

    2. I tend to agree! I now think the main rifting event , which also ruptured Barda’s plumbing system, happened (according to the GPS) from mid to late August. How long the consequences/after effects of this rifting event last is up in the air …

    3. “The battle of Holuhraun fissure is over,the battle for middle earth has just begun”!

  7. I have a question for the forum.
    I have noticed that the sea surface temperatures (sst) of the N. Hemisphere (NH) have decreased (cooled) *dramatically* in the last ~ 30 days, which is approximately the time that Bardarbunga has been erupting.
    My source is the following chart from UNISYS,
    http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif
    or (with bluer colors– more beautiful IMO! :-))
    http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
    which are updated daily.
    I’ve noticed that the Northern part of Russia and, especially, the N. Atlantic have cooled dramatically since the beginning of September.
    Of course, part of the change is due to season, beginning of the fall, but comparing with 2013, the cooling is quite remarkable and more pronounced (N. Atlantic is much colder now than 12 months ago).
    My question is, could at least part of this phenomenon be already a sign of the influence of Bardarbunga’s eruption on world’s climate? (especially the NH?)

      1. OK, thanks, but why do you say that, because the levels of SO2 are still too low?
        It’s well known that Pinatubo eruption of 1991 had an important effect on the El Nino of the end of that year, making it a few deci-degrees C cooler than it would otherwise had been.

    2. I’d have said it’s more likely because the jet was pusing low pressure after low pressure that way until recently, which churns the surface of the sea and causes it to cool more rapidly.

      No real point comparing to 2013, the warmest Winter on record…

    3. I want to encourage your crazy thinking. I have thought for a long time that episodes of global cooling cause increased volcanism. The cooling causes an increase in arctic sea ice. The ice is fresh water so that freezing leaves behind dense, cold concentrated brine which sinks and flows southward along the sea floor, cooling and shrinking the suboceanic crust. This shrinkage causes rifting of the spreading regions and the volcanism we are seeing the start of now. Eras of cooling are historically associated with volcanism which causes dust and sulfates to be suspended in the atmosphere which amplifies the cooling. I suspect Iceland will be an interesting place for quite a few years, along with many other tectonically active regions.

      2. IngeB says:
        October 11, 2014 at 18:08

        “Just the contrary is the case. After the last deglaciation, when temperatures were on the rise, there was a pronounced increase in volcanism in Iceland”

        Yes, volcanism does continue during a warmup as well. Its the deep ocean temperature change that frees up the tectonic plates.

    4. Sea surface temperatures are cooling at exactly the same time they cool every year. It’s called autumn.

    5. SO2 does cause significant cooling and there’s been an awful lot of it already so I’d be surprised if there weren’t a change. I’d suggest raising the question at Neven’s forum https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/ (ignore the safety warnings his software required a cert and he didn’t feel like paying for one so it’s self-certified) or the comments of his main blog at http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/ . Some of those people really know their stuff re Arctic ocean and atmospheric conditions.

      1. Yeah SO2 might make a difference just as the GCM models are unable to concoct a semblance of reality. Then again opportunistic dogmatism for advancement in science is the only thing that matters

  8. For comparison, here is the chart for last September 09,
    https://dmhscratch.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/sst_anom-14-09-10-la-nina-still-possible-similar-to-1-year-ago-tg1.gif

    If you compare this graph with the present one at the UNISYS site, you’ll see that the S. Hemisphere (SH) sst’s have not changed much, but the NH oceans have changed from “red” to “blue”.

    And here is the corresponding “blue chart” for last September,
    https://dmhscratch.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/sst_anom000-14-09-10-la-nina-still-possible-similar-to-1-year-ago-tg.gif

    1. That may be the sea temperature has changed yes. but that has nothing to do with Bardarbunga. Believe me.

      1. OK, I want to believe, but could you please tell me why you think so? Is it because SO2 / aerosols are still not very high?

    2. A possible cause of “non-relation” (between Bardarbunga and the recent cooling of sst in the NH) could be that the eruption, despite massive, has not been *explosive enough*, i. e., has not released important amounts of sulfuric gases into the stratosphere, which is the region where the SO2 is supposed to affect cloud formation, reflect solar radiations back to outer space, etc.

      If this is true, I mean “no-relation”, then I believe the best explanation for the cooling is that we’re seeing the possible beginning of the flip of the AMO… 10 years before the usual/expected 30 years period!

      1. @Dmh re no explosive eruption yet: China doesn’t release its pollution into the stratosphere, yet its SO2 causes cooling, and drought in India — in fact SO2 pollution around the world significantly holds back greenhouse warming. So the fact it’s not reaching the stratosphere is not it. I wouldn’t start theorizing about oscillations quite yet until looking harder at SO2, which I think is a good instinct. I don’t have time to dig up answers right now, but there must be some work coming out on the question given how volcanoes are Iceland’s national sport and the SO2 has been affecting its people already. @IngeB?

    3. The north Pacific anomalies were wiped out by a couple of storms that mixed that water up. There have been a couple of typhoons that have gone extratropical and gone up there and drawn some of that heat out and churned the water up. There’s one doing that right now, in fact.

      As for the north Atlantic, I know the Great Lakes are pouring a lot of colder than normal water into the area due to the much longer than normal ice season and it looks like this year is also going to see an early freeze as the lake temperatures never recovered and we already have an all time record high North American snow cover.

      This is already setting up to be a brutally cold winter in the central and eastern US and all of Canada even without the eruption. We’ve already seen all time record low temps in Florida, early frosts in Kansas (third shortest growing season ever, shortest since the early 1900’s), early snow in the upper plains (third earliest ever).

      The impact the current eruption MIGHT have as augmentation of tropospheric cloud formation which could also make things yet cooler but clouds can also make things warmer at extreme high latitude. Clouds work differently on temperature depending on where and when they occur.

    4. I’m not sure where other commenters are getting their certainty, given how much cooling comes from SO2 pollution in China and so on.

      It’s also possible it could be part of the potential weak El Nino. There’s a downwelling Kelvin wave heading across the Pacific right now, for instance.

      Again, I’d suggest taking it up at Neven’s sea ice forum (link above). Come to think of it, some of the weather maps at the bottom of his graphs page might be helpful. https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/

    1. Well, the graph is updating every 5 minutes as usual, but no new GPS data has been added since about 6 am. Earthquakes, on the other hand, have been added.

    2. It is possible that they need to visit it at intervals to change batteries and haven’t been able to due to weather. If it has solar panels, the weather has been so bad for so long it probably can’t recharge them. Solar doesn’t work particularly reliably at high latitude in the fall and winter.

  10. Posted today on the BBC news website…
    “A record number of pink-footed geese have arrived at a wetland centre in Lancashire as part of their annual migration.
    They have travelled 500 miles from Iceland to the Martin Mere Wetland Centre.”

    1. No shield volcano there.That is still just a fissure,that is turning into a lava lake.

      1. The ‘shield volcano’ would be the lava field itself. It would require eruptive event after eruptive event to build one lava field on top of another to gradually build up a shield.

        I believe there are pillow lavas erupting inside the caldera but we are going to have to wait several thousand years, probably, to see evidence of that.

      2. I suppose a lot would depend on the makeup of the lava over time. If the same dike keeps getting used by BB, we might see a pattern of more rhyolitic lava from the caldera followed by more shield-like lava from the deeper source, in layers, over millennia. Remember, the fissure in question is not new; this is at least the second time it’s opened. I wonder if anyone knows how many times previously.

        In this case would it still be a shield, per se? Or rather, a rhyolitic layer cake?

    2. Nice video.
      If you pause the video at 1:33, there is a black area in the background.
      Is this view looking toward the Vatnjökull icecap? That was my guess, but I have a difficult time orienting myself.
      Would the dark bit a rock outcrop, or possibly a new lava flow?

  13. Saturday
    11.10.2014 11:30:17 64.669 -17.462 4.5 km 5.0 99.0 4.5 km NE of Bárðarbunga

      1. Inge, today such a thick haze from Thingvellir towards Hekla. In Grimsnes visibility is reduced to 10km or so.

        And again smell of chlorine is everywhere. Actually the first time I felt the smell of chroline was in Sprengisandur first time I approached the eruption. But quite widely here in south Iceland.

        Volcanoes are known to release large quantities of chlorine gas. Could be Cl, HCl, ClO2, PbCl2.

  17. Jón, I wish you the very best with your return to Iceland, and hope unexpected good things come your way to bring ease and joy into your life. You are just so inspiring and you really do deserve the best.

    2. Not OT but Katla has been having little swarms like that, and bigger ones, all the time the past few years.

  20. Crosspatch predicted weeks ago that the GPS might fall down a crevice. I wonder if it finally happened?

  21. Quite thick haze today in south Iceland, the strongest so far. Can’t see any mountains towards the east. Sunrise was weird and red. The haze is quite beautiful actually.

    Still I was outdoors for a while without much problems, Perhaps minor chess feeling but not much. But smell of chlorine gas is common (like being inside a swimming pool or opening a bottle of bleech) as well as ocasionally sulphur dioxide smell (car exaust like).

    I am surprise to see that Holuhraun has significant amounts of released chlorine!

    So, like the Hawaian words: vog (volcanic smog) and laze (chlorine haze).

    http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/sge/jskiles/fliers/all_flier_prose/chlorine_tabazadeh/chlorine_tabazadeh.html

    http://books.google.is/books?id=KBuKvGz20kAC&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=vog+chlorine&source=bl&ots=TUFGnAqOLi&sig=eYawOAwMLiPmHEZkGf45yWN8MIE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VV05VJDUGI2sOqmJgCA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=vog%20chlorine&f=false

      2. No, no, no pre-eruption sign.

        Holuhraun releases clouds of H2O, CO2, SO2, fluoride and chlorine, which is being blown over the past few days into south Iceland.

        This is creating a haze and a smell of those gases.

      3. Oh sorry ,I thought the chlorine smell was a new phenomenon .My mistake,I thought Bardarbunga was cooking up a surprise lol,now I understand.

  23. Please note that I still have October and November left in Denmark. I won’t move to Iceland until start of December. I’m going to post more details on that when the time comes.

  24. I am not sure if someone has posted this idea before but here goes … is it possible that magma is flowing under the plug of Barda on its way to the fissure eruption? In doing so it is eroding the bottom of the plug causing it to subside (drop).

  25. The interviewed professor of University of Iceland said that the caldera subsidence is now measuring 35 m.
    http://www.ruv.is/frett/engin-merki-um-ad-gosinu-se-ad-ljuka

    And then there was an interesting detail in this interview with Magnús Tumi Gudmundsson of today.

    He said, “síðan séu nokkrir jarðhitasigkatlar margfalt minni í jöðrunum á nokkrum stöðum. Þeir séu orðnir greinilegri en þeir hafi verið og það þurfi að mæla þetta betur. Alveg megi eins eiga von á því að þarna geti aukist jarðhiti samhliða þessu. Það muni koma í ljós á næstunni hvort þetta sé byrjað að gerast eða ekki.”
    (in English: —“and so, there were some very much smaller cauldrons caused by geothermal heat at some locations at the caldera rim. They would have become much more pronounced now than before and it would be necessary to measure them better. It could be expected that the geothermal heat in these places would increase in connection with that. Soon it would become clearer, if this process had begun or not.” BTW: Indirect speach in the RÚV text.)
    See @Geyser Suze…
    Could this not mean, that there are now some new rhyolitic domes been built on the caldera rim? A case also for Dave McGarvie. He worked eg. on rhyolitic subglacial volcanoes within the Torfajökull caldera. http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/18/2/Microsoft_Word_-_Tuffen_et_al_2001.pdf

    1. That makes sense,geothermal activity at the rim,I mentioned this weeks ago on VC,but unfortunately very little understanding at that forum.I would guess this activity is being masked by the formation of a subglacial lake,so either some extrusion,or more likely just heat induced geothermal from sub surface magma.This seems typical caldera activity,very much a temperature driven event.

      2. Dont worry about VC. Just stay on here. I look forward to reading all you have to say. Theres a good few of you on here, who along with john, are teaching us all so much. Thank you 🙂

    1. Wouldn’t get concerned about Katla except that so much of the seismic activity in Iceland seems slaked by the recent activity at Barðarbunga. Got to wonder

      1. I read that shield volcano start as a fissure, then numerous vents before reducing to one Central vent. Over time the main vent swallows up the others.

        So now as jon says it’s just one main vent 400 meters long, could we be looking at the birth of a shield?

      2. It is a lava field,it is possible that the current crater containing the lava lake could collapse.The glacier is possibly destabilising due to sub glacial heating rather than subsidence?

    2. I share your concern about the calderons. Apparently the GPS station has fallen into a crevasse? I noticed at 23:00 UTC Oct 11th, that the quakes have moved to the center of the caldera and Tungnafellsjökull has more activity.

      Also, Katla seems to have something going on now too as a mag 3 quake recently occurred.

      1. No the GPS suffers from shortage of electricity in Kverkfjoll (transmitter) which prevents data flow from Bardarbunga (source IMO!)

  28. Haraldur Sigurðsson has calculated when the current eruption is going to end, by running the gradual change in the subsidence curve through a computer program. He says the eruption will probably last 173.54 days from start to end, and the caldera will drop 38.3 meters since the GPS was set up. Here is his blog (in Icelandic) and the formula.

    http://vulkan.blog.is/blog/vulkan/month/2014/10/

    3. Interesting exercise in mathematics ,but translating to the real world ?I doubt it.

      1. Haraldur Sigurdsson didn’t mean that so seriously, it was just his grandson playing around with chiffers and formula.

        He says that a lot of other factors could come into this. Just that it would be the most probable development now that the eruption will diminish in intensity with time and stop sometime (he is still assuming that the subsidence is because of magma streaming into the intrusion). This would then be the simplest explanation of the process, but “not necessarily the most relevant” ( “Þetta er einfaldasta sýnin á atburðarásina og ekki endilega sú réttasta..”

    4. If he is correct then he has a headache coming. What are the consequences of a near 40mtr drop in a caldera the size of BB.? New computer programme required.

      1. As I understand it, the drop is already around 35 meters. So if we add 38 to the 23 meters from before the GPS was set up, then we´ll have a total drop of 61 meters in Marts.

  29. Harmonic tremor has shoot up in Bárðarbunga volcano. Something is up in the activity. I am assuming eruption has started under the glacier in some area.

    1. There is probably some vigorous hydrothermal activity occurring on the NE rim of the caldera?

      1. This is stronger then just few hydrothermal vents. Minor eruptions have been taking place all this eruption. Last count showed that at least seven eruptions had happened since 16-August-2014.

      2. Geothermal venting in this case will not be small,it would be large and possibly escalating?As melt water pockets start to enlarge this geothermal activity becomes free of the the dampening effect of the ice and becomes more detectable?

      2. I can’t see anything unusual in the tremor plots? Can you give an example of what you see.

      7. Thank you, but I see the same thickness (if your line had followed the upper bound better) 05.10, 07.10. and 10.10, so I think that if we wait some hours, the thickness 12.10 would seem like one of them.

      8. Yes, it could be, thjen it means nothing. Thickness is maybe not the right word, bandwidth comes to mind also but that is a bit confusing too, for it could mean eg. radio freq. widths such as short or long wave frequensies.

    3. What with the GPS system being down and virtually nothing visible on the Mila cams, I’m eager for any further information on what’s going on. Jon, if you’re still up, can you shed any more light on the tremor you saw? I looked at the tremor plots you sent, but “impossible to read” is more like it for me. Any suggestions on where else to look for current information? Thank you so much! I registered with you but now have to do the math and Captcha again. Did I mess up?

      1. There where some moments with good view on Mila bar2…you could see how the light was pulsing on/off like a beating heart…and it was quiet much coming out…the moon for the earth tide could be in the high tide position in a few hours…and well the gps signal on the ice top is lost since hours, hopefully because of the bad weather and not because of any steam or any electromagnetic interferences from the magma/heat movements…let’s see if today, tomorrow, next week, next month or never…

      2. I did see a sudden change in the tremor, it didn’t last long and it was over after an about a hour. At least at that time I was unable to see it on the harmonic tremor plots that Icelandic Met Office has.

        If you have registered and still see the math puzzle you just need to log-in.

  30. All thos small quakes at 1-2km depth must mean something. I would say some kind of sub-glacial action is taking place.

    1. Sunday
      12.10.2014 06:20:11 64.666 -17.446 4.4 km 4.2 99.0 4.8 km NE of Bárðarbunga

    2. It may only be that the smaller quakes are detectable and verifiable again, the wind noise masking them having dropped.

  32. Sunday
    12.10.2014 08:43:40 64.676 -17.525 6.1 km 5.2 99.0 4.0 km N of Bárðarbunga

  33. I don’t agree anything has happened to the GPS. Merely it doesn’t seem to re-scale itself probably so the automated graph always stops whenever it needs to rescale itself. I expect IMO will rescale it soon so it is OK again. More worrying is that it it the least time so far before need to re-scale, which means it is dropping faster.

  34. Oct. 12 SONday – dawn USA

    I cant see a thing on either mila cam. Bardy is shrouded in a veil.
    On EMSC there are a lot of NOT small quakes in the Iceland area.
    I saw Jon mentions the Tskul volcano next to Bardy but vedur has not changed colors.
    Apparantly everyone is in Nooneknowsville – and RUV is not updating for October.

    Jon, the video you posted is like a chilling glimpse into hell itself.

    1. I don´t think they are using solar panels on this one. Probably they didn´t anticipate this would drag out for so long. So I guessing it ran out of batteries.

      There have been many surprises along the way. Like when the first 5+ EQ hit, the experts were very worried. Now the 5+ EQs are almost expected every day. I guess they´ll have to rewrite the textbooks afterwards.

  37. Sunday
    12.10.2014 10:07:19 64.676 -17.463 7.5 km 4.7 99.0 5.0 km NE of Bárðarbunga

  38. I’m no expert but the tremor lines on the Vonaskard tremor plots looks much thicker recently. In a few days time this unrest will have been going on for 2 months but in geological times its a grain of sand on a mile long beach. I cant believe how Bunga is coping with these almost daily big EQ’s and my fascination with the events unfolding keeps me glued to my laptop day after day.
    Good work Jon.

    1. Bardarbunga is not having to cope with the stress ,the surrounding area is.Bardarbunga is causing the stress.

  41. Scots John, I have a big interest in what you say.

    I’ve been observing the entire seismic activity on the Eurasian Plate from commencement of Bardarbunga episode, and yes any place in Europe could show a release of this stress. But I’m attention is always drawn towards the Southern boundary line from the Azores to Turkey for areas of tectonic relief.

    Italian volcanic activity last 8 months has been interesting.

      1. Some grow impatient and look for trouble elsewhere.This is a large event ,creating a large field of stress.Does that mean that other volcanoes are going to erupt?no.Does it mean that Bardarbunga will have a large eruption?,no.

    1. Luisport is entitled to his opinion, why assume that he is looking for trouble?

      1. This is long ago… not just now… But mooving along i didn’t say that some Katla unrest was due Bardarbunga activity… just a note.

    2. “Trouble” was probably the wrong word to use.I am not looking to argue your point you maybe proved correct,but this is a puzzling event and when following it closely one tends to lose focus.No provocation intended ,keep up the good work.

  44. As if you know better than anyone else Soze. An intelligent person knows with precision exactly how stupid he/she can be. People are simply asking if all these EQs across Iceland might be related. If you have proofs or disproofs then lets have them. Stick to the facts please.

    1. Pray tell,what are the facts?This is a discussion in the comments section of a blog, these are opinions,people will have differing opinions.Please do not assume because I may have a differing opinion to you,for example,that I do not respect your opinion.

      1. Facts are also being discussed here. Not just opinions. Now please stop this useless fighting or I will stop it.

        I also want to point out that nature has the tendency to prove everyone wrong. This happens on regularly, volcanism and earthquakes are no exception from that.

      2. We are all learning here, I think. Just discussing theories, and everybody might be wrong in this.

        Also the scientists involved are discussing a lot of different theories, because this situation is something new and not yet analysed with modern instrumentation.
        Páll Einarsson eg. says in this interview that theories by geologists are multiplying and not reducing in number with time and continuation of the eruption. But there would have to be just “one geologic accident till all would change” (ekki þurfi nema eitt jarðfræðilegt slys til að allt breyt­ist.) http://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2014/10/10/ny_reynsla_med_hverju_gosi/

      4. Yes Tyler by being misunderstood.Sometimes it is hard to find the right tone in a short sentence or paragraph.I said some dumb things on VC but ultimately I stood on a few ego’s and that was that.

  45. Sunday
    12.10.2014 14:56:58 64.674 -17.468 8.0 km 4.0 99.0 4.7 km NE of Bárðarbunga

      1. I did not say it was not possible,just that it was not a certainty that these things will occur however likely it might seem.

      2. I do not understand all the hostility,getting very disillusioned with these blogs.

      3. This was just in connection with your theory, Geyser Soze, nothing personal.

        Just the contrary, I think your questions and remarks are most often really interesting and make one think about new aspects re. the ongoing eruption.

      4. Hi Geyser, first this offtopic comment is not specificallydirected to you, it is just a musing of human behavior on an online forum. It might be applied to you, and in that case, it is not to confront you, but to rather help you. Or anyone that actually feels that way. This is a lot about the “be nice” part of human behavior.

        Sometimes a person perceives recurrent hostility against you from others. This is first and foremost a perception.

        If this happens one time, yes it might be the ocasionally odd hostility that human beings might on ocasion display. That it’s best left alone, and not engaged upon. But if a person sees a recurrent pattern happening to him/herself, that means it might actually be him/herself that needs to change the behavior or tone of writting (again, not wanting to be hostile, just want to be helpful). A pattern in human behavior, like in volcanism, starts to mean something, when it happens a reasonable amount of times.

        Sometimes we are assertive in our opinions and in facts and we actually correct in our assertiveness and we believe we are right, but (and a bit but), if this assertiveness sounds confronting to other members, then they might respond in their confronting tone too. This is a key feature of human behavior.

        Sometimes more hostile than the original tone. So, it’s always wise to measure our words, and ask ourselves why we do it, and why do other reply in such way.

        Some possibilities: saying something like “well, I understand your X point of you, but I think that is also Y.” instead of asserting “why X? I think Y because etc, X can’t be possible”

        As we see, writting in such a tone is more confronting. Therefore, more changes of starting a conflict.

        Sometimes we are so much caught up in our point of view, we all do that, I do that too, So we forget to be extra kind, extra nice, extra polite, extra sensitive with the others. It’s nice to give good commentary to a fellow member, even if we think otherwise.

        Now, let’s get back to volcanism. Volcanism is certainly polite too. It always starts at night, when tourists are not travelling on the highlands, and never at start of the tourist season, to not screw with it. Nature is rather kind to humans it seems. It even created a hurricane storm the day Holuhraun started, to assure that no one travelled there when it started. Caveat: this is in fact fictional.

      5. Hi, Irpsit. I like what you have written about the tone and will link to this if another “discussion”/”competition” like this comes around.
        I want to emphasize that to discuss and understand all the tones “between” for people who do not have English as their mother tongue is even more difficult…
        So @all commenters: try to be nice

    2. And Katla has a long history of being triggered by neighboring eruptions, but wouldn’t we expect action in volcanoes more proximate to BB first? I know they all probably join the same mantle plume somewhere down there, but still.

      How strong are the P waves from BB by the time they reach Katla? What other mechanisms could propagate that far? Crustal deformation?

      Anyway since Katla was the main focus of this blog for years, nothing wrong with keeping tabs on it. Some of its swarms have been pretty alarming.

      Trés OT but re the article and glacial melting causing volcanoes: I guess we can expect to see a lot of new volcanoes in Antarctica in coming years as its glaciers slide off ever faster into the ocean. That could be a huge feedback not getting properly modeled. You know how one of the big volcanoes there is named Erberus? How about if one starts that proves the theory, it be named Corroborus? (I’ll come quietly, officer).

      1. P wave is a pressure wave. It won’t have any effect on Katla volcano. The only eruption that I know of being triggered due to an earthquake was an eruption in Chile after an Mw9.5 that happened in 1960.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Valdivia_earthquake

        The information about this information can be found here.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyehue-Cord%C3%B3n_Caulle

        This might just be an chance, since the evidence of earthquake triggering an eruption are so far weak at the moment. At least in this type of set-up.

      2. Right right sorry — if any it would be other kinds of waves like L waves, which on some other kind of volcano might trigger a landslide triggering something bigger in turn etc, with a heavy emphasis on “might”.

        I was basically expressing scepticism anyway about BB being able to directly affect Katla.

    3. Yes, Inge. I look mostly at Thordarhyrna, Hamarinn and Kverfjoll with interest.
      They are the nearest volcanoes to Bardarbunga, that might have shown some signs of awakening.

      Tungnafellsjokull too, but since this is a long dormant volcano I would assume a probability of eruption there is lower, but not zero.

      Grimsvotn and Askja and Herdubreid are of course obvious neighbours, and I do expect eruptions there within the next 5 to 20 years. Everyone expects Grimsvotn, but I would suggest to pay attention to the southwest part of it. I have seen ocasional quakes on the increase there.

      Also Hamarinn, and this is because Hamarinn and Thordarhyrna might be the affected areas when rifting goes southwards.

      Kverfjoll because it’s so near the dike activity. And increase in activity there, phreatic explosion there in 2013, some M3 quakes, etc.

      Katla (or for that effect, even Reykjanes peninsula) is quite far away to be affected by BB activity but I do not exclude them. I remember seeing this: 1783 Laki erupts. 1784, just months after Laki, largest quakes ever recorded in SISZ. Just within months. Actually SISZ tends to follow activity in Vatnajokull, but correlation is not perfect. Clearly, we might have a certain stochastic sort of domino butterfly-effect, in all these Icelandic regions. Because of that, it is a probabilistic link, not a deterministic one.

      To further add support to my claim, I state this. Since settlement, 30% of larger quakes in SISZ were linked to a Hekla eruption within a year. This is a fact and can’t be just a coincidence, but it’s also not a causal link that one would say it occurs everytime. It’s stochastic, so don’t deposit your hopes of prediction over it.

      And back to 1783. The sequence did not end at 1784. In 1789, a large rifting episode occurred at Hengill. Again, these rifting episodes tend to follow one another in sequence. But are non-determinist, so can’t be predicted.

      I only say this within Iceland. Further ouside of Iceland, and the effect might be too small and gets lost in the noise. But I could say that some effect might ocasionally get above the noise effect, but it’s difficult to prove that link.

      1. In 1789, there was also an earthquake near Lómagnúpur strong enough to trigger a major landslide. You can still see the remains at the foot of the mountain when you pass by on the no. 1 national road.

      2. Interesting. I never thought that area could have earthquakes. So the epicenter was directly south of Laki,

        Probably tectonic readjustments. After the Laki event.

    4. And like Inge said, yes your comments, Geyser, are refreshning and often appreciated.

    3. Yes Jon, activity has picked again in the dike.
      I wonder how the recent GPS movements are? Anyone has a link?

      Also in Reykjanes activity seems to be picking up. Only a few quakes here (a M2 near Grindavík) and there throughout the peninsula, but I could guess that perhaps we will see a swarm there in the next couple of days. It has been quite a while since the last swarms in there.

  48. Bardabunda cannot affect Katla. However continental drift which is due to convection currents, can affect both at the same time.

    1. Yes, and see my comment just 1-2 mins ago. Eruptions in Iceland can be linked but indirect links (unlike Bardarbunga and Torfajokull) but they can’t be predicted, as they are apparently random and chaotic. But in a few cases, correlations have higher probabilities, and high enough that we can claim a certain likelihood. Like between SISZ quakes and Hekla, or SISZ quakes and quakes in Reykjanes peninsula.

    1. The subsidence graph hasn´t been updating since yesterday, but now there is an explanation on their page.

      “Apologies, a shortage of electricity in Kverkfjöll (transmitter) prevents data flow from Bárðarbunga.”

      So now we know.

  50. I am moving my server (on my LAN) from FreeBSD to Gentoo Linux, so updates are going to be a bit late for Sunday. Depending on how the move goes for me. It should not be a big problem since I am used to using Gentoo Linux and installing it.

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