Posted on by Jón Frímann

What to expect from Bárðarbunga volcano

I am writing this now, since I might not have time to do so on Monday. Updates are going to continue to go here until Monday. Unless something major happens.

The collapse of Bárðarbunga volcano

The collapse of Bárðarbunga volcano has already started. The caldera collapse in Bárðarbunga volcano started on 16-August-2014 and has been going on since then. Here is what I am expecting from the caldera collapse once it reaches its peak.

  • There are going to be earthquakes in the range of 5,5 and up to 6,7. Maybe larger if the crust can handle it.
  • Glacier flood are going to go south-west and north (Húsavík area) and possibly in other directions. I am expecting damage to hydrothermal plants in the pathway of the floods. How much damage there is going to be depends on the magnitude of the flood and the path it takes.
  • I am expecting long periods of no power in parts of Iceland once the flood has passed. I am also expecting lack of communications in large areas of Iceland. This is why Rúv has been telling people to get long-wave radios for the past few days. Usage of mobile network is also going to be unreliable in large parts of Iceland once the collapse starts full force in Bárðarbunga volcano. Due to damage that glacier floods are going to create.
  • I am expecting an ash cloud that might go up to 20 km or higher up in the atmosphere. It is however impossible to know for sure what happens until this starts.
  • It is difficult to know fore sure how much drop is going to take place, but it can be up to many hundreds of meters.
  • I fear that north slope of Bárðarbunga might collapse forward once this starts. Earthquakes in the area give clues about weakness forming there.

Bárðarbunga volcano is 2009 meters high above the ocean. This means there is a lot of material that is going to blow outwards once the collapse starts full force. This is might be one of largest eruptions in Iceland since it got populated more than one thousands years ago. I am hoping that the picture that I am drawing up is not as bad the reality once this starts. I am also hoping that no loss of life is going to happen. I am hoping for the best in this case, but the clues that I am getting are no good at all.

369 Replies to “What to expect from Bárðarbunga volcano”

  1. I really dont think this will be a vei7. I made a guesstimate of 500km**3 in andy maths which is clearly too much. Lucky if the reservoir is half that and not all will empty. Might get a 50km**3

    1. The VEI 7 band is fairly pointless. There are only various differences in degree between a solid 6 and any 7 that we know about, not in kind. The descriptive characteristics are the same, the gas climate effects are a question of magma composition and latitude more than sheer size, and you’re talking at most a difference of 3-6 times, rather than the order-of-magnitude jumps.

      Really, 7 is much too wide of a range, solely because of where the scale starts “super eruption.” Tambora and the AD 535-36 volcanic winter – both tremendous global catastrophes – would both be “low end 7’s” to put a point on how silly the 100-1000 cubic kilometer range is.

  2. All this depends on what is going on with magma intrusion at depth and continuing plate separation. This is the driver as the question mark as to whether this event is draining out or just ebbing and flowing. I read somewhere that normal plate separation at this hot spot is around 1.2 inches/year but that in the last year, it was separated 20 inches. Is this right?

    I would like to know the current status of plate separation. Also what percent of magma estimated to have flowed into Barda’s caldera has erupted out in the fissure. Also, since this was a rifting fissure, is there concern that magma is coming up from depth from the rift independent of Barda’s feed?

    1. Volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson has some ideas about the connection between the quantity of magma entering the intrusion in relation to the lava erupted at Holuhraun.
      He says that 5-7 mill. m3 of lava are erupting at the moment. The deflation of the caldera is connected to the intrusion. The caldera is deflating by 0,8 m by day, but it is not the whole caldera (130km2), it is not an even distribution over this whole area. The middle of the caldera is sinking most, this would be 50-100 mill. m3/day. So that about 5-10% of it is erupted, the rest is widening the intrusion. And this is typical, because most of the magma never sees the light of day.

      http://vulkan.blog.is/blog/vulkan/entry/1443346/

    2. Or to make it appear to the casual reader that not much is happening. ie nothing to be concerned about!

    3. The chart has some sort of autoscaling built in. The running averages don’t seem to use data prior to the start of the chart, and very large fluctuations in the raw data (more than 1 metre up and downbetween samples) distort the average. I expect it will all smooth out in 15 minutes or so.

    4. Look at the time My Lady Bunion….. Thats only a couple of hours and its dropped by about 6 feet. Cold chill up and down my spine and my wifes. Agreed though that a 6 or a 7 is pure bullshit. Anything past 6 and its in increments of the dead. The people in the NE of the island? They are dead already. If this thing goes off it will do so with an incredible explosive force and take the east side of the island with it and a goodly part of the center part of the island. On the flip side those that are killed out right are going to be far better than those who croak trying to stay alive from droughts, famine, wars that kick loose because they didnt get enough out of the ground.

      End of days? Well, this goes and a quake or two kick loose in the US and we are finished. Biblical end to the place and for those who think that they are immune think again. The EU falls in quick order because I think this is going to be a multi tiered eruption… Damned big followed by ungodly big.

      Wondered aloud what would cause a great earthquake, the sky turns black as a sackcloth of sheeps hair, and the sun the color of dark blood? I think this might be it.

      I do hope not,

    2. No, it’s because of the movement of the blue graph in the start of the diagram, 19.00 the scale will change again.

    2. I don’t think they’ve moved it – just zoomed out the view quite a lot.
      And maybe cleaned the lens or window?

    3. The vulcano eruption seems to intensify again at Holuhraun when I have a look at webcam now. Right?

    1. I wonder what the minimum cost for a GPS sensor with wireless capability and the sensitivity to detect ground movement is. $40USD? Expensive in bulk, but even so wouldn’t it be cool if they could scatter a swarm of them over the area so we could get a much more detailed picture, even if with added noise? Scientists surely could roll their own cheaper than retail the way they’ve thought about doing for tornado chasing, and deployed on the ground it would be a much easier problem. Would be good to send up into the eruption, too. Unfortunately the genius at that stuff in the tornado world, Tim Samaras, was killed by a freak storm (thanks to climate change and its effect on the shape of the jet stream Rossby Wave meanders), last year. I bet even so some of them are watching these events and thinking about how they might help.

  9. I am seeing this odd cloud on Míla Bárðarbunga camera 1 and 2. It seems to have origin point in the glacier not far from current eruption. This might just be the light playing tricks. So I am waiting confirmation.

      1. I guess a lot of lava fields down there and water around. This causing warm vapour to rise. Just so happens the condensation level is lower height due to time of day. Looks black due to light . It’s possibly a local effect due to what’s going on down there.

        At the point of origin is their a river or something? So hard to see as camera is low quality . Its quite a flat top which suggest cold air above, warm air below but not hot enough to cause it be cumuliformed. Therefore unlikely to be anything like a new fissure I suggest.

    2. It is definitely behind the plume from the main fissure, and appears to be coming from a spot on the glacier which I thought earlier might be the east side of the graben.

  10. Just looked at the Bardabunga 1 Webcam 9pm UK time seems something is happening on the horizon black clouds which seem to be coming from one source. is this from the Ice-field or just clouds forming in the cool night air it looks strange, anyone any ideas.

    Keith Gordon

    1. My take is it’s hot moist air coming from the heated river hitting that clear cold air in the middle height, happening now and not previously due to the current combination of factors in the local atmosphere.

      But is the river heated by the fissure lava, or by a subglacial eruption further uphill we don’t know about yet?

      1. Doesn’t seem to the case this time around. I am waiting for official confirmation. The could comes from one spot and moves in the direction of the wind.

        While there is always a chance this might just be weather. It doesn’t seems to be the case. But I am known to have it wrong once in a while.

      1. the glacier is cold, the eruption site is warm, this produce steam and moist rising air,. and that gives clouds as it condensates,.

  11. Have been watching for the last hour there was no black smoke there or cloud then it has stated appearing from the one spot what’s you thoughts jon

    2. At first, I thought it was over the lava flow from the current vent, and just caused by the warm updrafts, but now it is obvious from the lighting that it is more in the distance behind it. I thought for a moment that I saw a point of light at the apparent source, which would be a new lava vent, but that might have just been a trick of the light… as it gets darker, it should become visible as a point of light, if it’s actually there, of course.

      1. At this point, still seems to be just a cloud. That tiny flicker of light I saw has not repeated, so was probably just a camera glitch combined with an overactive imagination.

    1. that black cloud is a normal layer cloud, its the light that plays with you, just like you watch a thunderstorm cloud, it might look dark blue or black even if the light comes from the right angle.
      The cloud we see on the bårdarbunga cam is just a normal cloud.

    2. Ineresting video & reading, didn’t realise the video had sound until it stated takling over a Tansvivion Vamp song i was listening to!

  14. For sure something is happening under the ice.
    The GPS measurement on BB keeps on going down at a higher rate than the first days
    Harmonic tremor is going up again, GRF DYN HUS, not on ASK

    Is there a sway to reach the data, not the graphs?
    Would be nice to see the potential linking of these events with the 5.3 eq

  15. Sorry to be a spoil sport but I think it is just a cloud. You will know if Bardarbunga erupts, not woner possibly.

    1. If ashfall does not reach your location there is little to worry about.
      If it does let your location not be inside an airplane at 30000 feet.

  16. All the other clouds have moved and gone away the black cloud is thicker , changing shape and not moving and is directly over Bardabunga . Is this just coincidence?

    1. It is also moving away, and it is too close to be “over Bardarbunga” — at furthest from the camera, it is over the edge of the glacier… but it is also moving off, so just a cloud, it would seem.

  17. Right now, I’m on board the Carnival Fascination heading for the Bahamas. I’m currently getting caught up with the latest Bardarbunga news using the internet cafe. I REALLY hope you’re wrong about Bardarbunga, Jon. There’s no telling what a disaster such as this could mean for the Icelandic people. I hope this all peters out with a whimper and NOT a roar.

  18. It is coming from the same spot, I have looked at this for half an hour. It is very dark
    I saw something like this just a few nights aoe and was positive it was another vent opening up ,but it was just a cloud. Mind you the GPS data is dropping fast it has speeded up over the last few hours.

      1. I should have said that the GPS information that records how much the the ice over the crater has sunk has now increased over the day compared to yesterday.

  19. No mather what the cloud is: the visuals through Mila 1 are spectacular
    The cloud is frontal lighted by the fissure, which gained force again. Might be due the fact that it is the only crater remaining active.

  20. I guess a lot of lava fields down there and water around. This causing warm vapour to rise. Just so happens the condensation level is lower height due to time of day. Looks black due to light . It’s possibly a local effect due to what’s going on down there.

    At the point of origin is their a river or something? So hard to see as camera is low quality . Its quite a flat top which suggest cold air above, warm air below but not hot enough to cause it be cumuliformed. Therefore unlikely to be anything like a new fissure I suggest.

    1. There is a river (Jökulsá á Fjöllum) and some of its headwater streams coming out of the glacier.

  22. Cloud appears to be dissipating now, Thor, your comments seem spot on thank you for that. Does anyone know an estimate of the the height of the fissure eruption?. it seems to be in spurts but they look quite a height to me, more than I have recently seen.

  23. That area has been producing very dark cloud all day, I wonder if perhaps there is a source of heat directly under that is causing more evaporation in that area?

      1. If you are in the UK, don’t do anything until it’s too late… been that way for years!

  27. Uplift would indicate either continued injection of magma under the caldera OR it could also indicate an eruption of magma under the ice.

    Imagine that the ice has water under it. If you inject some magma at the surface of the crust, it will act to raise the water level and “float” the ice higher. So again, we only know what the surface of the ICE is doing, we don’t know what the surface of the CRUST is doing some 700 meters under that ice. For all we know there could be terrific geothermal activity going on down at the bottom which is melting the ice from the bottom up. We just can’t tell.

    2. This is almost certainly neither here nor there, but I was steaming milk for a cappuccino today, and the accelerating change in tone of the injected steam as the milk heated and started to foam and build in volume reminded me of nothing more than the sound representation of the tremor in Redoubt in Alaska just before it blew. I know the conversion to gas of the water trapped in magma has a lot to do with an eruption happening, including an increase in volume. Could that be the cause of the rise (which has since subsided again).

      Maybe I should be posting this on Volcano Cafe though. 😉

  28. I would be very interested in an overflight at first light to look for any evidence of steam in that caldera from places where there was none a week ago.

  29. I think the uplift just indicates that Bardy is just a huge sleeping monster and this is the respiratory cycle we are looking at… in and out every couple of days. Just don’t wake it up

  30. Not sure the caldera height is rising. Looks as if the GPS signal has been lost and the blue uptick is an artefact of the 180 min running smoothed average (??)

    1. Magnified the graph … Does look as if the running average is tracking a valid signal. … Ignore previous comment

  32. Not so keen on this sudden re-inflation though, My guess would be that water is reaching somewhere very hot – magma! but only slowly at the moment.

  33. What I find amazing is that there can be so rapid of inflation and deflation with so little EQ activity. That, again, leads me to suspect that whatever is going on, it isn’t happening below the crust.

    1. The real-time GPS data is noisy – especially at night when ice on the antennas affects the accuracy. Just look at the grey line on the graph. Thays why they use they use the 30 and 180 minute averages, to see through the noise to the underlying trend.
      Each point on the blue line is a n average of the raw data from 90 minutes before that time to 90 minutes after. But you cant do that for points less than 90 minutes ago, you don’t know what the data will be 90 minutes after that yet. So tha last 90 minutes worth of the blue line averages less data, and that’s why every 5 minutes when the graph is updated, that last bit changes shape. Look now, and youll see that what seemed half an hour ago to be a very steep rise, now shows as less steep on the blue line, wheras the red still shows it stee, because it uses a smaller time to average over.

  34. Lava heading east and west and now. If it keeps it up enough, it can fill up more of the river valley next to the current lava field. Eventually a lake could form. Valley rather large though, so there is a little way to go yet.

    Notice many are having fun trying to figure the clouds out, and their origin. The only time so far that I was able to connect cloud formation to eruption was when river levels went up during the sub-glacial Jon had announced. There was a distinct cloud formation right over the rift in the glacier. And the winds were light enough to not distort it.

  35. Yes, if might not be real. Ice on the antenna of something. Also it might be a very local effect.

    1. Bárðarbunga she is cleaver as she holds all the cards, all we are are on-lookers gathered around the table, waiting for her to lay her hand.

  39. Probably my tired blurry vision but has fissure #2 and or #3 reopened or even new fissure on the rift opened up very recently ?

    1. That’s so cool! Watch from 32 seconds and it does look like an ash cloud and black smoke has suddenly appeared from no where.

  42. That’s so cool! Watch from 32 seconds and it does look like an ash cloud and black smoke has suddenly appeared from no where.

  43. Grimsfjall and Vonaskard tremor stations are both showing ongoing 2-4 Hz tremors.

    Will be interesting to see the next set of photos of the glacier over the caldera to see what it looks like.

  44. I think those are just thermals rising and condensation with the winds.

    The sun going down makes it look dark.

  47. Now I’m going to play cloud games here. It looks like the winds have calmed quite a bit. That cloud formation over the glacier looks really familiar to what happened when a sub-glacial took place there just a few days ago. It’s hanging low and not moving.

    1. So now it fades away as the wind gusts up. Once daylight comes, hopefully we will have a decent few of the river. That will say much if the flow is up and going over its banks like last time.

  49. Two large fountains going now instead of just the one from earlier. There was a smaller one that seems to have increased in intensity.

  50. Allowing emotional thinking to run wild in the imagination is just plain stupid and helps no one. The end of days has been predicted wrongly so many times in so many religions its laughable. Fear mongering to keep the faithful in line has no place here. We have survived wars, ice ages and cataclysms over the aeons and will continue to do so by using frontal lobe logic and will power.

    1. My take on this Andy, is that we could be hit by a meteor, or easier still a vehicle, maybe lightning. We could be diagnosed terminally ill or ebola may go worldwide.

      We could also get married, have kids, or have a great day out.

      Watch in awe what is happening, be prepared by all means if it could affect you and yours, but get on with life as usual. Something is always happening on this crazy planet, and its usually mankind that’s wrecking it. This is just nature reminding us who really holds the control pad.

    2. Imagination? Hmm.. Must stop reading the history books then. Agreed the end of days stuff is nonsense and the emoting is futile.

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