Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 30-September-2014

This information is going to change quickly if anything happens in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano at 21:49 UTC

  • There is no signs of the eruption in Holuhraun is about to end. Currently there are only one or two craters erupting.
  • The lava field is now around 47 square kilometre wide. It grows in wideness at the moment, it is not getting any longer since the magma has not the energy to go any future than it already has.
  • Earthquake activity continues to happen under the dyke and the eruption crater. So there is clearly high pressure in the dyke and not it is possible that the eruption that is now taking place is not large enough for the all the magma that is down in the dyke.
  • Largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 4,8 and took place at 19:24 UTC. Second largest earthquake took place at 14:53 UTC and had the magnitude of 4,7.
  • The lava that has now erupted in Holuhraun is two times larger than all of lava erupted in Kröflueldar eruptions that took place between 1974 – 1984.
  • Bárðarbunga volcano caldera has now dropped some 30 meters according to Magnus Tumi Guðmundsson geologists at University of Iceland. There is a plan to fly over Bárðarbunga volcano by end of this week, when maintain of the air plain that is being used for this is done.
  • Icelandic Met Office has confirmed that it is just lava flowing into Jökulsá á Fjöllum glacier river. This is not a new fissure at that location this time around.
  • Rifting in Bárðarbunga volcano area is about what Iceland moves in about 150 year period. This is happening all at once and it does not appear to be over.
  • Bad weather has prevented scientists  from being in the area most of the week. The weather is not expect to improve until 2-October-2014, since new storm is expected tomorrow.

One month ago at Holuhraun

This is the news one month ago (almost to the day) about what is happening back then.

An eruption possible in Holuhraun lava (28-August-2014. Rúv.is)
Fissure eruption in Holuhraun lava field (29-August-2014. Rúv.is)
Holuhraun eruption lasted 3-4 hours (29-August-2014. Rúv.is)

Tomorrow (1-October-2014) it is exactly one month since this happened.

Fresh eruption north of Bardarbunga -video (31-August-2014. Rúv.is)
Fresh eruption: 60 m high lava fountains (31-August-2014. Rúv.is)

How strong wind affects earthquake recoding

Here is a image from my geophone of how strong wind in north Atlantic ocean and Greenland sea affects my geophone recording and other seismometers in Iceland.

140930.210500.bhre.psn

Here is how you read this image. First is the earthquake, the P wave is first, second is S wave, along with other wave forms that happen in earthquake. The wave patterns that is all over this earthquake recording is ocean wave from winds. Both the ocean waves that happen at the coast, but also the ocean waves at deep ocean far from Iceland coast line. The spike at 21:07:21 – 21:07:41 is a electric noise. The noise at 21:08:41 – 21:09:21 is an animal or some other type of noise source. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see CC Licence page for more details.

Article updated at 21:51 UTC.

Bárðarbunga daily update on 29-September-2014

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

Overview of the activity of 29-September-2014

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

Images of the eruption

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

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

Winter arrives at Holuhraun (Rúv.is)

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