October 2014 – Page 3 – Iceland geology

October 9, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano daily update for 8-October-2014

This is daily update for Bárðarbunga volcano for 8-October-2014. Please note that I am doing to do the updates a bit shorter when nothing special is happening.

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano

Largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 5,2. This earthquake took place NNE part of the caldera where majority of the large earthquakes have been happening for the past weeks. This activity might be because a dyke is drilling its way trough the crust in that one spot. This is just an idea (based on the clues that I get from the earthquake activity) and is so far not yet proven in any form.
No major changes have been reported in the eruption in Holuhraun. The lava field is now larger then 52 square kilometres in size. The eruption is about the same size as it was when it started five weeks ago.
Bad weather is preventing proper observation of the eruption at times.
The highest crater called Baugur is now some 100 meters tall. The crater called Suðri is around 40 to 50 meters tall. Other craters in the eruption are smaller. Icelandic news with picture with the name of craters can be found here.
There has been almost no earthquake activity detected today under the dyke today.
No other news to report today that I know of.

I am going to post update here if anything new happens. Volcanoes are unpredictable forces of nature so anything can happen without warning when they erupt.

October 8, 2014

Bárðarbunga daily update for 7-October-2014

This is the daily update for Bárðarbunga volcano on 6-October-2014.

I’m sorry for this late update. I’ve been more busy today then I planned. I did manage to solve one network problem that I was having. The other network problem that I am having is out of my reach it seems (It’s a problem with the ISP network connection to my end I think).

Status of Bárðarbunga volcano on 7-October-2014

The largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 5,5. It took place at 10:22 UTC. Other earthquakes that happened today where smaller. It seems that around 5 – 20 earthquakes that are larger then magnitude 3,0 happen every day now in Bárðarbunga volcano. This has been going on now for almost two months.
The eruption in Holuhraun continues far as I know. I am not sure on how large the lava field is today. Visibility has been poor to none today due to weather in this area at the moment.
Tourists are continuing to trying to kill them self by getting close to the eruption site. The newest case involves a millionaire (or billionaire?) from Kazakhstan that landed close the lava field. They where lucky that wind did not change direction while they where there. The amount of SO2 close to the eruption has been recorded going up to 130.000 μg/m³. That is good enough to kill instantly and melt people lungs (read up on that can be found here). News item on this stunt can be found here.
I suspect that activity in the south part of Bárðarbunga volcano system is about to start. When it is going to start full force is impossible to know for sure.
It is a question of Tungnafellsjökull volcano is getting unstable due the unrest in Bárðarbunga volcano. It appears to be in the same rift area, even if it is in a different volcano.
Skrokkalda volcano appears to be stable for now (No GVP profile). This is important since Tungafellsjökull volcano fissure swarm extents into it and it is next to Bárðarbunga volcano fissure swarm. This volcano has no information on-line about it, besides what I have written about it. It is an active volcano, but has been dormant for a long time. Some hydrothermal activity might happen in it on the surface.
I don’t know how the status is on Hamarinn volcano (Loki-Fögrufjöll). I am however assuming that volcano to be unstable. It last erupted in July-2011 with a minor eruption that lasted some 8 to 10 hours in total. Eruptions in Hamarinn volcano happens without warning and without any earthquake activity, at least not high amount of earthquake activity far as I can tell.

Activity today in Bárðarbunga volcano and the 45 km long dyke. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This is how the earthquake did appear on my geophone in Heklubyggð. The website for my geophones can be found here. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see CC Licence for more details.

If anything more happens I am going to add information about it here.

October 7, 2014October 7, 2014

Bárðarbunga daily update for 6-October-2014

This information is going to get outdated quickly.

Bad weather

Bad weather is expected in Iceland for the next few days. Storm can be expected to take place. I am not sure on the details. Check Icelandic Met Office weather information for more details.

Status of Bárðarbunga volcano on 6-October-2014

The eruption in Holuhraun has picked up again from a minor slowdown on Saturday.
Strong earthquake activity continues in Bárðarbunga volcano. Strongest earthquake on 6-October-2014 was a magnitude 5,1 earthquake. Other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.
Bad weather is preventing good observation of Bárðarbunga volcano, both in Holuhraun and over Vatnajökull glacier. Visibility can be extremely limited at times.
SO2 pollution was detected in Reykjavík during the evening of 6-October-2014. It did go over 700 μg/m³ for a short moment in Reykjavík and nearby area. More pollution from the eruption is expected tomorrow.
The lava field in Holuhraun eruption is now larger than 50 square kilometres in size. I don’t have the exact size for today.
Bárðarbunga volcano caldera continues to drop and has dropped more than 30 meters by now.
The activity in Holuhraun appears to be slowly getting smaller with time. This is normal, this also increases the risk of new eruption starting soon.
No further information for today that I am aware of at this moment.

The earthquake activity in the past 48 hours in Bárðarbunga volcano. Green stars are earthquakes with magnitude above 3,0. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Short overview of the earthquake activity over the weekend

Earthquake activity picked up on Saturday compared to Friday and Sunday.
Eruption activity did drop in Holuhraun craters on Saturday, it did pick up again on Sunday far as I know.
Far as I know there is nothing else to report.

Other things related to Bárðarbunga volcano

I’ve seen a lot of strange discussions about Bárðarbunga volcano. I get even stranger emails at times (no, I don’t answer those). Far as I know there isn’t any Felsic magma (or Andesite) in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. Reason for that is it appears to have been really long time since the caldera erupted. I am not sure on exact time scale, but it is from 400 to 700 years at the shortest. The forces at work in Bárðarbunga volcano are extremely complex and they are not properly understood today, the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano is going to add that knowledge with time. Since it is going to take many decades of study to analyse and figure out what the data collected today means. I dismiss all strange and odd ideas about what is going on in Bárðarbunga volcano, since they don’t fit the data that I am seeing (along with everyone else that is viewing that same data, interpretation of that data might differ)

It is also worth to mention that only north part of the Bárðarbunga volcano system has shown rifting in only one fault. There are many more in this area that have not yet moved. I expect them to move in next few months to years. Then there is the matter of all the activity that is going to take place in Bárðarbunga volcano south of it. That area has not moved so far, it is going to rift in the same manner as the area in the north of Bárðarbunga volcano. When is impossible to know, but I expect it to happen in next few months to years. This is far from over, in fact, this activity in Bárðarbunga volcano has barely started, even if it has been erupting now for almost one month and a half. There are going to be quiet period with no eruption activity in Bárðarbunga volcano during this process. Those quiet periods are going to be different in length, they are going to happen, it is just a matter of time. That is how rifting works in rifting zones (and rift valley) around the world.

Next update is tomorrow if nothing major happens in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Article updated at 01:09 UTC on 07-October-2014.

October 3, 2014October 4, 2014

Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 02-October-2014

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

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano at 23:03 UTC

The eruption in Holuhraun continues at the same rate as before. There are no signs of it slowing down. I don’t know if new craters have opened up, it doesn’t look like it at the moment.
Bad weather has prevented visibility check from the ground. There currently is storm in the area with limited visibility at the moment. Please check the wind map for more details.
Largest earthquakes so far today where two magnitude 4,8 earthquakes that took place at 00:36 UTC and 13:27 UTC. Second largest earthquake took place at 06:39 UTC and had the magnitude of 4,6. Other earthquakes are smaller.
It seems that earthquake activity is increasing in Bárðarbunga volcano. I don’t think that is a good sign. So far there are no signs of an eruption under the glacier, at least not a large one at the moment.
Magma continues to flow into the dyke at the same rate as before. It also appears that the pressure inside the dyke is increasing since the eruption in Holuhraun is not keeping up with the material that is flowing into it.
Due to bad weather I don’t have any more information on the eruption in Holuhraun.
Bad weather is expected tomorrow in north Iceland and in the higher parts of Iceland at the same time. Snow is expected to fall in mountains and higher areas. This is going to mean poor or no visibility on Míla web cameras during this bad weather.

Information from GPS data

GPS data shows that the dyke that feeds the eruption in Holuhraun eruption is being well fed. There are no signs of any contraction taking place and it is clearly not cooling down. Earthquakes happen in the dyke when it expands since the eruption is not big enough. I don’t know why eruption has not yet broken up in a new place yet. As the times goes on the rock around the dyke gets soft from the heat, it turns into rubber type of mush that no longer breaks. This also applies to the crust above it. The depth down to the dyke is no more than 2 km, but it is expected that it is around 1 km or shallower in some areas.

The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano today and for the last 48 hours. This is just the earthquakes that have been recorded today trough the bad weather that has been taking place. So I am expecting more earthquake to have taken place than are showing up here. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

When the earthquake data is connected to GPS data it tells the story of an dyke that is being well fed and is trying to expand into nearby crust. Creating minor earthquake activity in the process. It is erupting so it can only expand by the volume that the eruption is not erupting. I don’t know how much that is, the dyke it self is around 3 – 4 meters wide and around 10 – 15 km deep (best estimate).

The dyke size and feeding appears clearly here. I don’t know why it is moving west now, rather than east. This might suggest that something else is going on that does not appear on the surface yet (it might never appear on the surface). Copyright of this image belongs to University of Iceland.

It is almost the same story on this GPS station. With the exception it is not moving to the west. It is stable where it is. This GPS station is almost on top of the dyke. So any change is going to appear quickly on it. Copyright of this image belongs to University of Iceland.

More GPS stations and information can be found here on University of Iceland website.

Break from Friday

I am going to go on a little break during this weekend from Friday. This means the following.

Comments are going to stay a little longer in moderation queue if you are commenting for the first time, or posting many links. If your comment vanishes it means the spam filter ate it, so it is going to take me a little time to recover it. So just wait a little for it.
If anything happens I might not be able to update this website with newest information right away. I will try to do soon as possible if I can.
Update for the Friday (03-October-2014) might be short and come in late (or not at all). When I don’t know yet.

This has been a busy one and half month for me. I’ve been watching Bárðarbunga volcano for almost all hours of the day regardless where I am and what I am doing. After a while it starts to tire you. That is why Icelandic Met Office and University of Iceland have people on rotation during this eruption. I don’t have that option so I just have to take a short breaks and hope nothing big happens while I am resting my self for a short while.

I did learn during the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010 that if I spend too much time in this I burn out and the recovery from that is long process. That is why I now have plan to prevent that during a long eruption, that covers eruptions that are longer than one month. Like is now the case in Bárðarbunga volcano.

I advice this for anyone how is going to watch this eruption for a long period of time (since it is going to last a long period of time). Spending too much time on an eruption is not good. Even a one day break is a good thing for anyone watching this eruption.

In the case there is no new article tomorrow. I wish everyone a good weekend.

Article updated at 23:42 UTC
Article updated at 23:43 UTC

October 2, 2014

Minor earthquake swarm in TFZ (Tjörnes Fracture Zone)

Today (02-Octorber-2014) there was an minor earthquake swarm in TFZ. Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 3,3. This activity is only tectonic in nature, this earthquake activity is not connected to any volcanism activity.

Earthquake activity today in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. The activity is far the right on this image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity is common in this part of Iceland. Since there is a fracture zone at this location and it’s highly active at times. I don’t know if there is going to be any more earthquake activity at this location.

October 1, 2014October 2, 2014

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.

Donations

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News on my moving to Iceland

In December I am going to move back to Iceland due to money issues. I am going to stay in Iceland for maximum of three years, I hope no more then two years if my plan works out as I expect to. After that time I am going to move back to Denmark and try to due it that time around so that I can stay permanently. I did figure out few days ago that I just want to live in Denmark. I just wanted to add this information since I have written about this before.

Article updated at 22:01 UTC.

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