Posted on by Jón Frímann

Katla volcano warming up for an eruption. Small glacier flood continues

This is going to be a short blog post. As I am going to be short of table and a cheer for few more days.

It seems that Katla volcano is warming up for a eruption. As I did mention in last blog post. But there is more to this. As the glacier flood that started on the 28. April 2012 continues according to a email that I got from an geologist working at Iceland Meteorological Office. But that suggests two things. That there is currently an ongoing melting of glacier taking place in Katla volcano, or there is a slow drainage taking place from some area in Mýrdalsjökull glacier. But given increased conductivity following this it is clear that this water has been in contact with magma. But that can be seen with the increased conductivity in the water.

There have not been many earthquakes following this events. But from the earthquakes that have happened. It seems that most likely source for current events is close to or the same area that erupted in July 2011. But at the moment this is just speculation based on limited data. It has not been confirmed so far.


The harmonic tremor that started on 28. April 2012. This is Lágu Hvolar SIL station. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office. Used with written permission.

This plot shows clearly how the harmonic tremor starts and continues at same level for several days. I do not know if the harmonic tremor is ongoing. But I find it likely, if the small glacier flood is currently going on (that was my last information, but things might have changed during the day). But it is hard for me to know that for sure. But based on latest data from the water monitoring system around Katla volcano, the spike in this glacier flood is most likely over for now. But it impossible to know what happens next in Katla volcano. All that can be done is to wait and see what happens next.

52 Replies to “Katla volcano warming up for an eruption. Small glacier flood continues”

  2. Does anyone know where I can get cheap hard drives in Denmark ? I need to replace the hard drive in my server computer. It is now showing 50% fragmentation, in Linux Ext3 file system that is bad sign. I just need an 200GiB at maximum. It needs to be PATA (IDE), as the server computer does not support SATA drivers (it is old computer).

    The server computer also needs to motherboard and what follows it. But that is an headache for a other day.

    Thanks for the help.

    1. Hi Jhon
      did you ever think of virtual machines on your hw boxes ?
      this will safe you hardware and power.
      for example I’m running several virtual machine on my windows laptop
      but my laptop is equiped with 16 GB of memory, quad core and has an internal disk arround 250 GB.
      currently I’m using vmware workstation, which is able to run differnet of flavours of windows / linux
      perhaps you should spend some time on it

      my two cents
      Regards

      Rick

      1. in addition, I have removed all my physical servers ” 8 in total ”
        last year and currently onlry running all as an virtual machine,
        with only one laptop. you could even use vmware converter to move your os form the physical systems to an
        virtual machine

        regards

        Rick

      2. VM does not work for what I am doing. As I need direct hardware access to many things that I use. VM does not provide that in many cases.

        The idea is nice. But not workable for me.

    1. SATA cards are expensive. I also don’t need them, as one day the server computer is going to be upgraded to SATA able motherboard. Thanks for the idea.

  4. jon i’am a farmer and this year we are finding it hard at the moment to get grass to grow due to cold weather which is unusual at this time of year in ireland, do you think this could be due to last years eruption in iceland?

    2. There his a storm coming in Iceland, probably tonight or tomorrow morning.
      The forecast for next week is cold and snow all over the country.

      I have noticed there has been rather cold and lots of rain and snow in Britain, so the weather seems to be similar in our part of the world.

      Interesting picture taken in Reykjanes.
      http://visir.is/risafugl-a-flugi-yfir-reykjanesbae/article/2012120519996

      It shows a type of clouds called Netjuský, something quite rare.

  5. Manythanks Jon once again. Hope you get settled soon with your move you are a great help in explaining things

  6. Jon: You’re now within EU so you can buy computer hardware anywhere within EU (where ever it is cheapest). Also, EU nationals can donate & send you hardware, if you’re willing to accept it.

    PCI SATA cards are not that expensive I can get a decent one for 15 euros.

    1. Yes. That is now a possibility. If anyone wants to donate a hardware to me. Just drop me an email so that I can give you my address.

    1. Thanks for this. This might actually work (its cheap and no problem). I am going to try and find this in Denmark. But if not. I am just going to buy one off ebay soon.

  8. Very interesting. Is there some page on the IMO site we should put our attention to follow this?

      1. What I’ve noticed is in PH of water is very low, at present this out of 2
        must be very acidic water in the river Múlakvísl

    1. There is always plenty for crazy and unprepared people that go hiking on the mountains without having a look at the forecast to check for potential storms. This storm was forecasted well in advance.

      The weather today is freezing and very windy. It is dry in the south but blowing snow in the north. Its also very ashy in south Iceland, hazy skies, my lungs are hurting, and I can feel the ash on my eyes and teeth after a walk outside.

      1. This guy unfortunately did not make it.
        He got sick on the mountain and died from some kind of breakdown.
        Because of the storm, the helicopters could not be used, so he had to be carried down the mountain.

        People sometimes underestimate how quickly and how much weather can change on mountains and glaciers, like the Swedish photographer on Solheimajokull last year.

    1. I suppose a heart attack could be categorized as some sort of breakdown.
      The Esja is probably not easier to climb in bad weather, i guess.

      Map of walking paths up the mountain.
      http://www.reykjavik.is/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-4018

      This reminds me of a incident i read about from the war, a German Junkers 88 had been bombing ships in Hvalfjordur and was being chased by 2 fighters, the German pilots tried to out fly the fighters and decided to fly into Svinaskard. It is wide at the entrance but elevates very quickly and ends with a cliff at the top, thats where the chase ended.
      The British sent a search party up there to collect the bodies and found 3 crew members, unfortunately one of the Brits got a heart attack and was in the fourth body bag that came down the mountain.

      http://www.ferlir.is/?id=6114
      http://www.ferlir.is/?id=6553

      2. The problem with Esja is that it is fairly easy to climb (the walking ways are pretty good) and it can easily be reached from Reykjavik (its about 20 minutes to drive from the center).
        Buts its also pretty high (around 900m) and people tend to forget how fast the weather can change in Iceland. Or they simply underestimate the weather (thats what happens to a lot of tourists). And then even easy paths can get dangerous pretty fast.

  15. Hej Jon ,
    I live just outside of Køge , welcome to the area , My neighbor runs a computer on line shop, and I know he has reasonable prices ,
    You could check him out computersalg.dk , he has good service but in general I would do comparisons with http://www.kelkoo.dk/
    to be certain of getting the best price in denmark.

    1. Thanks! But I am far away from your town. I currently live in Aabenraa town. I do not know yet for how long. But I plan on moving from here to Padborg or Kruså soon. But how long that takes depends on waiting lists with the local rent company.

      Thanks for the link. I am going to try and remember it when I start looking for new computer hardware for my server computer.

  18. Just updated by Icelandic Met Office to one either side of Askja. Probably a dyke intrusion but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

      1. We do have more quaks near of Herðubreið (Askja system). This is all list so far:
        14.05.2012 17:44:43 65.141 -16.425 9.8 km 1.9 64.46 5.1 km SW of Herðubreið
        14.05.2012 17:40:14 65.150 -16.421 9.6 km 2.0 43.43 4.3 km SW of Herðubreið
        14.05.2012 17:23:41 65.152 -16.416 10.2 km 1.3 99.0 4.0 km SW of Herðubreið
        14.05.2012 16:05:48 65.150 -16.427 5.6 km 1.5 41.06 4.5 km SW of Herðubreið
        Monday
        14.05.2012 12:45:16 65.154 -16.432 0.6 km 3.4 90.05 4.5 km WSW of Herðubreið

  19. It is bit hard to know if this earthquake was tectonic or not. But it happened in a well known earthquake area that is at this location. This area is well known for having this types of earthquakes.

    But it is worth the monitoring to see is anything interesting is going on in this location.

  20. The swarm is picking up big time, lots of quakes in the last 45 minutes

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