Posted on by Jón Frímann

Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 17-September-2014

This information is going to go outdated quickly.

Current status in Bárðarbunga volcano at 16:36 UTC

  • The largest earthquake in past 24 hours took place yesterday (16-September-2014) at 21:34 UTC. It had the magnitude of 5,4. The largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 3,3 so far. This might change without warning.
  • Lava continues to flow out of the main crater in Holuhraun. The eruption is diminishing for the moment. That might change without warning if an new fissure opens up in the current eruption area, or in the glacier south of it. River of lava has been observed from the main erupting crater. Smaller craters that have stopped erupting are just emitting gas, two of three of the craters that have stopped erupting have lava lake in them at present time (latest report).
  • GPS data over the past few days suggest that magma flow into Bárðarbunga volcano is changing. I don’t think this is a good news. At the moment it is unclear what this means for current eruption and what is happening in the volcano.
  • Bárðarbunga volcano caldera continues to drop around 50cm/day at current rate. That is slightly slower than when it was dropping at the rate of 90cm/day about week ago.
  • Risk of eruptions under the glacier remains high and it is highly likely that eruptions might have happened under the glacier without anyone noticing them on the surface.
  • No major changes have taken place in glacier rivers that come from Bárðarbunga volcano area. Both when it comes to conductivity of water in the glacier rivers and amount of water in them.
  • There is currently no visibility to the eruption in Holuhraun due to thick fog in the area. I don’t know when the weather is going to clear up.
  • More magma continues to flow into the dyke than is erupting from it according to latests observations. This increases the risk of new eruption taking place along the dyke without warning.

Progress of the current activity

The eruption is happening in two parts in my view. The first part is the rifting episode that has now started in Bárðarbunga volcano fissure swarm. The rifting is going to happen in jumps with quiet period between them and the crust is going to crack or open up when that happens. This rifting has started in the northern part of Bárðarbunga fissure system. It has not yet started in the south part of the fissure, where features like Tröllagígar are (Tröllagíar crater row) exist. They erupted in the years 1862 – 1864. That magma that came up there closely resembles the magma that is now erupting in Holuhraun.

The second event that is happening is the collapse of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. I now think that is an separate event in it self. Something must have happened in the volcano during past period of activity in 19th century that started this collapse, even if it did not start full force until current eruption episode. The caldera collapse is not going to stop the rifting process, that is going to run it course of the next few years (3 – 5 years is my best estimate now). This collapse is however going to make bad situation worse since when the collapse happens it is going to be a major problem for the local area. Since the area south of Bárðarbunga also has several hydro-dams that are in risk of some major damage, not just from fissure eruptions but also from glacier floods when they happen. In glacier floods triggered by eruption contain a lot more than just water. Glacier floods contains fragment of the glacier, many up to several meters high (20 – 60 meters high should be expected), mud, glacier clay, rocks, volcano material of all types, gases and several other things that I don’t know what are.

Current status at 18:45 UTC.

  • Bárðarbunga volcano has dropped 25 meters according to measurements taking today by University of Iceland and Icelandic Met Office. The speed of the drop in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera has slowed down from what it was about a week ago.
  • Currently the dyke from Bárðarbunga volcano is not expanding. Scientists are also not sure now how much lava has erupted at current time.

Current status at 23:56 UTC

  • There seems to be quiet period in the rifting episode at the moment. Along with general quiet period in Bárðarbunga volcano. It does not mean this is over, the eruption in Holuhraun continues and I continue to see harmonic tremor spikes taking place. I don’t know what the harmonic tremor spikes mean yet.
  • Largest earthquakes now have the magnitude of 4,1 (at 22:51 UTC) and magnitude 3,2 earthquake at 22:28 UTC.

Article updated at 16:56 UTC. Minor fixes that I needed to do on the text.
Article updated at 18:45 UTC.
Article updated at 18:48 UTC.
Article updated at 23:56 UTC.

249 Replies to “Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 17-September-2014”

    2. One of the main passages (copycat):

      “Given the high dike-induced stress concentration at Bardarbunga and likely pressure changes in the associated reservoir, it is possible that the volcano will experience a caldera collapse, particularly if a major ring-dike becomes injected. In that case, a Bardarbunga eruption would be likely (but by no means certain) as would be flow of magma along the path of the radial dike towards and into the regional dike (Fig. 4), which would add magma and pressure to, and possibly trigger further propagation of, the regional dike.”

      I also tend to agree with Crosspatch and others that the subsidence is merely caused by meltwater from beneath flowing away somewhere or filling pockets along with old leftover gaps and cracks and the resulting settlement of the ice triggered by the EQ’s.
      Nevertheless, as it is an on-going rifting event, this is far from over.

      2. Radar images done with remote sensing technique you are referring to I guess. It’s hidden somewhere in your article, maybe you could elaborate a bit more on that?

      5. The consequence taken into consideration is a caldera collapse not an ice collapse. Prof. Magnús Tumi Gudmundsson and the other scientists involved would know the difference.

        Here eg. it says: “Talið er að lækkunin stafi af sigið botns öskjunnar.” (in English: “It is said that the subsidence has its origin in the drop of the caldera floor.”) http://jardvis.hi.is/sig_bardarbungu_maelingaflug_13_september_2014
        The source here is the website of University of Iceland (from September 14, 2014).

        Also the well known glaciologist Helgi Björnsson talks about this possibility (of which we all hope that it will not come to be):
        http://www.ruv.is/frett/haetta-skapast-vegna-fallhaedar-i-oskjunni

        IMO and Almannavarnir take it into consideration:
        http://en.vedur.is/media/jar/Factsheet_Bardarbunga_20140918.pdf

        Also your text (ruv) says: “… those measurements show dramatic changes on the surface of the glacier. In the center, the Bardarbunga caldera, beneath, has subsided by up to 15 meters.”

        If there weren’t facts behind this possibility, it would not be taken into consideration by these scientists and authorities.

      6. The subsidence of the cladera indicates that the magma in the chamber under Bardabunga does not seem to be under much pressure.

        But the deep source that is feeding the dike seems to exert considerable pressure. So, if a ring dike connects from the magma chamber to the main dike, is it not more likely that magma will flow from the dike into the magma chamber rather than the other way around?

      7. @IngeB
        Like you said, they take it into consideration. What you see is a 15 meter subsidence in the center of the glacier, not beneath. In the words of IMO: other scenarios can not be excluded.

      9. I’ve found a comment on the floor from a vulcanologist who is also a bloggar:

        “Bárðarbunga caldera and a major eruption

        So back to Bárðarbunga (at last, I hear you groan). What it will share with other large Icelandic central volcanoes possessing calderas is a set of sub-circular faults on which upwards and downwards movements takes place to accommodate subsidence and inflation of the underlying plexus of magma bodies (or a large single chamber). Think of a cafetiere of coffee with a leak at the bottom – push it down (subsidence) and the lid goes down and the coffee moves out. Now reverse the process by replenishing the cafetiere via pumping coffee via the leak and the lid will rise up. The cafetiere is the magma chamber, and the lid is the caldera roof. Coffee = magma.”

        There you have your cup of coffee:)

        As I understand it he says the floor moves up and down due to inflation and subsidence of the underlying magma chamber. That makes sense to me.
        The scientist in your video fragment is saying something about a moment where the ice is starting to drop faster.
        When that is happening i’ll go along with you and we should to get worried a bit more (not too much).

  3. As usual Jon first class service you give with the updates.
    Just a thought. I don’t know if this is correct or not but it could fit what’s going on at BB. I read an article several years ago that theorized that super hot magma could enter the magma chamber from deep within the earth and change the dynamics of that chamber. It could also have the effect of enlarging the chamber and therefore putting stress on the volcano and surrounding area. Coupled with the rift event that is taking place, is it not conceivable that the magma chamber has in fact started to enlarge laterally and therefore the volcano is loosing support from underneath. This would explain why the surroundings area is also sinking. Any comments on this or have I got it completely wrong.

  4. Bb activity is increasing… 5 last eq >3 at 8 deep aprox.

    New limit for a new magma intrussion?

    😕

    1. Probably near the surface as it seems to have upset the GPS monitoring a bit. If it is near surface, it might be smaller and still register with that intensity.

      2. now corrected on emsc?
        Magnitude Mw 5.1
        Region ICELAND
        Date time 2014-09-18 14:21:49.9 UTC
        Location 64.88 N ; 17.09 W
        Depth 2 km

  7. GPS looks like it got clubbed by this quake. Could be noise, but it usually isn’t with this pattern.

    I’m thinking M5 when this is manually processed.

      1. There are both movements depending on the type of earthquake, also combinations of them both.

        I experienced in 2008 a quake near Reykjavík when I was out hiking in open space , it was over magn. 6 some 65 km away at the epicentre, but in Reykjavík about 4,5. It was a feeling like the earth was first heaving and then dancing in a way (the aftershocks probably).

        And someone who lives near San Francisco told me about another there which was more like swaying from side to side so that the water spilled over the sides of the swimming pool.

    2. In my experience there’s quite a variety of subjective experiences — one was like the wall I was leaning on punching me suddenly. Another like being in a swaying boat. One (in NYC of all places) like a ringing bell. I’ve never experienced a big one though, the above were all in the 5-6+ range. Microquakes can be like a truck going by.

      Factors like absolute magnitude, distance from the point of origin, type of event, soil/rock quality at destination, etc, all play roles.

      1. I remember a quake in Seattle in the 60’s where I could see the alley behind my house moving in waves like water.

    1. Yeah, that’s right in the lid rim. I expect that drop to be real.

      Thursday
      18.09.2014 14:21:46 64.671 -17.472 1.8 km 5.1 99.0 4.3 km NE of Bárðarbunga

      1. How low can it go? 😉
        Seriously, if I’m reading the graph well, it has dropped almost 1,5 metres?

      2. Jenkie — that 1,5 meters has been just in the past 3 days (50 cm per day avg.) But has been dropping for several weeks now, so the total drop is around 25 m.

  11. I don’t expect that one has finished settling yet. It will probably sink a bit for three hours or more.

  13. So quakes close to the surface (the ones that shake the ice the most) result in a drop in that GPS receiver. The deeper quakes do not. Again, this smells to me like settling of the ice in that caldera when the ice experiences a lot of shaking so I still think there is a combination of both things going on (caldera subsiding AND ice settling). Also in today’s scientific summary: http://en.vedur.is/media/jar/Factsheet_Bardarbunga_20140918.pdf it was noted that the behavior of the GPS exhibits some “instability” (I believe they are referring to how it sometimes rises and is not always falling) which they take as an indication of magma still moving in the system below.

    Take a barrel and fill it with crushed ice. Wait a couple of hours. Shake the drum. The ice settles. I believe this explains at least some of the movement we are seeing.

    So far in the timeline shown at http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Bardarb/BARC/ we see 4 quakes of >M5. Two of them result in a significant drop, two of them do not. The ones that result in a significant drop are shallow. The deeper ones have not resulted in as much subsidence.

    1. I also think the caldera is constantly dropping, like a piston in a syringe, squeezing the magma out through the fissure. The large drops we suddenly see is where the ice hasn’t kept up with the rate of drop and the shaking makes it plummet at once.

      1. That could very well be the case. It could, indeed, be a matter of the ice “catching up” with subsidence under it. The important thing isn’t so much the specifics in too much detail (which can not really be known at this stage) as it is to point out that what is going on at the top of the ice can be quite different from what is going on with the top of the crust at the bottom of the ice and to be mindful of that fact.

  14. As jon pointed out earlier it seems that the magma has found a weak spot on the north west of the caldera rim and towrds the small 8000 year dormant sibling. I expect it to break here. EQs have a compressional or p wave where the material vibrates in the direction of travel an a transverse or s wave where vibrations are perpendicular to the direction of travel. The p wave travels fastest so arrives first, has a higher frequency and is sometimes heard as a ringing noise. The s wave arrives later but with much more energy. The s wave does the shaking.

    1. of course S waves can’t propagate in liquids (does a partial melt appear as a liquid?, I suspect so ?)

    1. According to
      this a plume is sitting under iceland some 500 miles across and has uplifted the land by one full km.

      Given these phantastic “facts” remarkably little is happening at the surface.

  17. Think of the deep earthquakes like void roof support failures. Time is still needed for the roof above to crumble and fall. Then the void is higher still. The new roof must crumble…….Sometimes a new stable roof forms which holds, and sometimes the void eventally works its way to the surface. That is far more likely if it only has 2km to go rather than 10.

    1. Thanks for reminding us of this. We have seen a real world example of this in our area where old railroad tunnels were abandoned and the supports were removed and the ends sealed up. Some 60 years later, homes at the surface noticed subsidence on their property. The location of the old railroad tunnels had not been well documented on the maps. The people had no idea that their home was built above an abandoned tunnel and it took decades for the subsidence to work its way to the surface.

  18. Have been following this excellent blog and comments for quite a while – thank you so much for all the interesting and sensible information.
    I wonder if you can help me with something I do not understand?
    Because of the fog on the cams yesterday at midday I looked at the Iceland Met Office website weather radar graphic to see if the cloud/rain would be clearing soon.
    I noticed a red patch SW of Bardarbunga caldera over the glacier (other ‘rain/moisture’ patches blue and green)
    That red patch has remained in situ for the last 30hrs and is still there!!
    Does anyone know what has caused this intense area of ‘moisture’ ?? It certainly was not there 2-3 days ago.

    This is the link:
    http://en.vedur.is/weather/observations/radar/

    Thank you.

    1. Sorry – I meant to put the red patch is SE oe E (not SW!!!) of Bardarbunga caldera (at approx Kverkfjoll area) – now I am in moderation waiting confirmation so I hope you see this.
      Thank you.

    2. Radar could be directly illuminating one of the mountain peaks. we see the same think here in Calgary with the radar and the Rockies to the west of us

  19. Many of Earth’s events are tied in together. Just sharing. I did not mean to mistype, misspeak or misquote.
    Correction: Mount Vesuvius’s location is in Italy, not too far from Greece.
    The original quote from Edgar Cayce states that when the activities ( in the earth ) start in Iceland, (which they did in 2010) you will know that they ( major earth changes ) have begun. He then states that earthquake activities will quicken also in the Greece & Italy areas, with paying special attention to any activity involving Mount Vesuvius or Mount Pelee in the Caribbean, as that activity may trigger the “Big One” for California.
    With our depleted Magnetic Field at the North Pole, I truly believe we are getting closer to a Magnetic Pole Shift. I do not believe that it will be the end of the world, but it will be the end of the world as we know it. Due to the ramping up of storms & natural disasters I do see a pattern that leads to a pole flip, a magnetic pole flip, & it all begins in Iceland. (Earth Changes). I brought up the Theory of Hydroplating, just that: a theory, by Engineer Walt Brown because he theorized a small crack in the Earth’s Crust could have started it all. His video is amazing! I guess in my own way I put that out there to see if anyone else had put together any thoughts on the matter since there is so much water & ice under the Bardabunga Volcanic & Glacial area. As always, be safe!

    1. Pole flips have happened before and take thousands of years to complete. Generations beyond us don’t have to worry either.

      By the time this is a “thing” we’d likely have destroyed the Earth somehow anyway or colonised other plantes – or both,

      1. I watched on NG Channel document “2012 The Final Prophecy”. There was profesor of geology (Adam Maloof from Princeton Uni), who said that the last pole shift on Earth happened 12.000 years ago.

      2. Comforting to know that there is public access to at least one or two seismometer drum-plots which are located in Iceland, notwithstanding the limitations therein.

        … No, I also miss the departure of near realtime research seismometer plots

  21. A question occurs: What are the consequences of continuing fissure eruptions for the makeup of the magma in the caldera? Will the evolved magma migrate out through the dike? Will it be replaced by hotter fresher magma? Does that make an early explosive rhyolitic phase to a potential caldera eruption less likely? Or doesn’t that matter when massive amounts of water and lava mix?

  22. you may be right, and its just the ice sinking, cant see it myself.A prediction: large eruption around 24 th september

    1. What do you mean with large? Above 6 or heavier? And why 24th? Always curious where these predictions come from….. Ah, just checked my diary, a new moon…. Don’t tell me it is because of the full moon…..

  23. I suspect that the images of three scenarios form is signed too straight and flat vertical something. I think the cover itself has sort of a diamond shape. The more ice melts at the edges, more the cork falls during the quake.

    What am concerned that the move to the new earthquake fault line.
    – Risk of a new underground lava away?
    – Or is that a new lava flow to BB?

    1. Radial fissure / intrusion from Bárdarbunga in direction of Vonarskard?

      GPS are always changing direction here:
      http://www.vedur.is/photos/volcanoes/bbgpseqmap.png
      Was not Grímsvötn moving west yesterday and it looked as if there were a bigger inflation going on to the west in direction of Esjufjöll, ie. west of the known big intrusion? And now Grímsvötn is moving south as if all this material had moved in direction of Bárdarbunga.
      What do you think about these movements?

      1. GPS in the southeast of Vatnajökull:
        KVSK: moving up, north and east http://gps.vedur.is/timeseries/KVSK-itrf08.png
        EYVI: no real movements http://strokkur.raunvis.hi.is/gps/EYVI_08.png
        HÖFN: a bit down, no movement and west, but: these last days abrupt change of direction to south and east
        http://strokkur.raunvis.hi.is/gps/HOFN_08.png
        (there is a discrepancy with the CGPS map here, perhaps this here is detrended);
        no GPS in the east (or not attainable) of Vatnajökull;
        northeast of Vatnajökull:
        SAUD: up, east, north (actually: north-south-north)
        BALD: up, east, north-south-north (more pronounced)

        Could be interesting to know what station BRUJ (Brúarjökull) is up to … (seemingly it is not publicly attainable)
        Are there stations on the eastern side of Vatnajökull? And if there are, what do they show?

  24. That 5.1 from earlier today just upgraded to a 5.3

    18.09.2014 14:21:46 64.679 -17.494 6.8 km 5.3 99.0 4.6 km NNE of Bárðarbunga
    IMO

      1. There is a way that tides can affect what is going on in Iceland. See ‘body tide’ http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide#Body_tide

        Example:
        Consider the maximum pull centered on B.
        This would induce surface forces of “—–> B. <—–"
        In other words push the plates together and increase the compressional stress at the MOR.

        Remember that plate movement is across a wide arc at the earth's surface with abutting plates.

        Don't know that this type of force is significant.

    3. I’ve participated in these discussions about tidal influence on volcanoes but they’re not helping keep focus on history-making events on and under the ground in Iceland, and I’m sad to say we’ve been driving some of the more serious people here crazy. Instead we need to be looking at the particulars of how these volcanoes involved in the immediate events behave under the stresses that can easily be measured, accessing as high-quality information as we can — which in my case sadly is not that high, but I try. For instance, I’d like to see more detail about the location of known fissures and which ones are most likely to be involved in current potential scenarios. And if anyone has links to better current “beachball” maps than the few I’ve seen at VC, that would be great too!

  26. When I saw Jon was going to be busy, I knew Bardarbunga would get jealous and start upping the EQs, lol…..

  27. Pole shift won’t be the end of the human civilization, even a modern one. While the shift takes place there will be multiple poles. It will confuse creatures and machines with magnetic sense but there will be plenty of time to adapt for the change. While the shift takes place northern lights will become more or less global, so there will be entertainment also to ease the confusion.

  28. I don’t know the best earthquake site on the net, but I will share the one I use to Jon & the readers here. It has GPS, maps, timing & satellite imaging with zoom technology.
    You can also click on each earthquake’s name or area & then the area’s history of at least one year’s earthquake history is available. I think it’s pretty cool, especially being able to watch how they seem to go around the world following each other.
    Earthquaketrack dot com/

    1. Thank you for the website, however what I don’t understand is that there is only one earthquake reported from Iceland, in the last 24 hours, when in fact their are 10 earthquakes bigger than 3 in the last 24 hours in Iceland (of which 3 are above 4).

      How comes?

  29. In the category of “yes, but” the slope of the subsidence appears to have increased just prior to and since the most recent 5+. Progressive acceleration of caldera collapse? Don’t know….

    1. Curt we need to ask ourself did the earthquake cause the slip? or did the slip cause the earthquake ? I have my hunches!!

    1. My example is painfully crude and badly formed. Serious physics are required to calculate the forces. Almost everything is involved.

      On the other hand it seems hard to imagine that body tides do not influence the strain, stress and shear at faults whose size spans a significant portion of the earth’s global surface

  31. Hydroplating is a phony “theory” cooked up by creationists to try and explain where the vast amounts of water necessay to flood the earth came and went. According to that preposterous explaination earths tectonic plates sit on vast underground oceans. This is not seen in the eartquake tomographical studies used to discover the earths metal core. No more regious nonsense clogging this blog please. Any theory must stand against healthy criticism. This is the tenet of Robert Boyl, founder of the scientific method as published in his book The Skeptical Chemist.

    2. The founder of critical thinking was actually probably the Buddha, in the Kalama Sutta, a bit earlier — although it had to pass through Greek stoicism/scepticism/cynicism (they got those from the Buddhists via Alexander’s courts in India) and then Roman stoicism which only barely survived the Christian dark ages to resurface at last as the Renaissance with Francis Bacon, Boyle et al.

      Anyway it’s just refined common sense joined with keen observation.

      (wial ducks and covers)

    1. Sorry, it interpreted the link example as a link.
      Maybe this works: with
      leftBrace=”” the link syntax is
      leftBrace a href=”http://…” rightBrace Linktext leftBrace/a rightBrace

      1. This is evil itself:

        leftBrace = left angular bracket
        rightBrace = right angular bracket (>)

        Left angular brackets are interpreted and eaten, so they won’t show up here.

      2. Finally to dispell all confusion, the link syntax is

        [a href=”htpp://…”] Linktext [/a]

        where you replace “[“, “]” with the corresponding angular brackets.

    2. Appreciate the the similarity with Piton de la Fournaise.

      As it seems to be described, Barðarbunga is a slowly subsiding caldera cap with .7 kilometers of ice chips (?) sitting on top the ring fracturing (?) rock cap.

      Might this result in shocking the underlying magma in addition to a burn up through the ice at the caldera rim. Steam and heat could travel up through the many ice shards and crevices in close proximity, dissipating the melt over a broad area of the caldera.

  34. I know it’s only been a day since it was mentioned in Jon’s write up in this update but is any more known about the change in magma flow at Bardarbunga?

  35. A polite request. Can I kindly ask for those who are discussing pole shift, and other doom/fringe theories, to refrain from doing so, in this blog? There are many other forums in the internet dedicated to that, please go there, or otherwise stay here but focused in volcanology, and refrain of bringing pseudoscience topics. It’s too boring for those of us interested in volcanology to see such comments filling the space in here. Thank you, Takk.

    2. Agreed, but sadly, such people tend to post first before rezding the other comments. Or, as in the most recent case, post again to insist that they were only looking for information, while again promoting their particular ideas.

    3. I agree, although I get why people lose control of their sense of wonder and need for some kind of overarching meaning when contemplating something like the present eruption. The scale of it is vast and scary.

      I’m certainly guilty of that myself (and I’m very sorry).

      I hope we can find sympathetic ways to refocus the discussion. “Boring” and “pseudoscience” although true enough are a bit harsh. My brother just retired as a director at the Max Planck institute in a field where quantities are measured in teslas, and yet he sings in the church choir as well. Good scientists can have spiritual sides and we shouldn’t presume too much about the rightness of our own opinions.

      But yes, please, Iceland volcanology and breaking factual events only, here!

      I’m reminded of a major Mars forum frequented by NASA scientists and so on where any mention of the possibility of extraterrestrial life is enough to get you banned, even though of course that’s a big reason the rovers are there at all.

  37. Please stop discussing the pole shift or any other far fetched issues, they are in fact none issues due to there nature.

    The pole shift is not going to be a disaster. It didn’t bother the dinosaurs in there time and they did go trough several ones and we don’t even know yet if one has yet started. It might not, clues are still confusing. That is the end of the discussing about the pole shift.

    For facts about geomagnetic reversal (pole shift) can be found in the link below.

    http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/reversals.html
    http://www.universetoday.com/18977/2012-no-geomagnetic-reversal/
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
    http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-poleReversal.html

    In the future, please report such discussion to me so that I can delete them. Also note that I don’t delete comments that have replay to them due to the nature of the WordPress comment system (it’s no good in reality).

    1. I know that I am becoming a nuisance but I feel compelled to get this right:

      when you post:
      <a href="http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/reversals.html">reversals</a>

      you get the link as follows:

      reversals

  38. I’m just curious… These larger quakes… Are they being felt throughout Iceland or just locally?

  39. If you look at the earthquakes over the past 10 hours, I note the minimum depths are very similar. Past events are similar. For me this suggests that both events, caldera and fissure, are from the same source, as the earthquake producing forces are applied to the different locations at the same time and with equal force..

    http://baering.github.io/

    I would suggest that this event is caused by something below B’s magma chamber. The plume.

    1. Don’t believe in the “plume” theory.
      If you believe this
      plume
      theory, the whole of iceland could disappear at any minute making Yosemite look like a wet fire cracker.

      The mantle plume theory is
      controversial.

  40. IngeB, very good observation and I’m with you on your line if thought.

    Explains the heightened EQ activity to the NW. Correct me if I’ve got you wrong but if you follow the GPS plate movements and direction of that movement a placement of next seismic activity can be predicted.

    The larger the distance in movement the larger the EQ activity?

  41. The quakes are relatively shallow so the main affect should be fairly local.

    Meanwhile the harmonic tremors indicate that Halohraun must still be erupting – I haven’t seen I cam in days so I am extrapolating. The big question is BB?

    Lots of EQ’s so something is happening. The caldera is steadily lowering so we know something is afoot. Meanwhile, bear in mind that the 800 meter ice cap in the caldera will be heavy enough to be subject to hydrostatic forces and plastic deformation. It’s not likely to be shaken into cubes. The big unknown is how much, if any has melted, and if it’s melting, is it pooling in the caldera, or is it descending lower via the caldera ring fault system? This still has potential for a large eruption at BB with Holuhraun being an associated feature.

  42. Many have commented on increased volcanic activity around the world. This suggests the Earths surface is getting squeezed.
    I suggest that increased see level changes combined with isostatic compansation in the poles from ice melt is causing increased volcanic activity. Maybe this is how planet Earth regulates increased temperatures from whatever sources, as the volcanic activity helps reduce global temperatures.

    Should add this concept is my idea. I am just date stamping it!

    1. Better corealate the increased activity with increased number of monitoring sensors. In this sense awareness is increasing, not activity. ; )

    2. If only the negative feedbacks outweighed the positive ones.

      Not just the melting ice, but the changing shape of the oceans as they swell from the more than 2 trillion Hiroshima bombs of heat that have gone into them since 1998.

      But *again* as many are saying, such things are just not the focus of this blog. It’s getting to be a question which blows first, BB or JF. 🙂

  43. From the Icelandic MET Office – Geoscientist on duty …

    “Nearly 150 earthquakes have been recorded since midnight. About 45 of them occurred in Bárðarbunga, the largest a magnitude 5.3 at the northern rim of Bárðarbunga caldera at 14:22. The GPS station on Bárðarbunga showed a drop of 15 – 20 cm at the time of the earthquake. Two earthquakes occurred with magnitudes between 4 and 5 and four of magnitudes between 3 and 4. Over 50 earthquakes were recorded along the northern part of the dyke, all within magnitude 2. About 30 earthquakes were recorded by Herðubreið and Herðubreiðartögl, all with magnitudes below 2.”

  45. I originally came to this site to check on the status of a Volcanic Eruption after I saw an Earthquake had happened in Iceland. Mainly to check on the Icelandicic people & to check to see if anything from Bardabunga’s possible eruption would or did any damage the North Atlantic Ridge as that would affect the East Coast of America & my home.

    I have learned many correlating topics over the years & thought I would share, never stating anyone had to believe anything I typed here. Nor did I bring up Religion as I was accused of. I posted 2 Comments with a little information in each that if a reader wished to examine on their own that was up to them and I did not type that they should. It was only extra Volcanic & Earthquake Activity information to share. I did not know that my comments would offend so greatly? I will only visit this site when an Icelandic Volcano erupts & makes the International Television News. I wish everyone the best!

  46. wial says:
    September 18, 2014 at 23:33

    Wial,

    Got any facts to support your daft ” it woz the oceans that ate my homework” excuse??

    e.g. Argo data….no?, satellite data…? no?, anything else…..??……..Bueller, Bueller…..

    1. Sorry, don’t follow. To what are you objecting? If thermal expansion of the oceans due to climate change, it’s well-understood and easily measured, the primary fact of life for some people on the planet already. If you don’t like it, go buy land in Kiribati. Do I really need to google it for you? I did a search myself and authoritative information is abundant.

      I won’t post any of that here because it’s off topic and I shouldn’t have brought it up, plus I don’t like being called daft.

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