Posted on by Jón Frímann

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Please note that this information might get outdated quickly if anything changes in Bárðarbunga volcano.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.

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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.

147 Replies to “Bárðarbunga volcano daily update 1-October-2014”

  1. Firstly can I just say that I love this site.

    I’m no expert but you lot are. I’ve been following this site for a couple of weeks and I’ve some questions I hope you can answer:

    1) On http://www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/bardarbunga-2/ the crater activity seemed to die down ot 9pm BST and 10:25pm What happened? Is it just the filter on the cam?

    3) On http://www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/bardarbunga/ when the activity at the crater is high the dyke just left of centre on the cam is sometimes brighter?

    Please don’t shoot me down if these are stupid questions.

    1. Hi Graham,

      Aye, it’s a great site this for sure. I think that the crater activity was simply masked by the weather for a while at the times you mention. It happens a lot, and it’s pretty stormy there right now.

      cheers,

      Pete

  2. Wouldn’t it be expected for more melt to intrude into the fissure than vent from it?

    Over at vc i learnt that the Skaftar fires only erupted a small part of what came from below…

    Serge

      1. Geyser, you got banned for a reason. You’ve been a jerk to anybody who argued against your theories.

      3. I am just pointing out that VC is a blog and you have to fact check elsewhere,I got banned because certain people objected to an alternate point of view.

      4. Now u know Geyser, in vc its ok to call someone a jerk, but not being one 😉 hmm Dragon talk vúuú

      6. Don’t get me wrong I have a lot of respect for those guys and it was a very enjoyable experience while I was there,but a lot of new people were posting with the unusual Bardabunga event and taking some of the limelight from the established crew and some tension resulted☺

    2. They don’t know for sure how much was in the magma chamber(s) during Laki eruption. This is also more complicated than it appears. Since both Grímsfjall volcano and Þórðarhyrna volcano where both erupting at the same time and had been erupting some 6 – 10 months (or more) prior to the fissure eruption that created Laki eruption.

    1. I make the Moon off to the south west not sure what the zenith or height of it is but it looks very bright what ever it is.

  4. Well, I needed something else through Amazon so I went through your link again Jon. Hopefully you’ll see some commissions in your account there.

  6. Thanks Jon for the faithful and excellent service all these years even when there was little excitement and few comments. I have been lurking your site almost daily since it’s inception. I don’t say much because I don’t have much to offer because I am a social worker and not a scientist. Thank you for helping me begin to understand volcanism, earthquakes and Iceland as a whole. Iceland is just too exciting not to keep an eye on it.

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