I am sorry for this late update. I was working on my server computer. More details at the end of this article.
Overview of weekend (18 – 19-October-2014) activity in Bárðarbunga volcano
Strongest earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano during the weekend had the magnitude of 5,4, second largest earthquake that took place during the weekend had the magnitude of 5,2. Other earthquakes have been smaller. Eruption in Holuhraun continued as it has been doing so for the past 1,9 month. During the weekend the new lava field in Holuhraun became the biggest in Iceland for the past 200 years. Other then this, nothing major did happen far as I know.
Monday 20-October-2014 activity update
Earthquake activity has been in high today, compared to yesterday (19-October-2014). Strongest earthquake had the magnitude of 5,0 and the second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,8. Other earthquakes where smaller, but a lot of magnitude 3,0 and 4,0 have happened today. Earthquake activity along the dyke has been increasing again after few quiet days.
Earthquake activity today in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
The lava field in Holuhraun continues to grow and is now around 61 square kilometres in size. That is an (my own estimate) around 0,9 km² of lava in the Holuhraun area. Making this the largest eruption in Iceland for the past 200 years and it just keeps going on. The 16-October-2014 marked two month anniversary of start of the activity in Bárðarbunga volcano, it is going to be two months since the eruption started on 29-August-2014. The first eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano happened on 23-August-2014 and happened under the glacier, that eruption ended the same day. Other then what I report here, I don’t think there is nothing else to report about the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano.
Notes about Bárðarbunga volcano
Please note that there is no evidence of felsic or intermediate magma in Bárðarbunga volcano. It is all just Ultramafic magma that is now erupting. For more details on magma please click here (Wikipedia). The glacier inside the caldera is moving down with the caldera. There is no evidence of any eruption taking place inside the caldera so far. It might happen in the future (and the wait might not be long), so far it just has not happened yet. There is a chance of hydrothermal activity taking place in Bárðarbunga volcano due the magma warning up the crust, that is however only of the magma is shallow as 1 – 2 km deep in the crust.
FreeBSD server
The reason why I didn’t update last weekend and late today is that I was trying to move my server from FreeBSD to Gentoo Linux. That did not work. What my server does is few things. Among the thing that my server does is to count earthquakes in Iceland like this image shows.
Image of the mrtg counter script for earthquakes. This image is released under Creative Commons, see CC Licence page for more details. Mrtg is a open source software.
It also runs my Minecraft server. I Play that game since I don’t play many games now. Both due to lack of time and interest. I play the game with my friends at times, when we have time to do so.
Lava in Minecraft. It doesn’t create lava fields. I guess that would be bad if it did that. Copyright of artwork belongs to Mojang and / or Microsoft. I took the image from the game using it screenshot function.
It is important for me to keep the earthquake counter running when I can do so. I also have to have my Minecraft server up and running so I can play when I have time to do so.
Article updated at 02:07 UTC.
Gps measurements look a bit hectic between 00.00 and now? Lots of spikes and falls..