Posted on by Jón Frímann

Bárðarbunga volcano update for Wednesday 29-October-2014

Today (29-October-2014) marks the two months since the second eruption in Holuhraun started. Currently the eruption is ongoing with no signs of stopping, it is erupting about the same power since Monday, the eruption power is less than it was when it started two months ago and that is normal. The lava field has now covers area of 64,6 square kilometres in size. This is now largest lava in Iceland since Laki eruption of 1783 – 1784.

141029_2225
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano for the past 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity remains strong in Bárðarbunga volcano. There is one to two magnitude five or stronger earthquake every 20 – 35 hours at present time. The caldera continues to drop around 40cm/day, most of the drop happens without any earthquake activity at all. So far no major eruption has happened under the glacier, only minor eruptions have happened that have only lasted for few hours.

I also want to point out there is only basalt lava in this eruption. This magma is up to 1600C warm when it comes up from its deep source at +20km depth. If there was any other type of magma in this eruption it would have been detected by now in the current eruption in Holuhraun. Most of Iceland eruptions are basalt only eruption, since Iceland is both on hotspot and the mid-Atlantic ridge. There are other melts and types of eruptions, but such eruptions don’t happen as frequently as normal basalt eruptions. The reason for ash cloud eruptions in volcano like Grímsfjall is due the fact that there is a glacier on top of the volcano. Same rule applies to Katla volcano, it is all basalt most of the time, but since there is a lot of glacier on top of the volcano the eruptions that happen are explosive due to that fact.

I don’t think there is anything else new about the eruption and activity in Bárðarbunga volcano since Monday.

146 Replies to “Bárðarbunga volcano update for Wednesday 29-October-2014”

    1. If lava (magma) has a ‘free’ path through the groundrocks it doesn’t need to break them…. so less quakes.

      3. Hotter magma would be less viscous,as viscosity is directly influenced by temperature.The lava lake could be lower in temperature,increasing it’s viscosity and causing gas to build up and be released in surges,rather than the constant free flow of gas in a more free flowing conduit?

      4. Could H2O alias water content be the key?

        Eg. water dripping down / infiltrating peu à peu the magma and mixing up with it? (the meltwater of the glacier above)

      5. I assume that the water content is already in the magma? Could it be CO2 exsolving from the magma while still in the dike,so giving gas charged pulses of magma?The CO2 would be from deeper sourced magma that is recharging the Bardarbunga magma reservoir and the dike?CO2 exsolves earlier than H2O in its ascent in the crust?

      6. In comparison to other basaltic volcanoes, there was really a very low quantity of CO2 emissions at Holuhraun, anyway acc. to the data from September. There would have to be a big change in the magma composition for it now being CO2 rich. But to try to interprete the actual situation more accurately, we would have to see new data.

  3. @David from Folkestone

    THANKS THANKS for your humbling and kind words. I’d greatly enjoy such a table . . . though I’d feel a bit embarrassed for the rest of the crew for the inclusion of my layman’s ignorance.

    I do have a very keen interest in quakes and volcanoes. My BA degree was at Flagstaff, AZ. The nearby 14,000 ft San Francisco Peaks are an old volcano. They say extinct . . . I’m not so sure. LOL. IIRC the first climate/vegetation zone study was done there and from there to the bottom of the relatively nearby Grand Canyon.

    I certainly greatly enjoy such ‘dinner’ conversations with such folks. And were finances in better shape and flying not such a . . . hazardous challenge these days, I’d even try and see what we could do to make it happen. Alas, those realities probably hit most of us.

    It still ‘feels’ like this system is far from finished expressing itself dramatically. Time will tell.

    Oh, BTW, no biggy but I’m near 70 years old and with a very white beard and little hair on top. I have the wrong equipment to qualify for “her.” LOL.

    Did it ever get sorted out whether there was, in fact, higher fountains of lava during the day today . . . or not? I read all the posts and both sides seemed to have merit so I couldn’t tell, in the final analysis. And I certainly couldn’t tell from my limited views of the webcams.

    THANKS TO ALL Y’ALL for enlivening the conversation/dialogue and enlightening me persistently with your sharing, ideas, commentary, questions and general good sense and good humor.

    Cheers, Blessings,
    DX

  5. Da Xin…my apologies. And I’m sure you have many great stories to tell and beards are trendy nowadays!
    Mike…a very kind offer thank you, and Australia…what a wonderful country. Victoria Bitter ?

    Jon…I have followed you since the volcano erupted that no-one could spell or pronounce. You probably thought you had few friends then…but now you have many.

    1. David. I would like to endorse all 3 statements. I am almost 60 which I consider to be the new 40. VB? No way- I drink Coopers which is brewed in the bottle and contains no chemicals. Also, I am a long way from Victoria. I live in Northern New South Wales by the Queensland Border. Pic on my profile is Mt Warning- The first spot in Australia to see the sunrise every day.
      If anyone is interested, please feel welcome to add me on Facebook, The link on my Avatar.

      2. Mike, I am a former neighbour of yours on the North Coast NSW. It’s great to see how the audience to this site comes from all parts of the world. My ties to the area are that I was born in Iceland and grew up around 150Km away from the site we are discussing. I travelled past Holuhraun on many occasions in 4wd trips through the highlands, Kverkfjoll, Askja and surrounds.
        Jon, thanks for maintaining the site and your ongoing insight into what is happening. On occasions, I have been able to enlighten my relatives in Iceland with details I have seen here but they were not aware of from the Icelandic media

      3. Important things first lol. Coopers Green Mattmabus and also Coopers mid when I have to stay sober- It is a relatively new one. @ Ari, where abouts were you living I can’t imagine anyone willingly leaving this slice of heaven. What are you doing now.
        @Jon, Thanks for your amazing page . I have learned so much since I stumbled over it back in early September and met some very friendly people. I know my questions are very naive but thanks to everyone who patiently takes the time to answer them anyway.

  6. Hi Jon, thx for the update! At current subsidence sometime late next week we enter the range you were considering collapse, is that still the idea or any changes?

    1. The data that I am using gives me conflicting information. It might happen and it might not happen. My math is currently not helping me at the moment. So I am just waiting to see if I am proven right or wrong on this. It is my guess that I am going to be proven wrong.

      1. Jon, you have seen and stidied more of this stuff than we have, plus you lived out there and have instrumentation on the ground.

        Have faith in your gut instinct. Even the IMO top brass don’t know for sure.

    1. Which would mean, that the probability of a basaltic eruption in Bárdarbunga is by far the highest.

      1. Naturally and that is what is occurring at Holuhraun,which is an eruption in the Bardarbunga volcanic system,but it does not rule out eruptions of more evolved magma in the caldera,which has not had a large eruption for thousands of years?

  8. @David from Folkestone

    No need for an apology. You weren’t the first to assume that. LOL. I’m just not sure, online, what the cues are that trigger that assumption??? No biggy at all.

    Yeah . . . more stories with more pain than I’d like to remember! Thankfully, a lot of precious memories loving and helping people, too.

    I just pray that Iceland’s volcanoes avoid hurting any people or animals.

    And I’m still eager to see how the lava flow is changing the river. Seems to me that before long, it will be forming a lake if it reaches that rise on the opposite bank.

    1. I we look at the series of screenshots Enno posted (thank you, Enno, 🙂 ), we can see that there was a lot of water changed into steam at the foot of Vadalda shield volcano. There could have been built some rootless cones by hydrovolcanic explosions there (there was a second plume, as I reckon).

      But it shows also that there is no further vent there, next to the cameras, because when night fell in, there was incandescence only near Baugur, the main vent.

      BTW: Also regarding these pictures, I am sure that there were phases of strombolian eruption during the night. Which would mean higher gas and magma output / and / or slightly different magma composition in comparison to the former activity of a convecting lava lake.

      1. Seems the activity is due to pulsing of gas rather than the magma viscosity increasing as there did not seem to much in the way of lava bombs etc,more a flare of activity?

      2. Would this bend on water mixing up with the magma (see my above comment)?

        The water content is also the most obvious characteristic of gasses from the 3 basaltic magmas mentioned in the USGS text on gasses.

      3. On the decisive role of water content in Etna’s magma: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00445-002-0233-2#page-1
        These are melt inclusions (ie. from analyse of the eruption products, petrological analysis), not comparable to the following. But this above says something about the general role of water re. the explosivity of volcanic eruptions.

        Data on gas emissions of Holuhraun (tweet Univ. of Iceland, 26.9.2014, not really from today …): H2O 80-85 %, CO2 5%, SO2 10%. Compared to the data from the USGS page, this is a rather much higher H2O content than Kilauea, a bit higher than Erta Ale and lower than Momotombo which are all of them also mainly basalt producing volcanoes. http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/

  9. Magnitude mb 4.5
    Region ICELAND
    Date time 2014-10-30 02:08:02.9 UTC
    Location 64.50 N ; 17.89 W
    Depth 8 km

  12. Here is a plot displaying the cumulative release of seismic energy in the Bardabunga region. One line (blue) is fitted to the data over the period 26/8-20/9 and another (yellow) over the period 20/9-30/10 clearly indicating a slight decrease in the seismic activity. The total release of seismic energy since 16/8 is approximately equivalent to a M5.3 quake/day.

    Plot

  13. Thursday
    30.10.2014 09:43:59 64.669 -17.446 4.0 km 4.6 99.0 5.0 km NE of Bárðarbunga

      1. This is a great day, IMO not updating, USGS not updating, EMSC not updating, camera’s useful…

  17. The gas pollution today went esp. to the north and northwest of Holuhraun. There were measured around 4.000 μg/m3, at Sauðárkrókur (Skagafjörður area) even 5.000 μg/m3, and even in the town of Skykkishólmur (Snæfellsnes) were measured 3.000 μg/m3. http://www.ruv.is/frett/enn-mikil-mengun-nordan-og-vestanlands

    As a consequence, children in schools and kindergarten had to stay indoors. The children could eg. not participate in the weekly swimming exercices, as the pools in Iceland are 90% outdoors – but most villages have their own swimming pools because of the abundancy of hot water. http://www.ruv.is/frett/engin-utikennsla-a-saudarkroki A school director in the Sauðárkrókur was cited by RÚV, who mentioned that there was first no mist, but a strange smell in the air.

    1. Sorry, I don’t know, ehm, I left out part of the first information:
      There were measured around around 4.000 μg/m3 in Akureyri.

    1. Thursday
      30.10.2014 19:21:59 65.200 -17.390 8.6 km 3.7 50.5 25.7 km WNW of Lokatindur

      3. it was changed: Thursday
        30.10.2014 19:21:50 64.680 -17.420 1.1 km 3.8 50.5 6.8 km NE of Bárðarbunga

  20. I am very grateful to everyone that posts on here with any information or thoughts.
    @Tyler there was no need for your comment at all.

    2. Luisport, Please continue to post earthquakes information. It is very helpful! 🙂

      2. The data are readily available via the IMO website, both as *raw*, drumplot displays and processed. (Thank you, IMO!)

        The thing that I, as an absolute amateur visitor to this site, find useful and interesting, is when people draw attention to intriguing and possibly significant (patterns of) quakes.

  21. Anyone else notice the 6km anomaly under BB where it seems less earthquake activity takes place?

    1. IngeB, just curious why you do not use an Icelandic keyboard? Personally, I like to see the ð and þ rather than d and the not to mention the different vowels…

  23. Methinks that . . . in general . . . information is better than no information.

    In complex situations, we don’t know when a tiny tidbit will turn out to have been a significant clue had we known how to pay attention to it.

    In terms of online . . . I’ve never found it a greatly difficult chore or disaster to scan quickly over posts; to scroll past posts; to close my eyes to posts.

    I’m happy for all the information I can get in complex situations.

    We each have our own priorities and filters. But it’s difficult to learn from even minor information that’s NOT THERE.

    I have sensibilities and sensitivities about forum postings and have expressed such here on occasion. Generally, I like folks to feel comfortable, informed, etc. with good dialogue among them and minimum hassles involved in getting the information they are interested in.

    There are other sites that can offer the Reader’s Digest version of reality. I like the raw data. And professional AND lay commentary and interpretations.

    I don’t expect my preferences and sensibilities to reign in !CONTROL! over others on such a diverse forum.

    imho, for my interest, y’all, please continue to post any and all info YOU’RE interested in. I appreciate it. My 70 year old brain can still sift and sort info quite well enough, thank you very much. LOL.

    I think one of the things that posting the “minor” quakes does is provide trend information and background information as to what is going on at that level of movements in the system.

    Thanks.

    1. Yes, I saw that too. So I checked the weather charts. Currently wind is picking up in the area and it´s going to be stormy for at least the next 24 hrs so that´s probably what´s causing this uptick.

      1. Not for the real experts of IMO, they are used to take weather phenomena into consideration. 🙂

  25. Date & time: Fri, 31 Oct 01:30:44 UTC
    Magnitude: 4.8
    Depth: 10.0 km
    Epicenter latitude / longitude: 64.65°N / 17.44°W [Map]
    Nearest volcano: Bardarbunga (6 km)
    Primary data source: GFZ (not confirmed)

  26. Hi, thanks you for sharing your knoglerne.

    I am visiting Iceland next weekend with my family. My kids are very interested in going “close” to the vulcano. But how close can we actually drive and do you recent it is worth the effort?

    Any other god siges to visit, if the watt to walk a (extinct) vulcano.

    1. It is not possible to go to this location now by road. Due to snow and bad weather. Travel time was 12 hours in the summer, it is up to double that in the winter on well prepared cars.

      There area is also mostly closed for the public. Due to the risk of glacier eruption and SO2 gases close the eruption site.

      1. Jon, the area is certainly remote, and certainly closed. And there are weather issues. But it’s certainly still possible to go there with permission; I’ve been speaking to the super jeep guy we used last time about exactly that. He says we would take two jeeps, for safety – in case one breaks down or gets stuck.

        In fact in some ways, winter offers much more access, because the ground is now frozen and covered with snow, which means it’s legal to drive on it; it’s illegal to drive off-road in summer since it damages the ground.

      2. Like Mike said, to go close to to volcano there are 2 options: one is that you need a scientific or press card/ permission from authorities for every person going (hard to get probably if you’re not a press or science staff; sure they will never let kids have it), then a local guide takes you on a super-jeep, costing 1500-2000 euros per person upwards (probably more in winter time, due to logistic involved). Sadly I haven’t tried this option yet as it is very expensive and then I couldn’t get a press card. Mike was a lucky guy, as he has press credentials 😉

        Much more easier: taking an airplane flight, open for everyone, even families, but often weather makes flight cancel, costs 300 euros per person from Myvtan, or 650 euros from Reykjavik, per person.
        To go to Myvatn you can go with a bus (a full day trip) or rent a car, but roads at this time are stormy and snowy, so you must know how to drive in such conditions, and ocasionally roads get temporarely close (that only applies driving to Myvatn of course; bus goes nearly every day, because they know how to drive with storms). Flights are certainly the cheapest and safest way to see the volcano. And that’s what I did and recommend everyone to do it. BecauseHoluhraun is as remote as it can be in Iceland. Also it is the furtherst as it can be from Reykjavik.

        Going with an heli is also open to families but more costly. Around 1500 euros per person.

        Sometimes with good weather, you can also see the red glow from far away from places like Myvatn, or the east of Iceland.

        Going to any other active volcanoes is easier. Close to Reykjavik, you can drive to Reykjanes volcano (tip of peninsula) or Krisuvik field. They are active geothermal volcanic fields and open for car access year round, except in snowstorms. There are many other active and extinct volcanoes around Iceland. Krafla is another easy to walk into active volcano. Also many extinct craters by most roads in Iceland like Grabok or Kerid.

        Close to Reykjavik,

      3. Kamineko said its dangerous to fly by heli, well actually there is alwas soem risk, but they have been doing this non-stop since 2 months several times a day and no accident has ever occurred. They don’t land the helis! They have no permission to do it, due to the risk.

        The aircrafts and helis always stick upwind, so they avoid the gas, so its rather safe gas-wise when flying with an aircraft or heli. And its soberb.

        Going locally by superjeep well that yes, like Jon said, involves carefully planning with gas masks and remainign upwind. Its much more dangerous, also because if a flood happens, you have no escape possibility if you are near the eruption site. Local guides are aware of this and scared by this possibility, that’s why they demand a very high price for these trips. But we all know, a flood has not happened in 2 months, it’s basically playing a russian roulette, but we don’t know if there will be a bullet on it.

    2. Perhaps the best idea would be to go somewhere along the South, where you might be able to see an orange glow afar at night. If you went to Jökulslaron, there would be a lot of grandeur along the way, and the glow has shown up at night on the Mila cam sometimes.

    3. If you’ve got kids along, an overflight by a licensed helicopter operator might be wiser. Even as it stands, this is a dangerous eruption. Should a jökulhlaup occur, you and everyone with you could be stranded in a hostile environment at best. If you’ve been to Iceland, you’ve seen the flood plains. They’re massive.

      1. I wouldn’t go by jeep in this area with children at the moment. Your have the enorme gas emissions, the danger of a bigger eruption under Bárðarbunga and/or Dyngjujökull and the winter conditions in this area, where you could lend in a “white out” situation! I think best would be to go by aircraft to see the eruption.

        What regards other active volcanic systems, you have – like Irpsit said -, a lot of them just around Reykjavík. I would also recommend Hveragerði and of course the Geysir area, all easy to reach. You can take a flight up to Akureyri and drive in about 1 hour the Mývatn area and look around there (a lot of things volcanic to see in this area): You have the pseudocraters / rootless cones in the middle of the lake and on peninsulas, the adventurous forms of Dimmuborgir, the rests of an former lava lake, the explosion crater Hverfjall, the hot spring areas with mud pots and fumaroles at Námaskarð / Hverarönd and within the Krafla caldera the Víti crater (a maar) and the hot spring area of Leirhnjúkur with the still steaming lava fields from the Krafla Fires. See eg.: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Krafla_%28volcanic_system%29

        I think, when you there with children, they could like the coffeeshop in the cowshed at Vogar (Vogar Kaffí). In the wintertime, there are also sometimes Icelandic Yule Lads in Dimmuborgir (check out with tourist information at Reykjahlíð). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_Lads

      1. I assume you are referring to the charts tremor increases across the board.

        IMO have notified storm warning “WarningStrong gale warning (more than 20 m/s) is expected in the souternmost part, but widely this afternoon. Considerable or heavy rain in the southeast and Austfirðir today. Valid to 01.11.2014 18:00”

        This can give rise to fluctuations in sil data, and happened in a similar fashion on the 21st Oct. It doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on, it just masks real time data.

      2. @Scots John

        Thx for your answer but I’m more surprised by the relatively small amplitude in last few hours of the 2-4 Hz (blue) signal on VON/HUS/GRF?

  28. The IMO were kind enough to find time to answer a question I asked about the accuracy of gps data from Bb –
    “First it uses A GPS site in Vonarskarð as a reference. Around 15 km away from it.
    The accuracy is variable but around 1-2 cm average. there are fluctuations that can be contributed other signals the glacial surface movements though.”

    and they added –

    “The gray fluctuating data in the background is the processed real time 1Hz
    data which is subject to number of uncertainties.

    The answer is probably both. Part of the fluctuations are noise part of them
    are real. I have not analyzed the data in way that enables me to distinguish
    this though.

    There are probably some fluctuations on the surface of the glacier associated
    with earthquakes, the fact that the Ice is flowing towards the center, waves
    propagating through the glacier and etc. These signals can have pretty wide
    frequency spectrum depending on the source of the waves and it’s path.

    However only part of the fluctuations you see on the graph are real movements.
    There can be orbital errors, multipath effects, satellite geometry and possibly
    some atmospheric variations and more.

    The blue line is a 180 min median, and for all practical purposes this gives
    the steady state movements and the offsets that we want to follow.

    The red line is a 30 min median and might hint on real variations on the ice
    surface, although they would need proper analyses for a meaningful
    interpretation.

    The grey line in the background is, as you say more or less noise, at least
    until the data is properly analyzed, although I suspect that within it lie
    interesting signals.”

    I hope this helps anyone querying the accuracy of the data.

    1. Thanks, Scots John, good job.

      Glad you asked about the mysterious grey signal. The statistical trailing averages of 30 minutes and 3 hours were well chosen by IMO, to make the real-time data with all that random variation more meaningful to talk about.

  29. Hey guys….. I have had a PC disaster, my Surface laptop died this morning along with all my bookmarked pages to Bardarbunga…. By any chance is there a knight in shining armour who can give me the links to the Mila bard 1 & 2 cameras again and the very useful page that had heaps of collated Bardar bits and pieces( seismos, caldera drop,).. I am so sorry…

    1. interesting link. I guess eveybody here knows already that you would like to increase your picture sales.

      4. This Lukas Gwenda makes nice pictures, but he is putting too much of these tweets in the Bardarbunga blog (spamming). And lately, he even takes information of IMO or others and uses them to advertise his pictures…

    1. Note how this is primarily a thermal event.It seems to involve the heating of a shallow body of magma by fresh basalt intrusion?This seems typical of caldera behaviour in other parts of the world?

      1. 2 cubic m/so is 120 m3/min ,7200m3/hour,172800m3/day,63072000m3/day.If glacier is a cylinder 8000m x 700m,that is a volume of 35 billion m3.At that rate of melt it would take 554 years to melt the whole glacier lol

      2. I find it though interesting, that they mention it in the factsheet. They seem perhaps to think it is a sign for other things to come.
        They wouldn’t include it in these factsheets otherwise.

        Thank you. Luisport, for pointing this out. 🙂

  32. Friday
    31.10.2014 11:54:12 64.670 -17.479 2.8 km 3.9 99.0 4.0 km NE of Bárðarbunga

  33. Univ. of Iceland @uni_iceland · 6 min Há 6 minutos
    #Holuhraun eruption has been ongoing for two months now. Lava covers more than 67 km2 & volume of 1 km3, the largest since #Laki in 1784-84

    1. Does that mean the lava field is now increasing more in surface than in height? It measured around 64,5 km2 3 days ago.

  34. Friday
    31.10.2014 12:56:31 64.672 -17.377 6.6 km 4.0 99.0 8.0 km ENE of Bárðarbunga
    Friday
    31.10.2014 12:48:34 64.668 -17.370 6.7 km 3.8 99.0 8.1 km ENE of Bárðarbunga
    Friday
    31.10.2014 11:54:12 64.670 -17.479 2.8 km 3.9 99.0 4.0 km NE of Bárðarbunga

      2. It isn’t just black but won’t even connect… hopefully not a technical issue (remember the “false colors” on cam 2 yesterday).
        On the other hand, looking at Jokulsarlon, weather is rather unpleasant and there would hardly be anything visible on Bardar cams.

      3. Looks as if they have lost the network connection
        – all webcams in Vaoalda? are dead since 04:30 this morning also from here http://vefmyndavelar.mogt.is/ (on bottom of page / last update 04:30)
        – tremor and drumplot from KRE do not provide any data

    1. BB has the hiccups, because of the meltwater flowing into his throat.
      Will be gone after a while.

    2. I am no expert and the following is just my humble opinion.

      I´ve been watching those GPS jumps for a while, which seem to occur right before drops and they seem to appear on a regular basis. I think we are making the mistake of thinking of the ice in the caldera as a solid material. I was watching a video of ice breaking off in Greenland and it got me thinking.
      BB has been shaking violently for more than 2 months. These are tremendous powers and would mean the ice is “stirred and shaken” almost constantly.

      I have the idea that the behavior with the jumps and drops can be explained in the ice not being a single block anymore, but more of a jumble of smaller pieces of all sizes moving around, plus there is very probably some melting in the bottom which would help create a wavy movement, which transfers all the way to the surface. The jumps (or waves) are always temporary, but due to the semi solid state they are slow so they last a few hours each time. I don´t know about the science, this is just an observation of how big blocks of ice seem to move in slow wavy motion.
      Here is the video, note how the ice blocks breaking apart seem to rise, just before they collapse.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU

      1. That is a very impressive video, but what is happening in Bardarbunga is nothing like that. The photos recently posted showing the caldera top from the air (sorry, I don’t have links) show few if any crevasses, and certainly no sign of the ice having been “shaken and stirred”. I agree there is probably melting at the bottom, and that the presence of liquid water would modify the behaviour.

      2. This doesn’t happen in the middle of the glacier. Just on its edges as is the case in this video. The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano has cracked the glacier, but nothing more than that. It is still ridged in its place and is not moving due the earthquake activity and the drop the caldera.

      3. Hi all

        Firstly many thanks to Jon and all of you regular contributors for this truly fascinating blog, My partner and I have been avid readers since August and are following events intently. Can’t say we understand all of the details completely (lol) but both have some background in earth sciences so can get the flavour, so to speak.
        Just wanted to ask a question on Kollas’ suggestion above (fab link by the way..).
        As far as I can recall, during the 2nd WW, there were plans to tow and use icebergs as floating platforms to place anti aircraft guns on, of course this never happened. But the reasoning was that these bergs were very good at absorbing explosive impacts and would therefore be difficult to break up.
        Would that mean that, in fact, the earthquakes directly themselves might not be breaking the ice in the caldera much, and any crevasses would be caused by the subsidence?

      4. @Mick Daly. My father, who is now 98, used to have a little book describing wartime proposals to make ships out of ice. Actually, it was ice reinforced with wood pulp, and called “Pykerete” after a chap named Pyke, and concrete. Look it up on Google.

      7. BTW These photos (which are not in the English website version) show beginning with the uppermost picture:
        – It is seen from the north, the cauldrons on the western side are on the right-hand side of the picture, the southeastern ones in the middle ground (on the far side of Bárðarbunga). And to the south of these the subsidence which appeared first on 27. August.
        – A cauldron in the southeast part of Bárðarbunga.
        – A cauldron at the western rim of Bárðarbunga. ( Behind is then the valley /Vonarskarð. And this explains the cloud cover – no rubble -, as the western rim of the high mountain is rather steep. What we see behind this cauldron, are just these clouds over Vonarskarð.)
        On this day, there were two overflights with two different aircraft.
        The last photo (downmost) is from another of these flights. It shows gas over southern Vatnajökull, ie. esp. over the outlet glacier Skeiðarárjökull.

      8. Sorry, was too fast here: The first flight was on 24. October (first 3 pictures), the second on 25. (last picture of this sequence).

    3. It’s just the usual noisy signal, and at least two breaks in data communication. After all, it has been very stormy.

      For most purposes, the only part of that graph that matters is the blue line, but ignore the last three hours worth because the filtering process hasn’t finished with that bit yet.

  38. What strikes me is that there are always tremors in depth 1.1 km. back. And it is no coincidence. This structure comes up again and again in recent weeks when it is relatively quiet. Is an explanation for this?

    I would say my implementation thereof. intregratie of melt water and lava with the result by cooling lava forms a crust and then by building pressure underneath. breaks it again.

    1. As far as I know, 1.1 km is a default depth used by IMO, when they didn’t yet have time to manually check the depth of a quake.

  39. There was some connection problem in east Iceland regarding internet, telephone and mobile connection. They where starting to fix the failure few hours ago. They thought a optical fiber had broken down somewhere. They did not know where and had just started to look for the failure few hours ago. The weather is bad in east Iceland at the moment and worse in the highland where the eruption is taking happening.

  43. Friday
    31.10.2014 21:32:22 64.670 -17.480 1.1 km 5.0 50.5 4.0 km NE of Bárðarbunga

  45. Please forgive me one and all, but would anyone hazard a guess as to if this eruption is going to a good / bad impact on global weather and climate…

  46. I cant find the new article. First time this has happened. Help please ! 🙂

  47. Just scroll to the top of the page and click ‘iceland geology’, takes you to the list of latest articles (good idea to bookmark the page)

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