Posted on by Jón Frímann

Bárðarbunga volcano update for 3-February-2015

Since last update of activity in Bárðarbunga volcano there have not been major changes in Holuhraun eruption. The lava lake in the crater has lowered by several meters based on pictures from Holuhraun today. Large cliffs have formed where the lava river is, I don’t have exact depth for them, but it is around 30 – 40 meters according to my estimate (it might be wrong).

150203_1840
Bárðarbunga volcano earthquakes for the past 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake in the past 48 hours had the magnitude of 4,6. Other earthquake activity is as it has been for the past three to four weeks in terms of earthquake activity. What I have been observing in the past few days are harmonic tremor spikes, the largest one happened on 30-January-2015, after that smaller harmonic tremor spikes have been taking place. It is unclear at the moment why this is happening. This might be due to changes in hydrothermal areas under the glacier or magma is on the move inside the volcano.

Update 1: New webcamera close to the eruption. It can be viewed here.

Donations: I have currently removed the paypal buttons for a short time. The reason is that I have come to the conclusion that I cannot move back to Denmark (even if I want to). The reason is my social welfare that I am on in Iceland and the Icelandic Krona. I don’t trust the exchange rate of the Icelandic krona. The Danish tax is not a issue as such for me, but it does increase the pressure on my finances in general, so with everything adding up. I can’t afford living in Denmark even if I wanted to. I am going to be in north-west Iceland for the next few years, after that I am considering buying a house in north-east Iceland if I can collect at least 30% for the house (rest being a bank loan for the house).

While I am moving my Paypal account back to Iceland. People can donate directly with the bank transfer, information on what to do can be found here. People can also support my work by shopping with Amazon through the banners that I have here. Thanks for the support.

Article updated at 20:30 UTC.
Article updated at 20:36 UTC.
Article updated at 21:14 UTC.

65 Replies to “Bárðarbunga volcano update for 3-February-2015”

  2. Tuesday
    03.02.2015 16:09:04 64.676 -17.455 8.2 km 4.0 99.0 5.2 km NE of Bárðarbunga

    1. Good video. The level of the lava in the crater has dropped significantly. Wow. And Ginger Zee is a typical American journalist…..asking the same questions and repeating the same information ad nauseum. Pretty typical….and also why I don’t watch the news. I prefer to read it. 🙂

      1. She has a degree in meteorology. But she needs to show and say what the program producers think the viewing public wants to see and hear. That’s the way it is.

  12. “The reason is my social welfare that I am on in Iceland …I am going to be in north-west Iceland for the next few years, after that I am considering buying a house in north-east Iceland if I can __collect__ at least 30% for the house (rest being a bank loan for the house).

    While I am moving my Paypal account back to Iceland. People can donate directly with the bank transfer, information on what to do can be found here.”

    Here in germany we have to work hard until retirement at 67 (soon) so that some Europeans can follow such a philosophy.

    1. I have Asperger’s syndrome, that makes my life bit more complicate than for “normal” people (if such person exists).

      This are disability benefits and in Iceland they are just on the edge of poverty line (and sometimes below it). While I can work (but there is no work for a person for me in Iceland, at least not long term), I normally don’t get any work. So I try to make extra living on the internet by using what I am good at. I am good at volcanoes and writing so I do that, I won’t say that the income from this is great, sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad (that being almost always).

      I do work at the times, but it is only short term (seasonal work) work from two to three months. Mostly summer jobs at cutting grass and next autumn I am going to start working in the slaughterhouse again (nasty work, but it helps with the income).

      You can read about it here.

      http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger-Syndrom

    2. He has been on the forums long enough to have seen that you have asoergers Jon. I don’t know how your patience takes attacks like this. I would just delete such comments or block the poster.

      2. Jon seems socially competent enough so that no inference about his condition can be made from posts on his board.

        Asperger syndrome affects social interactions predominantly and often goes hand in hand with increased intellectual abilities such as
        increased capacity of concentration, introspection awareness and memory.

        As you are not working you have the luxury of extended time to further your intellectual development.
        It seems for example that computer programming might be an avenue to pursue and be compatible with the intellectual condition of Asperger syndrome.

        You can get advanced free tools such as development environments, programming languages, and compilers all for free and then join an open source project or start one yourself.

        Even a cheap computer is immensely powerful nowadays and IT talent is in short supply in Europe. There are some activities where employers look specifically for people with Asperger syndrome because of their unique ability to concentrate for long periods on tasks that require meticulous attention.

        I am writing this as a useful pointer and not any sort of critique.
        Personally I believe that computer programming is a lot of fun and the tools are great and getting better all the time.

        Google +”Asperger syndrome” +”computer programming” and you will find lots of information. In all earnest it is even likely
        that you might get much better than most at it if you try.

        Best of luck.

        Indeed this field is now developing in exciting fashion.

      3. “Here in germany we have to work hard until retirement at 67 (soon) so that some Europeans can follow such a philosophy.”

        You may try to defend this statement in many ways, but in reality, you confirmed what many here already suspected. You sir, are a troll.

      4. The last time I wrote about this in a feature article a certain insurer had threatened termination of disability benefits if a Blind Claimant didn’t transport himself to attend classes for programming in another city 200 km away . At the same time the insurer one of the largest in the world was discontinuing the employment and hiring of visually impaired programmers. The duty to accommodate these disabilities in the workplace was too burdensome. Carry on Jon, we are indebted to you for your work.

  13. I can’t figure out how to send a message to you by other means…. your link to Amazon includes a reference to “trough” (twice) which is what pigs feed from. You probably meant “through”, an English word (sounds like “thru”).

    1. The scale is not constant on the IMO graphs= EQ’s tend to be bigger in the morning than the afternoon.

      Additionally the distance from the epicenter is to be taken into account for energy calculations, which result in the magnitude figure.

  20. The M+T webcams are frozen for me. Is there something I need to do with my computer to “unfreeze” them?

    1. The pictures are frozen. Look at the time on the upper right side. It’s just a picture and some minutes late you have a new one. Perhaps you have to reload the site…

  21. Remember if anything important happens on the seismos etc,the experts monitoring this event will issue statements .If they are not seeing anything to be concerned about then there is no issue.The constant alarm about minor and breif signals on the charts is not necessary,if something major happens it will be notified and be obvious on the charts?

  23. This is me being stupid.

    I was paying down debt in Denmark (for the apartment that I was renting, I still haven’t paid that up in full, I still owe 438,29 DKK [58,87€]). I ended in paying too much out of my Danish bank account (the stupid thing that I did). This means I am going to have minor problem starting a new Paypal (since confirmation costs 12,50 DKK that gets refunded) for Denmark (not for donations. I am just going to have it until I am finishing paying up every debt that now have in Denmark).

    For that reason I have to ask (or figure out some other way to fix this) for a little donation. Just 10€ or 20€ should be enough. Thanks for the help and the support.

    The reason I have to close this [Denmark PayPal] account down is that I linked my Icelandic card to it and I did unlink it from the account again. That didn’t work as it was supposed to and is creating a lot of issues for me in the process. I also need to create a paypal account for donations in Iceland and I can’t do that with current problem being active.

    Comment updated at 20:36 UTC.

  25. And the seismic activity… became off on the area. 6 hours without any kind of movement

  26. The tremor activity seems to show a sudden spike on nearly all the graphs, particularly the blue colored 2-4 hz, it is 05:37 AM Friday Feb 6th UTC as I write this.

  27. Magnitude mb 4.6
    Region ICELAND
    Date time 2015-02-06 03:48:13.4 UTC
    Location 64.56 N ; 17.93 W
    Depth 2 km

    EMSC

    1. The first new datapoints show a higher caldera now. The question is, did the caldera rise in the meantime or is it just the GPS, which was digged out of the snow. And we see an uncorrected graph for now. Last time it has been corrected after some days.

      2. huuuuhhh, now the new dataline fits much better than some hours ago when I first posted!?!
        I think I recognize a slightly higher subsidence rate than expected.
        Curious to see what appears when more data come in.

  30. Jon,

    Can you get access to free education in Iceland?

    What time of year would be best to visit to do a heli tour of the fissure eruption?

    Thanks.

    1. Education in Iceland does cost money. I am just go to take classes in Danish and German in the next few years to increase my understanding of those languages.

      I plan to learn on my own electronic circuits, both how to make one and draw one up. I am going to be focusing on analogue signals. I won’t start building those until I get a proper house to do so. So it is going to be a while.

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