Posted on by Jón Frímann

Update on the eruption in Geldingadalir on 27-March-2021

This is a short update on the situation about the eruption on 27-March-2021. This eruption is now classified as to be happening in Krýsuvík volcano system.

  • The eruption seems to be slowly increasing. The small craters on the left (on the web camera) have now merged into one larger crater. It is possible that the two remaining craters might merge into one large crater.
  • The magma fro this eruption is coming from 17 – 20 km depth and that can result in a eruption that can last a long time.
  • Geldingadalir valley is now almost filled with lava. It is expected to overflow by Easter in about 6 days based on current eruption rate of the lava.
  • Lake of lava has formed in the Geldingadalir valley. Videos have been posted on Facebook and other social media showing how dangerous the lava field currently is. Do not walk on the fresh lava. It is going to take decades and possibly centuries to cool down to a safe level.
  • The lava at it thickest is estimated now to be 20 to 30 meters deep.
  • There are fluctuations in the eruptions. Sometimes its slightly more and sometimes slightly less based on observations with the web camera on Rúv.
  • It seems that a mountain is being built by this eruption. How that is going to progress is difficult to know for sure.

In general there has not been a lot of change in the eruption since it started a week ago (19-March-2021).  Next update is going to be hopefully on 2-April-2021 unless something major happens in this eruption.

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14 Replies to “Update on the eruption in Geldingadalir on 27-March-2021”

  1. Is that a pick up in tremor on the KRI drumplot from Vedur over the past few hours or weather / something else?

  3. Does it really take decades to cool down? Is the danger from the surface temperature or from the structure below?

  4. The thicker the lava is the longer it is going to take to cool down. There is considerable heat in Holuhraun even if it stopped erupting in 2015.

  5. Instead of moving to a new hosting plan. I am going to add cloudflare to my website to make traffic spikes easier to handle. I am start with the free plan for the next few days and move to professional package on 2nd April ($20/month). Doing this should make my website accessible for everyone regardless of the amount of traffic I am getting and does not increase my hosting cost.

  6. I have added cloudflare to Iceland geology. It should start working for everyone in next 24 hours to 48 hours. I don’t expect any major problem but setting issues might happen. Please let me know if you have any issues after this change.

  7. There’s some interesting bubbling and stirring in the right hand portion of the lava lake. Possibly just gas bubbling? But some of it is quite intense.

  8. The lava lake is bubbling and sinking the crust that has formed. There are many videos of this happening in the lava lake from last few days.

  9. Jon, where did you get the notion that a shield volcano is forming. It takes millions of years. All you have here is a fissure eruption and not very big either.

  12. According to this article the current eruption in Geldingadalir are perfect for creating a new shield volcano on Reykjanes peninsula and it is estimated that longest such eruptions might have lasted for 500 years. Largest of those from past eruptions is Heiðin Há at 9,8 square kilometres (km3).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hei%C3%B0in_h%C3%A1
    Morgunblaðið article in Icelandic.
    https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2021/03/29/kvikan_likist_mest_staerri_dyngjunum/

  13. I made the decision on going back to Amazon Associates ads since Google Adsense continues to behave in problematic ways. I am going to wait until April to see what happens but there is a good chance I’ll close my account with them if things do not improve.

    The Amazon ads are however sales based and now they have limit of 180 days for me to make a sale before my account gets closed down. So there’s that.

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