Around 06:00 few minor earthquakes took place in Hekla volcano. This is unusual since Hekla volcano normally doesn’t have earthquakes until an eruption is just about to start. No eruption happened and currently there are no signs that an eruption is about to start.
What is going on is difficult to know but this might just be a pressure change or a fault line giving in to pressure changes. The last earthquake had the time 09:36 UTC and since then there has been no additional earthquake activity in Hekla volcano. That might change without warning as has happened before in history of Hekla volcano.
Fagradalsfjall mountain eruption
I am delaying an article about the eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain. There might be something going on there but I don’t know what yet, if there is anything going on to start with. The area has been hidden in fog all day making estimation on what is going on impossible.
The eruption is back to its pulsing phase this evening. This will build up the outlet area even more, and I expect that it will start going over the crater rim at some point (if it continues this phase for a period of time like before). BTW, before it went into a continuous phase, it was estimated that 30m3/sec flow rate was coming out of the crater. Those were some awesome, massive flows. Vids on YT show these flows.
Now it seems to have gone back to continuous again. I have been watching on the Visir cam as it seems to be a bit lower in elevation and since MBL took their closeup cam offline, this is the closest view.
https://www.visir.is/sjonvarp/beint
Let the commercial advertisement play and then click the play arrow but be careful. they have their radio feed on audio at fairly high sound volume.
Looks like nearly all the lava is going into Meradalir these days.
Meradalir time lapse. Filling up nicely that way. The focus is so much south, the north end isn’t being watched as much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRu3SBocoDw
Latest report is that changed has happened in the eruption and now the most of the lava flow is into Geldingadalir. This is going to be a problem as it might speed up lava flowing into Nátthagi and over the road 427 (Suðurstrandavegur). This would also result in lava flowing into Nátthagakriki from Geldingadalir and get the lava on the path to Grindavík town. Lava that is flowing into Meradalir and nearby areas is not a problem for now as there is no infrastructure in that part of Reykjanes peninsula.
Jón, many thanks for your update, when I saw the NASA map I wondered if this would become an issue – you were spot on when you said change was in the making. Very much looking forward to your next post.
The eruption in Fagradalsfjall continues to change. I am not sure what is going on. There is also other activity happening in Iceland that is now more important to write about. I don’t know when next update is going to be on Fagradalsfjall mountain eruption. I hope no later than next Friday (2-July-2021).
Looks like the lava lake is staying lower down. Still active, but not overflowing any more. Maybe there’s lava flowing into a tube, or maybe the eruption is just waning a bit. Over 3 months of steady activity is pretty good. Guess we shall see. 🙂
It seems to me that Hekla showed minor activity during that last eruption in Iceland a few years ago. (Big B) I remember you posting about it. It could have been at another time, but I do remember something similar happening there at some point.
Seems the eruption in Geldingadalir has nearly stopped now according to the seismic plots.
This surprise change in activity means that I am going to write an article tomorrow. I don’t know when since I have plans during the work hours (I’m not working, but I need to finish few things).
What seems to have happened is that the eruption has gone from small to smaller. I also want to see what happens in next few hours before I write the article. The situation changes each hour and it is difficult to write an article when the situation changes this fast.
Prior to the recent change in activity, this YT video shows two satellite views of the volcano and lava field from Saturday June 26.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YrBzH4kcRQ
Strong flows into northern Meradalir and also southern Geldingadalir.
And now it has started again though the tremor is weaker than before. I suppose there is no real predicting this particular volcano and it is going to do whatever it wants. I did notice a diagram put out the other day showing a general deflation in central Reykjanes due to the eruption of all of the lava. That was posted on the Twitter account of Halldor Geirsson.
I saw a video on YouTube where just before the volcano stopped erupting there was a large flood of lava from the crater. This would possibly indicate some sort of collapse somewhere that displaced a lot of lava causing the flood out of the crater but then possibly blocked the path for a while.
Starting at about 1900 GMT (Visir cam time) a fairly significant flood of lava began from the crater. It looks like most of this is going toward Meradalir.