Category: GPS Monitoring

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Dyke has formed or is forming under Grindavík town, mandatory evacuation ordered

This is a short article. Its going to outdated quickly.

  • Dyke has or is forming under Grindavík town. This dyke starts at Sundahnjúkar in north-east of Grindavík town and is going to down to Grindavík. This is at the moment around 4 to 7 km long dyke. It might get longer and reach the ocean.
  • There’s a mandatory evacuation order in place. Everyone in Grindavík town has two hours (from around 23:00 UTC) to leave the town. Many people had already left because of the heavy earthquake activity today (10. November 2023).
  • Earthquake activity remains heavy, but is lower than it was at around 17:00 to 19:00 UTC. This might change again without warning.
  • GPS data suggests this is more magma than in all of last three eruptions combined.
  • This magma might be from Fagradalsfjall volcano. This is currently only an idea. That means the magma in Reykjanes volcano has not started to move to the surface. That might also happen without warning at any time, since that inflation continues.

I’ll post more information when I got them. The situation is unclear and there’s a lot of wrong information out there so check your sources.

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Icelandic Met Office confirms magma is rising to the surface

Icelandic Met Office has confirmed that magma is now rising to the surface in the area of Sundahnjúkar crater row. This does not seems to be connected to Svartsengi magma (Reykjanes volcano) dyke intrusion. How much magma and what volcano it is connected is unclear at the writing of this article. This might not be connected to Fagradalsfjall volcano also. If that is the case, it means this either a new unknown volcano at this location or rift eruption not connected to any volcano. It is going to take a while to get an answer to that question once the eruption has started.

There is a change in the earthquake activity as the magma goes up the surface. This happens because the layer of crust that the magma goes through does not all have the same density up the surface level. Softer rocks result in fewer earthquakes and harder rock results in higher earthquake activity. It is mostly not possible to know what type of rock the magma is going through. But this shows in the earthquake activity.

I’ll post more updates once I have any new information.

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Update on Reykjanes volcano activity

This is a short update and this information can go out of date quickly and without warning.

  • Earthquake activity continues in Svartsengi and close to Þorbjörn mountain. This earthquake activity is either tension earthquakes because of the dyke on either side (north-east and south-west) or in the dyke it self.
  • Inflation in Svartsengi and nearby area is extremely high and has been increasing much as 10mm a day in last few days.
  • There has been magma building up in the crust in the Reykjanes volcano since at least year 2020. It might have started few years earlier at more depth, but that is unclear.
  • There’s a risk of large eruption in this area, that might go on for few months in the worst case.
  • Largest earthquakes so far have had the magnitude of Mw4,7. Larger earthquakes remain a possibility.
  • It is impossible to know when a eruption starts or if it starts. But the likelihood of an eruption is extremely high.
  • Morgunblaðið reported that ground heat has been seen on thermal cameras. The news can be found about this here in Icelandic. There’s a YouTube video of this in both Icelandic and English (with more footage).

I’ll post new information about what is going on when it happens. As is, the situation does not change a lot from one day to another so I don’t have a lot to report on.

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Magma movement close to Þorbjörn mountain this morning

Today (31. October 2023) at around 08:00 UTC an magma movement was detected by Icelandic Met Office. This started an earthquake swarm that had a largest earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,7. The magma seems to be at depth of 1,5 km where it is the shallowest. Few days ago, that magma was at depth of 5 to 8 km. This change is rather quick movement of magma, that suggests higher pressure compared the magma that erupted in Fagradalsfjall volcano. This might result in a larger eruption when it happens. The inflation at Fagradalsfjall volcano, south part of it has not lowered. The only thing that has happened there is that earthquake activity has dropped to almost nothing. Earthquake activity has moved to western part of Fagradalsfjall volcano. Eruption also happening in Fagradalsfjall volcano should not be ruled out, but the events close to Þorbjörn mountain might delay the progress of that magma.

Red dots and green stars north of Grindavík town, close to Þorbjörn mountain. There's also red dots west of Þorbjörn mountain and Grindavík town. Blue dots close to Reykjanestá on this map. Time on map is 31. Okt. 23 at 16:55 UTC.
Earthquake activity because of magma movements in Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is difficult to know what is going to happen next. But an eruption is highly likely, when and where is almost impossible to know even if GPS data gives good clues on where it might happen. This situation is complex and it is uncertain what is going to happen next with this activity in Reykjanes volcano and Fagradalsfjall volcano.

I’ll post information soon as I know something. A list of web cameras of Icelandic volcanoes can be found on the YouTube page that I set up a while ago.

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Reykjanes peninsula might be one large volcano

It was in the news today (3. July 2023), since inflation has been detected from GPS data on Reykjanes peninsula since start of April. What was told in a interview on Bylgjan (radio channel) and later published on Vísir.is news website (link below, but the whole thing is in Icelandic) is that all of Reykjanes peninsula is inflating. What is also starting to show in the GPS data is that there might not be separate volcanoes on Reykjanes peninsula, this might also have happened in the year 2020 – 2021, before the first eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain. All of Reykjanes peninsula might be one large volcano, extending from Hengill to Eldey or Eldeyjarboða, the south end might have uncertain location. This changes everything as that means that it can erupt at any location on the Reykjanes peninsula without warning and the whole area is now in an eruption cycle.

The current period of inflation started in April and is now at 2,5cm (25mm) and is centered at the last eruption location in Fagradalsfjall mountain. That means the most likely location of next eruption is going to be Fagradalsfjall mountain. This inflation is also going to trigger large earthquakes on Reykjanes peninsula in next few weeks to months until an eruption starts. Along with the normal amount of small earthquakes that have been happening since April on the whole of Reykjanes peninsula.

I don’t know when or how long it is going to take to change the official definition of the Reykjanes peninsula. Because this is going to require more research and data collection for the scientists in Iceland. This also means a lot of new science papers have to be published and peer-reviewed.

Icelandic news

Fólk á suð­vestur­horninu má búa sig undir reglu­lega jarð­skjálfta (Vísir.is)

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Earthquake activity has started to increase in Fagradalsfjall and Reykjanes volcanoes

Since yesterday (06-October-2022) the earthquake activity has been increasing in the volcanoes Fagradalsfjall and Reykjanes volcanoes. Please note that Global Volcanism Program has updated the informations regarding Fagradalsfjall mountain and now classifies it as its own volcano, this is after a new report and information from Icelandic Met Office. From now on I am going to use that classification when updating on activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano. I’ll not update older articles (too much work), but this also applies to them as such.

This also means that Fagradalsfjall is a new volcano in Iceland.

Earthquake activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano, Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja and Reykjanes volcano. Shown with red, orange and blue dots
Earthquake activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano and Reykjanes volcano along with Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity at start of an eruption cycle in Fagraldsfjall volcano are not large. They grow larger once magma has started to push into the crust, until then the earthquake activity only seems to happens with minor earthquake swarms.

Article updated with new information.

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Inflation from start of September in Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano and in Reykjanes volcano

According to GPS data from Icelandi Met Office that can be viewed here for Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano (Þorbjörn) and here for Reykjanes volcano. It seems that a inflation period, at least in Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano started in early September and is ongoing at the writing of this article. Earthquake activity is low at the moment, but the area has already moved a lot in recent earthquake swarms and that might he dropped the crustal stress in the area. It might also explain some of the GPS movements. I have some, but limited understanding of reading GPS data so my assessment might be off, wrong or both.

There also seems to be inflation going on, without many earthquakes in Reykjanes volcano. That seems to be have been going on since start of August. There have not been any eruption in Reykjanes volcano even after repeated inflation and deflation cycles in the volcano. Inflation cycles often have earthquake swarm activity if dyke activity follows an inflation event. That does not seem have happened this time around.

If this inflation continues, in either one or both volcanoes. It is clear a new period of high earthquake activity is about to start on Reykjanes peninsula. When that earthquake activity is going to start is impossible to know. Since recent earthquake and volcano activity has changed how the crust works in the parts of the Reykjanes peninsula where magma has been active. Since hot magma slowly softens the hard rock in the crust at depth and that lowers the earthquake activity. Rather then at the start of an volcano activity, when the crust is cold and brittle, resulting in high earthquake activity before an eruption.

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The eruption in Meradalir is going to end in next few days

Today (19-August-2022) there hasn’t been any lava flow seen from the crater in Merdalir valley in Fagradalsfjall mountain according to University of Iceland, Earth Science on Facebook. Few splashes of lava have been seen coming from the crater. This has also been observed on web cameras watching the eruption. Harmonic tremor has also dropped considerably since yesterday (18-August-2022) and continues to drop.

When the eruption ends exactly is unclear, but it might happen in the next few days.

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Increasing pulse activity in the eruption signals end of the eruption

It has been reported in the news today (18-August-2022) at Rúv that more pulse activity has been seen. This results in lava being thrown up high in the air.

This is the same pattern as happened last year in the eruption in Geldingadalir valley. It took a while for that eruption to end and that might also be the case now.

Other than this, there have not been any other news of the eruption. There also has been interesting events out in the lava field, where the new lava is compressing the lava from 2021, resulting it being squeezed out at the edges. Since there is still flowing lava in the lava field from 2021 and that is going to be like that for many decades until this lava field cools through.

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Changes in harmonic tremor in Meradalir valley eruption

This morning on (13-August-2022) at 06:30 to 08:00 UTC there was a sharp drop in harmonic tremor activity in the eruption in Meradalir valley. What happened is unclear, since no change has so far happened on the surface. From the looks of the harmonic tremor now, it seems that it is unstable currently.

Harmonic tremor plot on 0.5 - 1Hz, 1 - 2Hz, 2 - 4Hz, showing small drop in harmonic tremor around date of 13/08 as shown on the tremor plot
Harmonic tremor plot in Fagradalsfjall mountain, SIL station Fagradalsfjall (faf). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

New fissures might be about to open up, this can happen both north and south of current eruption. New fissures might also open up on either side of current eruption if that is a path that the magma can take. What happens is unclear and it is impossible to know when that might happen. Depending on the were next eruption happens, might mean a lot when it comes to possible lava paths and possible road damage if lava flows over a important road on Reykjanes peninsula.

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