Category: Sundhnúkar

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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 Its going to outdated quickly.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.