Fissure opens up in south Grímsfjall volcano (no eruption)

A fissure has opened up in south part of Grímsfjall volcano without erupting at this moment. Pictures show that there’s a lot of hydrothermal activity in this fissure. I can see by the Facebook post (link below) that this is a new fissure in a location that it didn’t exist before. Based on recent history, this strongly suggests that this is the area where next eruption is going to happen in Grímsfjall volcano. When and how big such eruption is going to be is impossible to know. This fissure is located around Lat: 64° 24′ 13,476″ N Lon: 17° 13′ 57,282″ W. It possibly is growing and has made holes in the glacier large enough to swallow large cars.

Grímsfjall volcano with few brown sand on Google Earth image. With triangle in the center to mark its location. Location marker in yellow in the right side of the image not far from the brown patches on the image.
The location of the fissure. Picture from Google Earth program.

The Facebook post with pictures can be found here. But you might need a Facebook account to view the pictures. I can’t add them here because of copyright.

Earthquake with magnitude Mw3,6 in Grímsfjall volcano, no eruption yet

I’ve been trying to wait for information about the activity in Grímsfjall volcano. A new cauldron was discovered yesterday (05-December-2021). It is possible that an small eruption took place in the side of Grímsfjall volcano and didn’t break the glacier. It might have been a short eruption if that is what happened. Harmonic tremor data is unclear on this so I can’t give any good answer. At 06:16 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,6 took place. I poorly recorded it my seismometer and it seems to have been a low period earthquake. Suggesting that a magma pushing up was the reason this earthquake happened.
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Sharp change in harmonic tremor in Grímsfjall volcano

This situation is unclear and nothing has been confirmed as of writing of this article. This seems to have started about 1 hour ago and there has been a change in the harmonic tremor levels at Grímsfjall volcano. This is not yet the super sharp change I did see in May-2011 when that eruption happened. This is however is possibly a change in harmonic tremor that is consistent with magma moving inside the volcano system. Earthquake activity has been minimal in the last 24 hours.

Harmonic tremor on blue, green and purple harmoniuc tremor bands going up sharply in the last one hour.
Harmonic tremor changes in Grímsfjall volcano in the last one hour (article written at 17:34 UTC on 04-December-2021). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This is a monitoring situation currently. Sometimes an eruption happens after a glacier flood or doing a glacier flood in Grímsfjall volcano. At other times however nothing happens and it is not possible to know what happens now.

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Glacier flood starting from Grímsfjall volcano

It was announced today (24-November-2021) that Grímsvötn lake in Grímsfjall volcano is about to start. It is going to take the glacier flood few hours to days to get to the glacier rivers that flow south of Vatnajökull glacier.

This also risks an eruption starting in Grímsfjall volcano. If that actually happens remains to be seen. Last glacier flood in Grímsvötn lake was in 2018, but that did not result in a eruption.