Iceland raises aviation alert to red as volcano eruption begins

Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano began erupting Saturday under the country's largest glacier after a week of seismic activity rattled the area with thousands of earthquakes, the country's Meteorological Office said.

The eruption prompted Iceland to raise its aviation alert level to red — the highest level on a five-point scale — indicating the threat of "significant emission of ash into the atmosphere."

Seismic data indicates that magma from the volcano is melting ice beneath the Dyngjujokull icecap on the Vatnajokull glacier, Met Office vulcanologist Melissa Pfeffer said.

She said it was not clear when, or if, the eruption would melt through the ice — which is between 100 and 400 metres thick — and send steam and ash into the air.

Iceland raises aviation alert to red as volcano eruption begins

Iceland volcano: Bardarbunga eruption begins

Seismologists have been monitoring this magma flow and reporting on it all week including over one thousand earthquakws related to it.

What effect will the melting ice have on events? Will the water evaporate or flow? Presuming that both reactions will happen, it will be interesting to see what happens next. Steam mixed with ash would make it stickier, I'm guessing. This bears further assiduous watching and planning for all involved.

I just wanted to add a link to a post over at WUWT as they have some good input as well .S&F wattsupwiththat.com...-114858 a reply to: aboutface ETA to add web cam link www.livefromiceland.is...

I wonder if it will cause another stoppage of European flights like that one volcano in Iceland did in 2010? If the ash gets up in the air ever, that is.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Excellent, thank you!

I find that the map the Iceland office released is quite helpful to locate the volcano in relation to the ice field and the rest of the country:

a reply to: aboutface

Oh God...I live in Romania and I remember that when a volcano errupted in 2010,i think that in Iceland,a small part of the smoke went above my hometown.I swear that it wasn't a cloud,it was too darkish and it moved too fast for a cloud.
Hope this is going to dissapear faster...

Some great sites here if you want to follow up to date information and expert opinion.

www.icenews.is...

en.vedur.is...

volcanocafe.wordpress.com...

a reply to: Atzil321

Thank you! Happy to check them out now and over the coming days.

I think there is a decent sized earthquake hitting Iceland right now. brb with more info...

In GEE, it looks like maybe a magnitude 4.

EMSC has it as mag 4.2


The IMO weighs in with Mag 4.0, and shallow.

Saturday
23.08.2014 18:33:05 64.677 -17.447 1.1 km 4.0 90.11 5.6 km NE of Bárðarbunga

source

Here are some live webcams off the volcano. It hasn't yet melted the ice so no visuals as of yet. Could take up to two days.

3 Webcams on youtube

From the company Míla

Icelandic news making the most of it at the moment. Everything on standby for total eruption.

ETA:

Here are all the volcano news by the icelandic media company 365, which owns vísir newspaper and one of the two largest TV stations in Iceland
News in english
.

a reply to: Olivine

Mount Pinatubo's eruption in 1991 which lasted several days coincided with a 7.8 EQ. Let's hope this eruption is not going to follow suit. about Mount Pinatubo

SnF! Thank you for this. I think we all knew this was imminent due to the build-up of earthquakes in that area as of lately. My nerves will stay calm as long as Yellowstone doesn't erupt.

I actually enjoyed the last volcanic eruption in Iceland which grounded flights...I hadn't seen such uninterupted clear blue skies for many years.

Obviously I hope people are safe there, and sympathise with anyone suffering any inconvenience, but if European flights are grounded again next week or whatever, I'll be totally pleased to see those beautiful blue skies again.

a reply to: aboutface
a reply to: lostbook

An earthquake at that area (northwest Vatnajökull) won't do much damage to buildings etc. because there are no "large" towns nearby except a few small ones due east of it. Our buildings are strong and can handle it unless the ground beneath rips apart, which will take houses apart also.

The worst case scenario is if there's a leap from the glacier due to the extreme melt of ice and then a half-dozen bridges might be swept away. That's the only buildings that could suffer damage. Unless it becomes a behemoth of a volcano and everything our geologists etc. have predicted so far goes out the window.

The tourists here will suffer the worst consequences due to being shut off from flight if there is a lot of ash when it melts through the glacier.

I started a script to get the satelites imageries for the volcanoe (visible and IR). I hope to catch something!

From an ITV tweet:

Virgin Atlantic flight diverted over Iceland volcano
Last updated Sat 23 Aug 2014 World
Iceland



A flight from London Heathrow to San Francisco was rerouted away from the Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland as a "precautionary measure", after it began erupting, a Virgin Atlantic spokesman has said.


“Safety and security is always our top priority.

All other Virgin Atlantic flights continue to operate as normal, but we are advising all customers to visit our website for the latest information.

We continue to closely monitor the situation and we are in ongoing dialogue with all of the relevant authorities.

– Virgin Atlantic

I'm booked to fly to the states from the uk in 6 weeks, should I be worried? 😯😕

a reply to: Malynn
I'm sure it will. Many trans atLantic flights go overt Iceland or more northern routes.

Magnitude 5.3 recorded 70 miles west-northwest of Hofn, Iceland - @USGS read more on usgs.gov

Some more shaking going on ...not sure how close this is to volcano.

www.breakingnews.com...

a reply to: Maluhia

By enlarging the photo on USGS, it seems to be directly south of the volcano and also smack dab on the mid-Atlantic RIdge that cuts through Iceland.

Here are some links:

Geo (excellent resource)
baering.github.io...

Live Feed:
www.youtube.com...=28966

Twitter:
twitter.com...

wiki:
en.wikipedia.org...

The frequency of the larger quakes has risen astonishingly in the last few hours..
Today there have been several mag 5s. 20 years ago there was a (4 + mag)

8,500 BC Þjórsá Lava, the largest holocene lava flow on earth,[2] originated from Bárðarbunga about 8,500 years ago, with a total volume of 21[2] to 30 cubic kilometres and covering approximately 950 square kilometres.[4]

This could get serious. As an avid earthquake enthusiast I can say that the ramifications of having big earthquakes (bigger than anyone in living memory has seen) underneath a volcano (a huge volcano) are, in short, unsettling to say the least..