Volcano Watch 2014

a reply to: Bishop2199

Thanks Bishop.
They're changing their mind it seems so may be they could also change the note on the seismicity page.

Fingers crossed it won't result in an explosive subglacial eruption, leading to an outburst flood (jökulhlaup) and ash emission.
Because if that's the case, there goes my so long planned trip to Dublin this coming week-end.

a reply to: Bishop2199

Yes, I noticed that. There is not currently evidence that lava has reached the surface, but looks like eruption is inevidable. What is strange, is that the epicenter is moving towards east to Kistufell volcano. But we know only little about this Iceland's largest volcanic system, as it has never erupted full strenght during its observation history. Also, the Grimsfall volcano may be connected, as activity in Bárðarbunga stopped after Grimsfall 2011 eruption.

Orange alert level declared for Bárðarbunga volcano.

The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano has been migrating to the north-east over the past 10 to 18 hours. The activity close to Dyngjuháls appears to be stable at that location for the moment. Earthquake activity in other parts of Bárðarbunga have quieted down for the moment, that might change without warning.

Source

And it´s spiking up again, this time much more steadily then yeasterday.
hraun.vedur.is...

Not convinced we'll see a "surface" eruption as there's still a thick layer of ice there. We know that there's magma movement as mentioned and proof provided by Jon, but this doesn't mean there'll be an eruption. Although everything is possible.

My thoughts of what could lead this to a surface eruption.

1. A big earthquake (6.5+) fracturing the icecap and giving an escape route for the magma below.

2. Pressure in the entire Barðarbunga volcanic complex building up with no way to vent it out. If this happens we wouldn't see localized earthquake swarms as we have seen till now but swarms showing up all over the place.

Sit down, wait and see me saying.

a reply to: Nidwin

The earthquake activity has been migrating northeast. They are moving away from the caldera, I guess the ice layer is too thick for lava to reach surface. Though its impossible to know what is happening down there. The earthquake activity has been decreasing, which could mean that the magma is either stopped, or found easy way out. The magma is definitely moving towards surface.

By the way, there is new webcam set on top of Grimsfall volcano, looking directly to Bardarbunga about 30km away.
Grimsfall volcano webcam

It seems they put up a webcam

www.ruv.is...

vedur2.mogt.is...

edit 1

And it seems mila is also putting a webcam up, but still offline at the moment

IF Bárðarbunga erups, and ash goes more than 8,000 meters high ...
this one could be a MAJOR catastrophe.

Not only for the immediate time - but for a long few years.
Not only for Iceland and Europe but for all of the Northern Hemisphere.

Going back to what I stated about Nabro in 2011 that will affect the NH weather systems due to Sulphur ... and proved correct.

This Bárðarbunga is much worse.

Potentially it looks like it might be a big eruption.
In 4 days the quake depth rose form 15 km to 10 km or less.
4.5 quake yesterday and then a long series of somewhat strange harmonic .... these are usually visible recordings during an eruption.

This volcano has a history of serious poison gas.
In particular it emits very high levels of Sulphur and the highest known Hydrogen Fluoride content.
should that go high it will cool the Northern Hemisphere down by a few degrees Celsius.

Actually I am surprised by the little interest from major news media ... and even here on ATS for this volcano.
Too many little things happened and blunted peoples thread sensors?
Goodness - this is potentially THE disaster of the century to date.

originally posted by: Aromaz
Actually I am surprised by the little interest from major news media ... and even here on ATS for this volcano.

Too many little things happened and blunted peoples thread sensors?

Goodness - this is potentially THE disaster of the century to date.

It probably needs a Puterman response to wake ATS people up. (joking of course)

Jon has updated his stuff certainly worth a read. He's also rising the question what will happen if magma from B meets magma from K.

I'm not fond of the North East magma route because it could find a fissure that leads to Askja up there.

originally posted by: Aromaz
IF Bárðarbunga erups, and ash goes more than 8,000 meters high ...
this one could be a MAJOR catastrophe.

Not only for the immediate time - but for a long few years.
Not only for Iceland and Europe but for all of the Northern Hemisphere.

Going back to what I stated about Nabro in 2011 that will affect the NH weather systems due to Sulphur ... and proved correct.

This Bárðarbunga is much worse.

Potentially it looks like it might be a big eruption.
In 4 days the quake depth rose form 15 km to 10 km or less.
4.5 quake yesterday and then a long series of somewhat strange harmonic .... these are usually visible recordings during an eruption.

This volcano has a history of serious poison gas.
In particular it emits very high levels of Sulphur and the highest known Hydrogen Fluoride content.
should that go high it will cool the Northern Hemisphere down by a few degrees Celsius.

Well, there has been some fearmongering in Finland, but not much. It sure is disaster if the main caldera erupts. This volcano is known for massive lava streams. Full eruption could cause greatest lava flow of modern times. Then there is about 400 meters thick glacier above the caldera. Its going to be very explosive event when the glacier breaks. And it will cause strong earthquake, maybe even 6.5M. Thank god the area is remote, but floods can be devastating for road network.

But if the main caldera erupts, it will be VEI 5-6, maybe even 7 and climate changing event. Lava and massive glacier don't suit very well together.

a reply to: Aromaz

I am keeping an eye on it, but, as I am not in Iceland, I do not have many resources.

However, according to the seismic reports, it appears that the side of the mountain may blow creating a new crater.



Let's hope not!

I can't imagine what a quarter mile of ice will do to compound the situation.

Bishop

Couldn't leave it alone
As it says on Vatnajokull - earthquakes during the last 48 hours (Preliminary results)
and on the page with the list (table) says 1600 events in the last 48hrs, so that doesn't even include the events before 17th 18:25:15, so I'd say there are 2000+ preliminary events.

However if you go to the raw data and click on vika33 and vika34, then once on that page click on [Skjálftalisti] and narrow it down to Lat 64.48682(south) to 64.83961(north) and Long -17.81317(west) to -16.41733 (east) (the area of Baroarbunga) there are only 614 confirmed events in total since the start of this swarm.

(click image for larger version, opens in new tab/window)
or
Baroarbunga interactive map
graph of the entire series, up till 1.5 hours ago

(click image for larger version, opens in new tab/window)

not to take too much of the drama away from what is happening there, but lets not panic eh, 614 confirmed quakes versus 2000 preliminary, keep that in mind.

The quake (Small and Medium) for this past 4 days has gone upwards of 2,700.
However it seems magma flow is not upwards for the present.
Tremors remains 5 to 10 km deep - though none higher than 3.0 in past 30 hours.
Magma might have entered into a fissure - that is the better news.
Might be a release of pressure and end of stress ... depends on the qty and remaining force behind the magma.
The bad news is it could potentially disturb neighboring volcanoes like Kverkfjoll and even the old lady Katla.

Just read about this on Quake Watch!
Will be following!
WOQ

a reply to: Aromaz
maybe, that number is preliminary only i.e. automatic readings by a machine, it will take some time for the humans to check them.

The tremor is intensifying at Bárðarbunga after decrease. They have evacuated the nearby areas. Seems like the quake movement has stopped and the epicenter stays in the main caldera, its no longer moving towards northeast. But the earthquake activity in Kistufell still persists. If Bárðarbunga doesn't erupt, Kistufell will, they are connected, its the same system. Kistufell is not very well known, it has erupted at least 3 times in the history, but it is not very active, but neither dormant. Its described to be in comatose. Until now, when Bárðarbunga activity caused activity in Kistufell too.

Thebel,

I don't think the main activity is in the epicenter of Barðarbunga volcano.
The main activity is still somewhere NE of the Barðarbunga volcano. Between Barðarbunga volcano and Kistufell volcano.

Problem is that there isn't supposed to be anything major there, certainly not a volcano but it's still the center of the activity at the moment. If it's a fissure filling up with magma I presume it's a big and large one.

a reply to: Nidwin

Yes, I was wrong. The earthquake activity is happening between Barðarbunga and Kistufell volcanoes, bit closer to Kistufell. Barðarbunga main caldera is near the edge of Vatnajökull, there are only few earthquakes. There is no fissure where these quakes are happening, yet. This will be new. Seems like earthquakes are getting shallower and shallower, but still far from the surface.

It appears that things are calming down a bit up North while the East is still moving.

While the northern cluster close to Kistufell has calmed down significantly following the M4.5 earthquake on early Monday morning, event rates in the eastern cluster are still high. Similar to recent days, two pulses of comparably strong seismic activity have been measured between 04:00 and 08:00 this morning, as well as 16:00 and 18:30 in the afternoon. The cluster east of Bárðarbunga continued to slowly migrate northeastwards today. Events are still located at around 5-12 km depths, no signs of upwards migration has been seen so far.

Updated summary from Bárðarbunga

Still no signs of upward migration

Bishop