iceland Bárðarbunga and Askja - Volcanic Activity

[karyo]

Thursday

25.09.2014 20:48:45 64.681 -17.498 10.0 km 3.8 99.0 4.7 km NNE of Bárðarbunga

 

 

10km deep too

 

Just as I am getting ready for bed Barda decides to make things interesting! 

[john pike]

haha karyo

 

thats what this will do

 

cause insomnia :rofl:

[Allseasons-Si]

Just as I am getting ready for bed Barda decides to make things interesting! 

And just as i get in from work,things look interesting

 

don't know if the full gps chart has been posted before,but here it is

 

 

the recent one though looks to have leveled out a bit,even after the recent EQ's we have had

 

 

maybe she won't drop anymore,we shall see.

[john pike]

check cam 1

 

weird

 

must be raining there

Edited September 25, 2014 by john pike

[Allseasons-Si]

check cam 1

 

weird

 

must be raining there

A bit of rain on the lense JP.

[john pike]

hi allseasons

 

yeh spotted it plus

 

 

northern lights too

 

but looks like the cameras are getting harder to see

 

so im going to call it a night

 

goodnight all

[karyo]

And just as i get in from work,things look interesting

 

don't know if the full gps chart has been posted before,but here it is

 

barc_gps_all_is.png

 

the recent one though looks to have leveled out a bit,even after the recent EQ's we have had

 

barc_gps_3d_is.png

 

maybe she won't drop anymore,we shall see.

Yes, today there was hardly any overall drop. I guess more magma is coming into the caldera which will need another exit soon as the fissure eruption is stable.

[Allseasons-Si]

hi allseasons

 

yeh spotted it plus

 

 

northern lights too

 

but looks like the cameras are getting harder to see

 

so im going to call it a night

 

goodnight all

Yes,gone through all the cams and cannot see anything

 

as for the gps Karyo,theres a slight drop happening just as we discuss about it lol.

 

Edited September 25, 2014 by Allseasons-si

[karyo]

Yes,gone through all the cams and cannot see anything

 

as for the gps Karyo,theres a slight drop happening just as we discuss about it lol.

 

barc_gps_3d_is.png

Indeed there is, it will be interesting to see whether it continues or averages upwards.

 

The webcam has now cleared and it looks pretty spectacular again!

Edited September 25, 2014 by karyo

[john pike]

Holuhraun Emitting More SO2 Pollution than All of Europe By Páll Stefánsson September 25, 2014 10:31 Updated: September 25, 2014 14:57

The pollution in the East Fjords earlier this month. Photo: Zoë Robert.

The sulfur dioxide (SO2) emitted from the Holuhraun eruption has reached up to 60,000 tons per day and averaged close to 20,000 tons since it began. For comparison, all the SO2 pollution in Europe, from industries, energy production, traffic and house heating, etc., amounts to 14,000 tons per day.

“It’s clear that no eruption [in Iceland] in the 20th century comes close to this one. We have to go far back to the 19th century, to find eruption as voluminous in gas emissions,†Þorsteinn Jóhannsson, a specialist at the Environmental Agency of Iceland, told visir.is.

Morgunblaðið reported this morning that the scientists at Holuhraun had to evacuate their base at Drekagil in the Askja region, 25 km (15 miles) northwest of the eruption site because of a gas cloud hanging over the area.

 

 

 

What if the Eruption were somewhere else? By Benedikt Jóhannesson September 25, 2014 19:18 Updated: September 25, 2014 19:44

What if an eruption had started in Central park. Composite image made by Páll Kjartansson.

The lava flow since the beginning of the Holuhraun eruption covers around 40 square kilometers (15 square miles) and comprises a total volume about 500 million cubic meters and is one of the biggest in Iceland in such a short time.

Yesterday we showed how much of Reykjavík the lava would cover. Many of our foreign readers may not relate to Reykjavík so we calculated how much of Manhattan the lava could cover. It turns out that the lava now could cover almost the whole island.

The picture on the left shows how much area in Manhattan the lava would cover now. The cube on the right show how many Empire State Buildings the lava could sink now. Illustration: Jóhannes Benediktsson.

The volume of the lava is one of the greatest in recent history. It could contain over 150 Empire State Buildings, 100 Eiffel Towers, over 200 Khufu Pyramids, etc. The volcano has even produced enough lava to build the Great Wall of China 1.5 times over.

The lava could cover:

• The Eiffel Tower 107 times
• The Great Wall of China 1,6 times
• The Empire State Building 154 times
• The Taj Mahal 13.500 times
• St. Peter's Basilica 450 times
• The Great Pyramid of Khufu 209 times

In our story yesterday the original heading was: A Volcano in Reykjavík? The Lava now covers almost the whole City. The story was accompanied by a photoshopped photo of Hallgrímskirkja church, a Reykjavík landmark, in front of an erupting volcano.

A handful of readers thought that ‘other readers’ could be misled by the story (but they themselves understood that it was only to paint a picture). So for ’the others’ we state: The Eruption is north of Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland and not in Reykjavík, New York, Paris, Rome or any other place.

 

http://icelandreview.com/news/eruption

 

ok thats now my lot

 

its just shows how large this is

 

 

[Allseasons-Si]

^^WOW that's some statistics there JP,i wonder how much longer this will last,it could poss fill my boots by next year lol

 

as for webcam 1,it looks like the devil in the sky.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Allseasons-si

[If Wishes made Weather]

Big uptick in tremor activity this morning:

 

 

 

[swebby]

Hi TM - it's been blowing a bit of a hoolie in Iceland this morning so maybe no more than the wind causing problems, but certainly worth keeping an eye on, especially the askja plot.

[karyo]

Everyday is different in this volcano! My attention today is on the GPS which is up and down like a yoyo!

Karyo

[swebby]

Hi  Karyo - Again I suspect it may be weather related but I agree the GPS does give the impression of a rattling lid on a bowling pan of water.

[SteveB]

Don't know if it anything to do with the wind, but a couple of +2 quakes at very very shallow depths

 

 

 

Friday
26.09.2014 09:50:20 64.676 -17.458 0.1 km 2.3 99.0 5.1 km NE of Bárðarbunga

 

 

Friday
26.09.2014 11:18:15 64.625 -17.379 0.0 km 2.6 99.0 7.3 km ESE of Bárðarbunga

[karyo]

Hi  Karyo - Again I suspect it may be weather related but I agree the GPS does give the impression of a rattling lid on a bowling pan of water.

hi swebby, can the wind affect the GPS as well? 

 

By the way, Mila webcam shows something like a sandstorm going on. The low pressure is moving eastwards though so we should see the weather calm down somewhat later today.

[swebby]

Not entirely sure kayro - some odd GPS data last week was put down to icing and looking at the weather charts I imagine conditions up in the bara caladera are pretty nasty at the mo. 

 

As we head into autumn/winter we will become more dependent on information from these stations so fingers crossed for settled weather but the flip side is more night time viewing of the web cams.

 

Edit - the sandstorm you mentioned - I'm wondering if it is steam?

Edited September 26, 2014 by swebby

[karyo]

M5.2 in Barda according to IMO accompanied by a significant drop in the GPS.

 

http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/

 

Karyo

[karyo]

Not entirely sure kayro - some odd GPS data last week was put down to icing and looking at the weather charts I imagine conditions up in the bara caladera are pretty nasty at the mo. 

 

As we head into autumn/winter we will become more dependent on information from these stations so fingers crossed for settled weather but the flip side is more night time viewing of the web cams.

 

Edit - the sandstorm you mentioned - I'm wondering if it is steam?

No, i don't think it was steam. Anyway, the weather has calmed down now.

[john pike]

Bárðarbunga on Earth's Hot Spot, Volcanologist Says By Benedikt Jóhannesson September 26, 2014 08:01 Updated: September 26, 2014 08:41

Iceland is one of the earth's hot spots in more ways than one. Photo: Jóhannes Benediktsson

According to volcanologist Haraldur Sigurðsson, Bárðarbunga volcano is now sitting right on top of the earth’s hot spot.

“The hot spot began under Siberia approximately 250 million years ago. The tectonic plates of the earth are floating on top of the earth’s magma, like a raft on water, but the hot spot is still in the same place. Now it is simmering below us. Once Siberia was above it, then Baffin Island, after that Greenland and now Iceland,†Haraldur told Morgunblaðið.

According to Wikipedia the theory behind hot spot originated as follows:

“The origins of the concept of hotspots lie in the work of J. Tuzo Wilson, who postulated in 1963 that the Hawaiian Islands result from the slow movement of a tectonic plate across a hot region beneath the surface. It was later postulated that hotspots are fed by narrow streams of hot mantle rising from the Earth's core-mantle boundary in a structure called a mantle plume. Whether or not such mantle plumes exist is currently the subject of a major controversy in Earth science. Estimates for the number of hotspots postulated to be fed by mantle plumes has ranged from about 20 to several thousands, over the years, with most geologists considering a few tens to exist. Hawaii, Réunion, Yellowstone, Galápagos, and Iceland are some of the currently most active volcanic regions to which the hypothesis is applied.â€

“The joint mantle plume/hotspot hypothesis envisages the feeder structures to be fixed relative to one another, with the continents and seafloor drifting overhead. The hypothesis thus predicts that time-progressive chains of volcanoes are developed on the surface. Examples are Yellowstone, which lies at the end of a chain of extinct calderas, which become progressively older to the west. Another example is the Hawaiian archipelago, where islands become progressively older and more deeply eroded to the northwest.

Geologists have tried to use hotspot volcanic chains to track the movement of the Earth's tectonic plates. This effort has been vexed by the lack of very long chains, by the fact that many are not time-progressive (e.g. the Galápagos) and by the fact that hotspots do not appear to be fixed relative to one another (e.g., Hawaii and Iceland.)â€

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Stunning Photos of Lava and Northern Lights By Benedikt Jóhannesson September 26, 2014 18:38 Updated: September 26, 2014 18:54

From the Fimmvörðuháls eruption in 2010. Photo: James Appelton

We have been discussing the beauty of two natural phenomena simultaneously, northern lights and the glowing lava shooting out of a crater. Photographer James Appleton managed to capture a series of beautiful photographs that show both the Aurora Borealis and  an eruption in the same frame. The images were made at Fimmvörðuháls in Iceland in 2010.

You can see more of his stunning images here.

 

http://icelandreview.com/news/2014/09/26/stunning-photos-lava-and-northern-lights

[john pike]

http://www.ruv.is/frett/what-is-going-on-at-bardarbunga-video

 

read this and watch video

 

very informative

[john pike]

 

back up this goes

 

and here too

 

 

http://www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/bardarbunga/

[john pike]

Friday

26.09.2014 18:54:55 64.668 -17.463 4.2 km 4.3 99.0 4.3 km NE of Bárðarbunga Friday

26.09.2014 18:51:29 64.660 -17.458 4.7 km 1.2 99.0 4.0 km NE of Bárðarbunga Friday

26.09.2014 18:22:52 64.669 -17.470 7.6 km 3.3 99.0 4.2 km NE of Bárðarbunga Friday

26.09.2014 17:57:01 64.684 -17.482 9.3 km 2.0 99.0 5.3 km NNE of Bárðarbunga

[john pike]

got a drop again

 

but no cams to watch

 

so i am off now

 

goodnight all