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| Chaotic ice in Vatnajokull over Bardarbunga Image from the Smithsonian site here |
Earlier in the day, scientists reported that seismic activity indicated that a dyke was propagation as much as 5 miles to the north. On August 21, the dyke was reported to be 25 km long at a depth of 5-10 km. GPS data show that magma is moving.
ORIGINAL POST:
Earlier in the day, scientists reported that seismic activity indicated that a dyke was propagation as much as 5 miles to the north. On August 21, the dyke was reported to be 25 km long at a depth of 5-10 km. GPS data show that magma is moving.
Headlines are starting to appear about seismic activity under Bardarbunga volcano, which lies under Vatnajokull in Iceland, but with frustratingly little information as they hark back on the sensationalism of airplane flights cancelled when Eyjafjallajokull erupted a few years ago. More than 300 people in the region have been evacuated as a precaution. Flooding is a possibility.
Rather than paraphrasing, here are extracts from the Smithsonian volcano report:
13 August-19 August 2014
During 13-19 August the Icelandic Met Office reported increased seismic activity at Bárdarbunga volcano. On 16 August more than 200 earthquakes were reported under the NW Vatnajökull ice cap, and GPS stations have shown an increasing signal upward and away from the volcano since early June 2014. On 16 August the Aviation Color code was increased to Yellow. On 18 August the Icelandic Met Office reported an earthquake swarm to the E and another to the N of Bárdarbunga. A M4 earthquake was recorded that was the strongest in the region since 1996. By 18 August there had been 2,600 earthquakes detected at the volcano; earthquake locations from N and E swarms had been migrating NE, but in the evening activity of the N swarm had decreased significantly. That same day the Aviation Color code was raised to Orange.
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| Credit: Reuters, as published in bbc.com here |
The large central volcano of Bárdarbunga lies beneath the NW part of the Vatnajökull icecap, NW of Grímsvötn volcano, and contains a subglacial 700-m-deep caldera. Related fissure systems include the Veidivötn and Trollagigar fissures, which extend about 100 km SW to near Torfajökull volcano and 50 km NE to near Askja volcano, respectively. Voluminous fissure eruptions, including one at Thjorsarhraun, which produced the largest known Holocene lava flow on Earth with a volume of more than 21 cu km, have occurred throughout the Holocene into historical time from the Veidivötn fissure system. The last major eruption of Veidivötn, in 1477, also produced a large tephra deposit. The subglacial Loki-Fögrufjöll volcanic system located SW of Bárdarbunga volcano is also part of the Bárdarbunga volcanic system and contains two subglacial ridges extending from the largely subglacial Hamarinn central volcano; the Loki ridge trends to the NE and the Fögrufjöll ridge to the SW. Jökulhlaups (glacier-outburst floods) from eruptions at Bárdarbunga potentially affect drainages in all directions.
The Veidivötn fissure system, which extends 100 km SW from Bárdarbunga volcano, has been the source of major eruptions during the Holocene. A large, dominantly explosive eruption at about 870 AD from the Vatnaöldur crater row, which extends diagonally across the center of the photo, deposited tephra over much of southern Iceland. The Vatnaöldur eruption originated from a 42-km-long fissure and produced 3.3 cu km of tephra at the time of the settlement of Iceland, forming the the Landnam (Settlement) tephra layer.
The subglacial Loki-Fögrufjöll volcanic system...glacial ridges extending from the largely subglacial Hamarinn central volcano; the Loki ridge trends to the NE and the Fögrufjöll ridge, seen here, extends to the SW.
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