Iceland - possible eruption due near the Blue Lagoon

[KenAdams]

Is anyone following this?

https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2023/11/03/coming_close_to_an_eruption/

The main concern is the power plant next to the lagoon.

There are constant mini eruptions happening too - https://vafri.is/quake/

It seems to have stopped moving so that might be it for now, although they say of course they can't rule an eruption out.

I wonder if the Blue Lagoon tourists will be back again! I watched all their cars leaving on Isak Finnbogason's stream, he had his drone up at the time the sirens went off and although he was about 4 km away he was able to zoom the lens and we could see loads of cars leaving. This stream at around 12:41 onwards.

Wow, LOTS of cars. I don't get how they were accessing The Blue Lagoon - the Grindavik roads were blocked off when I was there.

Apparently it was relatively a very small volume of magma that was on the move yesterday, so the accumulation is likely to continue and will probably still end in an eruption.

The Met Office are publishing these useful graphs. The x axis is the number of days that magma has been accumulating and the y axis is the volume accumulated. Stars are eruptions, squares are magma intrusions. You see the red line is what has been going on since the most recent eruption (yellow). So yesterday was just a little hiccup in the trend.

Keeping everyone on their toes no doubt. Wonder if the tourists will be back?

Oh I'd count on it.

Eruption just started!!

Posting some webcam links:

Shawn Willsey (geologist) covering it

Isak Finnbogason (drone pilot) stream scheduled for just over an hour from now);

Not sure exactly where it is in relation to Grindavik, clearly on that same fissure line, just not sure how close it is to the town.

@Puffinshop your country has done it again! :D

Apparently the same location as 8th Feb. This type virtually no earthquake buildup as warning.

Yes, I regularly check the earthquake map and it had been pretty quiet. Then suddenly a swarm that I missed and it erupted. Lava flowing very fast.

Jahá. Expected to last a short time again, according to Þorvaldur. I suppose it could get to the road again and potentially cause some more havoc with the pipes, judging by the location.

Definitely heading for the road near the power plant judging by the helicopter flight pictures. Lava's flowing so fast. Seeing that on Shawn Willsey's stream.

Here's a webcam view of the Blue Lagoon (left), power plant (middle) and lava just appearing on the right.

10:05 from the Met Office:

Lava appears to flow rapidly south towards the defenses north of Grindavík. Also, lava is flowing west towards Grindavíkurvégur, just like what happened during the eruption on February 8.

https://www.vedur.is/um-vi/frettir/jardhraeringar-grindavik

Found one of Grindavik and you can clearly see the lava approaching on the far left.

Screencap from the helicopter flight. Amazing!

Good view of the lava approaching Grindavik. Good thing they have those berms!

The lava is reaching the defensive wall east of Grindavík. Hopefully it does its job.

And the other tongue is about to go over Grindavíkurvegur again. Should be live helicopter footage on Vísir in a sec.

Looks like the lava flowing near Grindavik has come to a halt. It got a long way towards the sea, the berm worked well. Also lava progress near the power station looks to have halted. Can't see well on the cams where exactly it reached, did it cross the road?

Yes, a fairly broad lava flow crossed Grindavíkurvegur, pretty close to where it did before. I saw last night that the power was out in Grindavík but they might have fixed it, not sure. Also it might have ruined a broadband cable.

Nothing worse than that, no trouble with pipes and no lava has reached Suðurstrandarvegur yet. It's close but it might not get there I think.

The defensive walls directed the lava away from the town but towards a farm called, funnily enough, Hraun (Lava). So they were building some last minute walls to stop Lava going under the lava.

If lava flows over Suðurstrandarvegur, that will leave one road into Grindavík (Nesvegur). Unfortunately Nesvegur was heavily damaged in the earthquakes and though it can be driven it won't take heavy vehicles.

Ármann Höskuldsson says the volcanic systems are 'well oiled' now, which explains the lack of advance warning signs. He expects this eruption to peter out by this evening, and then we start waiting for the next one.