Rumblings from another Icelandic volcano

[GloriaSmud]

and it's a big 'un!
This time at Bárðarbunga, with over 200 earthquakes recorded so far and last night, the Icelandic Met Office raised the aviation colour code to yellow to reflect the unrest that's going on.

Or it might just fizzle out!

though the fact that the magma in and the magma out not matching suggests thats not so likely

It is strange to be watching something that almost everyone is currently oblivious to.

Lots of news stories are like that in a way though. They rumble along for years before exploding.

This one more literally than others perhaps though.

Latest update from the IMO
'Tis worrying that of the 3 likely scenarios there, apart from the 'it all stops' one, the other two involve "Large-scale subsidence of the caldera."

The only thing that raises a wry smile here is that somebody (Icelandic Met Office?) said that there had been no eruption at Bardarbunga and all the time this was going on.

From what Jon fr sats, it's looking grim out there:

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I am writing this now, since I might not have time to do so on Monday. Updates are going to continue to go here until Monday. Unless something major happens.

The collapse of Bárðarbunga volcano

The collapse of Bárðarbunga volcano has already started. The caldera collapse in Bárðarbunga volcano started on 16-August-2014 and has been going on since then. Here is what I am expecting from the caldera collapse once it reaches its peak.

There are going to be earthquakes in the range of 5,5 and up to 6,7. Maybe larger if the crust can handle it.
Glacier flood are going to go south-west and north (Húsavík area) and possibly in other directions. I am expecting damage to hydrothermal plants in the pathway of the floods. How much damage there is going to be depends on the magnitude of the flood and the path it takes.
I am expecting long periods of no power in parts of Iceland once the flood has passed. I am also expecting lack of communications in large areas of Iceland. This is why Rúv has been telling people to get long-wave radios for the past few days. Usage of mobile network is also going to be unreliable in large parts of Iceland once the collapse starts full force in Bárðarbunga volcano. Due to damage that glacier floods are going to create.
I am expecting an ash cloud that might go up to 20 km or higher up in the atmosphere. It is however impossible to know for sure what happens until this starts.
It is difficult to know fore sure how much drop is going to take place, but it can be up to many hundreds of meters.
I fear that north slope of Bárðarbunga might collapse forward once this starts. Earthquakes in the area give clues about weakness forming there.
Bárðarbunga volcano is 2009 meters high above the ocean. This means there is a lot of material that is going to blow outwards once the collapse starts full force. This is might be one of largest eruptions in Iceland since it got populated more than one thousands years ago. I am hoping that the picture that I am drawing up is not as bad the reality once this starts. I am also hoping that no loss of life is going to happen. I am hoping for the best in this case, but the clues that I am getting are no good at all.

Cripes.
I hope he is wrong.

Do you reckon flights to Canada in a couple of weeks time might be a problem? My DP are flying out soon, and I'm wondering if I should get them to make sure their insurance covers them for cancellation due to ash (I remember a lot of people were caught out last time as the insurers claimed "act of god").

We have absolutely no way of knowing if there really will be a big eruption, or when it would be. However.... The jet steam forecast at present goes up to the 29th sept. if there was a big eruption before then, and if the forecast was accurate, then we could see some ash being an issue for parts of Scotland and perhaps northern England. However, the regulations for flights through ash have changed hugely and so we won't see the blanket no fly zones (see post somewhere else in the thread!)

Can you get insurance against ash?

don't know, OYBBK, it suddenly occurred to me in the shower this morning that it might potentially be a problem (and the first leg of their flight is from Scotland, so although they could get to Heathrow by train, that obviously takes longer and needs to be thought about in advance).

I think I'll suggest they look into the insurance and see what the policy says about cancellation, and get them to think about alternatives for getting to Heathrow.

Thanks!

Leaping they should certainly consider booking a hotel the night before at/near Heathrow and allow time to drive down. That said, I never travel to the airport on the day of our flight as I've seen people miss flights that way.

If Jon Fr. is right and there is a 20km ash cloud then I wouldn't like to put money on many people from the north of the UK flying anywhere.

I've sent DM links to the Iceland met office site, plus the volcano cafe and JonF's blogs - she's an ex geography teacher, so should be able to understand it all better than me.

She's going to ring the travel agent tomorrow and see what they say re the possibility of disruption, and what exactly their insurance covers - I also said to make a Plan B for not being able to get back (in terms of access to cash etc) just in case. They fly a week tomorrow, so fingers crossed for them any major changes in Iceland hold off till after that .

Good plan Leaping.

Seems that we just had a mag 5.3 earthquake at 100m in depth (very very shallow!) leading to a further drop in the caldera floor of 0.5m

No idea of the significance but it must have some?

Ok, I think the depth has been revised to a more sensible 3km.

That sounds uh more sensible, OYBBK

I've just noticed a dark cloud, centre of the screen, coming from the same spot on the webcam. Jon on his blog has just noticed it too. Might be something or nothing.

Hello everyone.

I read the update from JonF last night and was actually getting quite scared by it. I have been so fascinated by this bit it's actually sounding like it is a very real threat for many Icelanders.

Then I read his update to that, and it seemed less scary and that the activity is slowing down.

I'm confused which isn't uncommon for me .

I don't think activity is massively slowing down but I was surprised at how doom laden his prediction was. I think the thing is nobody knows.

hi OYBBK, that's just it, but for someone like him who seems very well regarded, going busy the comments on his posts, he's really sticking his neck out, if that makes sense.

I,ve just managed to get onto a live stream on youtube although I don't know if it is live so have noticed the dark cloud. Gloria, what do you think it means?

Also, when you watch the mila webcams, where is the Caldera that is collapsing located? Or is that a daft question.

Thanks again so much for your help.

Xxx

I think Jon F can be more frank than a lot of the other people because he's not in a job where what he says will cause problems IYSWIM? He was robustly defended on Volcano Cafe the other day when someone tried to ridicule his predictions. I'll go find the pic they posted about the caldera from the view of the web cams.

Newbie, I think I'm watching the same YouTube stream as you.

It's to the right behind the current plume activity where the dark cloud is!

Remember this eruption is creating its own weather.

I've read it that the Holuhraun eruption is slowing down, with only one of the craters still be relatively active and although the number of earthquakes around Bardarbunga have reduced, the number and strength of them is an issue as its producing more magma.

If the magma is not erupting at Holuhraun, then the question is what is happening to it? The volume of magma is still increasing, but the output is reducing - meaning that pressure is potentially building up.

This doesn't sound less scary to me. This sounds more scary as it increases the possibly of something explosive happening somewhere as a result of the build up of pressure.

The slow down in activity would only be good if the caldera stabilised and there wasn't a continued increase in the amount of magma being produced.

Here's the position of Bardabunga from one of the Mila cams.

I've seen a couple of tornados coming from the clouds in previous days.