Vocal Voices

... another Icelandic volcano to worry about?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/a ... -to-orange

I've lost the link I had to that up-to-date vulcanology site - I'll have to try to find it again.

UPDATE 9 AM EDT 8/16/14: The IMO has raised the alert status at Barðarbunga to orange after the continued and now shallowing earthquakes under the volcano. This suggests that magma is rising under the volcano, which means that the chances of eruption are increasing. The IMO doesn’t say an eruption will happen — this could easily end as a shallow intrusion under Barðarbunga — but the heightened alert (2nd highest of the Icelandic scale) does allow for more preparation.

From Eric clementi's Eruptions blog. Doesn't look like it now, yes Magma is rising, but they would need also to see movement in the GPS sensors on the Volcano. Evidence that the cap is rising and they will go to red alert. At the moment it's just precautions.

Thanks, Suff - last year's scare over Mt. Hekla came to naught, so I guess the odds are that this one will too.

So, the risk of an eruption has risen to Level Orange. Is that really surprising on a volcanic island?

What we will not get is any over-the-top reaction from European governments as we had with the Eyjafjallajoekull eruption in 2010. Modern jet engines can cope much better with fine volcanic ash, as the airlines and aircraft manufacturers said and proved, than their predecessors.

Volcanoes erupt all the time, it is not hard to fly round them.

The latest is that the eruption is continuing and intensifying, but is a "Hawaiian" type of eruption which produces a strong fluid lava flow but no major emissions into the atmosphere.

There is a rather spectacular live webcam broadcast currently on-line, if you're interested. The newest fissure is on the right-hand side of the picture:

http://www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/bardarbunga-2/

What worries me is not the eruption itself, but the confusing updates. One minute it is orange, the next it is a red alert, then downgraded.

I'd missed all of this with the travel over the weekend and back to work yesterday.

I found two updates here and some of the information may help in understanding. It seems we have one Volcano with two sets of activity. First is the fissure lower down the volcano which is emitting lava. Blog item.

From the blog

Considering how benign this eruption has been, the aviation alert even during the eruption today is only orange, mostly thanks to the almost total lack of ash

The eruption is ongoing and the article says it can carry on for over a year.

At the same time, the explosions going on at the edge of Vatnajökull, are more concern. That type of explosion is caused by the melting ice sediment dropping into the lava chamber which is heating and expanding. Eventually it explodes, blowing the top off the lava chamber and causing the type of Volcanic eruption we are used to stopping aircraft.

Although, from what I read, the fissure eruption is allowing the lava to escape and reducing the pressure under Vatnajökull.

This is what I read between the lines. I haven't been following this actively and there are a lot of assumptions from Eric's posts that the people reading what he writes know the area well and where each activity is happening.

One other point I took from the article is that there is a pretty large SO2 outgassing. I'm assuming that this is what is causing the evacuations. Not any classic style of explosion, surge of water and pyroclastic cloud.

All a bit boring and confusing for people who are used to seeing things suddenly go bang then impact aviation etc.

If you want to do real time viewing of the Earthquakes going on in the Vatnajökull area, you can see them on the Icelandic Met Office earthquake monitor page. It makes more sense at first look if you switch it to map mode.