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- #461
The eruption, Svartsengi, and Grindavik today, uploaded about three hours ago. There still seems to be strong degassing but the wind is brisk and air quality is good all over, per the graph.
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April 2024 Weather Video of the Month Post your nominations now!
Iceland's Fagradalsfjall Fires
- Thread starter bjdeming
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #462
Note: it happened at eruption's start, not during the recent uptick in outgassing:
"We basically had a large explosion in Iceland, which combined with exactly the right configuration of wind to bring the plume from the Reykjanes Peninsula to Scotland and to Edinburgh specifically.
“It is a very unique event”.
-- Source
- Thread starter
- #463
Just had to share this unaltered screenshot from mbl.is Hagafell cam -- volcano, lava pond, vog, and midnight sun at almost 2 a.m.
IMO reported today that the erupted volume is more than 40 million cubic meters, and the lava field is already the largest one yet in this 2023-2024. The eruption continues, with vog in some areas, and the sill continues to inflate.
IMO reported today that the erupted volume is more than 40 million cubic meters, and the lava field is already the largest one yet in this 2023-2024. The eruption continues, with vog in some areas, and the sill continues to inflate.
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- #464
Iceland Review just posted what one commenter accurately calls the coolest update on the Web:
- Thread starter
- #465
No significant changes in the eruption, per IMO today, and the sill continues to inflate (though at a lower rate than before the eruption, they say).
However, lava is overtopping the Sylingafell barrier and they're going to use water to try and stop it, per RUV (autotranslated):
That video only works on the original page.
Heimaey was where they saved their harbor from lava by spraying seawater on it:
The barrier threatened is across the road, not adjacent to the plant/Lagoon complex. However, once the berm is topped broadly enough, lava has a clear route over to those plus it provides a route for more lava to come in.
Something I read in another story days ago and didn't understand comes back to me -- I think the idea is to cool the lava into such a shape that it curves outward, essentially making it a barrier.
Wow. Unfortunately this is a little ways inland (about three miles, I think) and there are no nearby rivers. Those fire department water trucks will be busy.
However, lava is overtopping the Sylingafell barrier and they're going to use water to try and stop it, per RUV (autotranslated):
Resort to lava cooling for the first time since the Heimaeyjar eruption
Lava is likely to pour over a dike not far from Svartsengi. The fire department expects to contain the spread by spraying it with water. There seems to be no danger to travel and the lava is moving slowly.
Grétar Þór Sigurðsson and Alma Ómarsdóttir
June 18, 2024 at 18:00 GMT,updated at 19:19
Firefighters prepare to spray on the lava.
RÚV – Guðmundur Bergkvist
Lava is about to pour over the defense wall at Sýlingarfell.
Attempts are being made to contain the lava with work machines. The fire brigade expects to spray on the lava and apply cooling for the first time since the Vestmannaeyja eruption...
That video only works on the original page.
Heimaey was where they saved their harbor from lava by spraying seawater on it:
The barrier threatened is across the road, not adjacent to the plant/Lagoon complex. However, once the berm is topped broadly enough, lava has a clear route over to those plus it provides a route for more lava to come in.
Something I read in another story days ago and didn't understand comes back to me -- I think the idea is to cool the lava into such a shape that it curves outward, essentially making it a barrier.
Wow. Unfortunately this is a little ways inland (about three miles, I think) and there are no nearby rivers. Those fire department water trucks will be busy.
- Thread starter
- #466
Update: They're just starting now (10 pm local time -- but midnight sun); video works in the original report.
Autotranslated:
Y'know, after following all this since last November I understand a little better now why Vikings were so successful back in the day and why everyone within longboat distance either paid tribute or had a big defense budget.
Autotranslated:
Lava cooling has begun
Lava cooling has been started in order to prevent lava from flowing over the dike at Sýlingarfell. This is the first time since the Vestmannaeyjaja eruption that the method has been used.
Rebekka Líf Ingadóttir
June 18, 2024 at 22:10 GMT
– RÚV - Guðmundur Bergkvist
Lava cooling has been started in order to prevent lava from flowing over the dike at Sýlingarfell.
When lava started pouring over the garden, a number of work machines arrived at the site to contain the lava, but in the afternoon it was decided to apply cooling,...
Y'know, after following all this since last November I understand a little better now why Vikings were so successful back in the day and why everyone within longboat distance either paid tribute or had a big defense budget.
- Thread starter
- #467
- Thread starter
- #468
Correction: No I didn't-- that's the power plant, without view of the work site. See this post for correct cam.
The weather is wet and foggy, but I managed to get a screenshot of the site from the mbl.is Svartsengi plant cam (orientation: facing ~north, on Thorbjorn; power plant/Blue Lagoon on left; lava on right, with plumes rising from the work site; eruption crater -- and, I think, Sylingafell hill -- off camera to farther right):
Cam is frequently clouded in, but the site sometimes is visible:
Cam is frequently clouded in, but the site sometimes is visible:
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- Thread starter
- #469
They've stopped, per RUV (autotranslated). The impromptu barrier raising worked but not the water cooling, though those results are still being evaluated.
- Thread starter
- #470
Mbl.is has a nice graphic in their article (autotranslated) on the cooling attempt. It shows where everything is. Blaa Lonid is the Blue Lagoon, right next to the power plant, and Hraunpollur is the ponded lava that surged.
They're interviewing Magnus Tumi in the article.
So that cam view earlier is more NNE.
The barrier is close to the pond and got the surge at almost full height.
The overtopping, by all accounts, is stopped for now, but another pond draining can't be ruled out, per IMO sources in other articles.
I wondered about the cooling capabity of the Svartsengi aquifer, which also must supply continuous daily hot water and drinking water for more than thirty thousand people.
Heimaey's cooling work was successful but the video shows just how much equipment was needed -- plus the need for basically unlimited amounts of cold water on such a heat source in order to harden even just the edge of a flow.
Plus there's subsidence to think about -- the superficial kind that happens when you take water out of an aquifer (the inflating/deflating sill is much deeper and what we're about just goes along for that ride). Don't know if any are active now, but De Freitas in my source list notes that plant operators did have to do some reinjection in the past.
To withdraw the amount needed to harden a lava flow might possibly defeat the purpose by simultaneously lowering the barrier, perhaps?
I think Iceland's lava barriers are engineering wonders both for sturdiness and the speed of construction. The work example will help many people worldwide, though Icelanders have the advantages of lots of building material just lying around AND lots of wide open spaces.
Elsewhere, a major problem with lava diversion is where to send the lava. They saved a town during a major flank flow on Etna in the 1990s --
-- but the lava could be diverted to another, uninhabited flow field. Yet still, nearby communities fought the efforts (it took some trial and error) tooth and nail.
Iceland doesn't have that problem in this current series but they can't avoid the issue of flow over flow over flow, eventually getting higher than any wall you can build.
The effort has been and continues to be magnificent, but who could have expected this to continue for so long?
This 2023-2024 episode has been compared to the Krafla Fires of 1975-84, but over those years Krafla had only nine eruptions out of twenty-one underground magma flows, according to Gudmundsson (1995) on the list, and AFAIK there never was inflation during an eruption.
You can only draw limited comparisons between Fires in Iceland, apparently.
Work on barrier raising continues and we'll just have to see what happens next. Haraldur and Thorvaldur are on record as saying that this eruption series will end over summer, while Armann's reading of the omens tells him that activity will jump a few miles southwest of Svartsengi into the much less populated Eldvorp area (which probably puts a damper on supporters of the idea of moving the lava-covered Grindavik-Reykjavik road segment west of the plant).
If I understand my reading correctly, the geologic record, such as it is here, shows that peninsula eruptions switch sites every few decades. Unfortunately, most older formations that would shed light on how these ~800-year cycles start up -- the current situation -- are buried underneath flows of subsequent events over the 100-plus-year-long "on" cycle.
IMO can only collect and interpret data, and they are very careful to keep all options open in their updates and interviews.
They're interviewing Magnus Tumi in the article.
...
"It's on a small scale," he says of the lava cooling. "Compared to what was done in Vestmannaeyjar, this is tiny so far."
Lava flows through a puddle south of Sýlingarfell. Map/mbl.is
So that cam view earlier is more NNE.
The barrier is close to the pond and got the surge at almost full height.
The overtopping, by all accounts, is stopped for now, but another pond draining can't be ruled out, per IMO sources in other articles.
I wondered about the cooling capabity of the Svartsengi aquifer, which also must supply continuous daily hot water and drinking water for more than thirty thousand people.
Heimaey's cooling work was successful but the video shows just how much equipment was needed -- plus the need for basically unlimited amounts of cold water on such a heat source in order to harden even just the edge of a flow.
Plus there's subsidence to think about -- the superficial kind that happens when you take water out of an aquifer (the inflating/deflating sill is much deeper and what we're about just goes along for that ride). Don't know if any are active now, but De Freitas in my source list notes that plant operators did have to do some reinjection in the past.
To withdraw the amount needed to harden a lava flow might possibly defeat the purpose by simultaneously lowering the barrier, perhaps?
I think Iceland's lava barriers are engineering wonders both for sturdiness and the speed of construction. The work example will help many people worldwide, though Icelanders have the advantages of lots of building material just lying around AND lots of wide open spaces.
Elsewhere, a major problem with lava diversion is where to send the lava. They saved a town during a major flank flow on Etna in the 1990s --
-- but the lava could be diverted to another, uninhabited flow field. Yet still, nearby communities fought the efforts (it took some trial and error) tooth and nail.
Iceland doesn't have that problem in this current series but they can't avoid the issue of flow over flow over flow, eventually getting higher than any wall you can build.
The effort has been and continues to be magnificent, but who could have expected this to continue for so long?
This 2023-2024 episode has been compared to the Krafla Fires of 1975-84, but over those years Krafla had only nine eruptions out of twenty-one underground magma flows, according to Gudmundsson (1995) on the list, and AFAIK there never was inflation during an eruption.
You can only draw limited comparisons between Fires in Iceland, apparently.
Work on barrier raising continues and we'll just have to see what happens next. Haraldur and Thorvaldur are on record as saying that this eruption series will end over summer, while Armann's reading of the omens tells him that activity will jump a few miles southwest of Svartsengi into the much less populated Eldvorp area (which probably puts a damper on supporters of the idea of moving the lava-covered Grindavik-Reykjavik road segment west of the plant).
If I understand my reading correctly, the geologic record, such as it is here, shows that peninsula eruptions switch sites every few decades. Unfortunately, most older formations that would shed light on how these ~800-year cycles start up -- the current situation -- are buried underneath flows of subsequent events over the 100-plus-year-long "on" cycle.
IMO can only collect and interpret data, and they are very careful to keep all options open in their updates and interviews.
- Thread starter
- #471
Correction: See this post -- the cam image below is on the power plant!
Just for the record -- a clearer screenshot of the work site in late afternoon, though water spraying reportedly (autotranslated) was stopped this morning.
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- #472
Geonerd alert! Don't know if anyone else will be excited, but you know that paper mentioned a post or so ago (Gudmundsson, 1995)? Well, he's on YouTube! Here is an overview of the situation that Dr. A. Gudmundsson posted yesterday:
Magnus Tumi is Dr. Gudmundsson, too, and also a well-cited author, but I don't know if they're related. Patronymics are (is?) confusing.
Anyway, this video cleared things up quite a bit for me. It's public outreach but is a little technical -- lots of cool stuff in it, too, especially the way he uses images of fossil systems -- extinct volcanic systems, usually in eastern Iceland, that have been sliced open by passing glaciers -- to show what the deep layers under Svartsengi and vicinity probably look like.
Among other things, I finally understand the fissures and faults better now, as well as why a central volcano/magma chamber is unlikely to form here. And he goes into Reykjavik/Keflavik Airport vulnerability in detail.
This, from someone who is easily intimidated by a hodograph...
Magnus Tumi is Dr. Gudmundsson, too, and also a well-cited author, but I don't know if they're related. Patronymics are (is?) confusing.
Anyway, this video cleared things up quite a bit for me. It's public outreach but is a little technical -- lots of cool stuff in it, too, especially the way he uses images of fossil systems -- extinct volcanic systems, usually in eastern Iceland, that have been sliced open by passing glaciers -- to show what the deep layers under Svartsengi and vicinity probably look like.
Among other things, I finally understand the fissures and faults better now, as well as why a central volcano/magma chamber is unlikely to form here. And he goes into Reykjavik/Keflavik Airport vulnerability in detail.
This, from someone who is easily intimidated by a hodograph...
- Thread starter
- #473
Again! -- This time at Grindavik and, fortunately, a small amount reportedly (autotranslated with some difficulties).
Edit: Mbl.is reports (autotranslated) that the overtopping is at the Svartsengi barrier, same place. Granted, Svartsengi is "not far from Grindavik" but it's an odd way to put it; from the mbl.is article and the apparent location of equipment at the same place, it must be that troubled segment of the power plant barrier again.
This time it sounds like they're experimenting with the water and doing the actual work with heavy machinery:
Edit: Mbl.is reports (autotranslated) that the overtopping is at the Svartsengi barrier, same place. Granted, Svartsengi is "not far from Grindavik" but it's an odd way to put it; from the mbl.is article and the apparent location of equipment at the same place, it must be that troubled segment of the power plant barrier again.
This time it sounds like they're experimenting with the water and doing the actual work with heavy machinery:
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- Thread starter
- #474
I'll be more careful -- sorry!
- Thread starter
- #475
Finally, a clear sunny day. Just looked through the cam and noticed that what had looked to me like water vapor rising from water-barraged lava was actually the power plant plume. Derp.
I had checked the other cams, too, but they were fogged in. This time, I've got the right one:
But I'm not sure what's happening with the eruption. From the mbl.is Hagafell cam the crater looks dark (I can't judge the flow field in that light).
Per mbl.is (autotranslated), lava is flowing, mostly toward Svartsengi but with some flow eastward. Although I've seen nothing in the news or at the IMO website, have to wonder if the pond drained again -- I doubt it, simply because they wouldn't put all those people and that equipment in a surge's path.
More likely, the eruption is at low level of activity -- which it does do at times -- and the pond is still there (and reportedly could drain again at any moment, which in current circumstances would likely flow over the existing lava overtop layer and into the plant/Lagoon complex).
And there don't seem to be many other defensive moves possible according to this story (autotranslated).
Update: Per RUV (autotranslated), they're going to build a rampart inside the barrier, and from the looks of the current cam view, it might already be underway unless that"s just a holding action.
I had checked the other cams, too, but they were fogged in. This time, I've got the right one:
But I'm not sure what's happening with the eruption. From the mbl.is Hagafell cam the crater looks dark (I can't judge the flow field in that light).
Per mbl.is (autotranslated), lava is flowing, mostly toward Svartsengi but with some flow eastward. Although I've seen nothing in the news or at the IMO website, have to wonder if the pond drained again -- I doubt it, simply because they wouldn't put all those people and that equipment in a surge's path.
More likely, the eruption is at low level of activity -- which it does do at times -- and the pond is still there (and reportedly could drain again at any moment, which in current circumstances would likely flow over the existing lava overtop layer and into the plant/Lagoon complex).
And there don't seem to be many other defensive moves possible according to this story (autotranslated).
Update: Per RUV (autotranslated), they're going to build a rampart inside the barrier, and from the looks of the current cam view, it might already be underway unless that"s just a holding action.
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- Thread starter
- #476
That looks like trouble at the moment.
- Thread starter
- #477
Thoughts on the barrier: I hope the new one works, but this is starting to look more like the setup in the failed attempt up at Fagradalsfjall (in 2022, perhaps,, but I'm not sure).
It's hilly country, and the lava was coming down a fairly narrow valley. They dammed the valley to protect a road and it worked -- briefly. Then the lava overtopped it (but never made it to the road).
Diversion works when there's room for the lava to go elsewhere but nothing will contain flowing lava as long as the source keeps feeding it.
Sometimes you have to go after the flow's source (not the erupting vent because volcanoes are unstoppable earth processes).
What finally worked at Etna in the 90s wasn't that barrier the US Army was working on in the video earlier, but blowing open the lava tubes that fed the flow threatening Zafferana. It, again, took some trial and error in terms of getting the charges placed correctly, but it worked. Boom! and the flow went sideways down a gully and out onto an old flow field.
The geometry of this Iceland site is far different, but their best bet in terms of reducing the biggest threat is to drain the lava pond before it drains itself again -- how they could do that, I do not know.
It raises a bunch of questions, situated as the pond is between Sylingafell and Grindavik, in the middle of a fresh lava field that no one can cross to plant charges along the dam.
I don't imagine Icelanders would be any more thrilled about aerial bombardment than Hawaiians were when George Patton tried that once -- just once -- to divert a Mauna Loa flow headed toward Hilo (he and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory claimed it worked but some sources point out that the eruption was almost over anyway).
And where would you send the resulting surge without flooding other important stuff either in the short or longer term?
It's hilly country, and the lava was coming down a fairly narrow valley. They dammed the valley to protect a road and it worked -- briefly. Then the lava overtopped it (but never made it to the road).
Diversion works when there's room for the lava to go elsewhere but nothing will contain flowing lava as long as the source keeps feeding it.
Sometimes you have to go after the flow's source (not the erupting vent because volcanoes are unstoppable earth processes).
What finally worked at Etna in the 90s wasn't that barrier the US Army was working on in the video earlier, but blowing open the lava tubes that fed the flow threatening Zafferana. It, again, took some trial and error in terms of getting the charges placed correctly, but it worked. Boom! and the flow went sideways down a gully and out onto an old flow field.
The geometry of this Iceland site is far different, but their best bet in terms of reducing the biggest threat is to drain the lava pond before it drains itself again -- how they could do that, I do not know.
It raises a bunch of questions, situated as the pond is between Sylingafell and Grindavik, in the middle of a fresh lava field that no one can cross to plant charges along the dam.
I don't imagine Icelanders would be any more thrilled about aerial bombardment than Hawaiians were when George Patton tried that once -- just once -- to divert a Mauna Loa flow headed toward Hilo (he and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory claimed it worked but some sources point out that the eruption was almost over anyway).
And where would you send the resulting surge without flooding other important stuff either in the short or longer term?
- Thread starter
- #478
Well, this update (autotranslated) from IMO about five hours ago is good news!
I got a screenshot a little while ago, too -- they're spraying water again upper right).
Declining activity in the crater
Hrauntungur flows over a dike north of Sýlingarfell
21.6.2024
Updated June 21 at 14:55
In pictures taken this morning during a drone flight by the Civil Defense, it can be seen that the activity in the crater is decreasing. Lava flow from the crater is not visible on the surface, but may be in closed channels from it. However, there is still flow in the lava tubes that crossed the dike north of Sýlingarfell yesterday. A picture from the Public Safety's web camera at Sýlingarfell shows the three lava tubes flowing over the park and machines working to contain the lava flow. The most active is in the lava tongue furthest to the west, which has moved forward by several meters and thickened in the last few hours. Gosórói is also decreasing and this is clearly visible on the seismometer of the Norwegian Meteorological Agency in Grindavík, as the attached graph shows.
Declining activity in the crater and a decrease in volcanic activity suggest that this eruption may end in the near future, but there is uncertainty as to exactly when. GPS measurements still show land in the Svartsengis area. It is an indication that pressure in the magma accumulation zone under Svartsengi continues to build, although the speed of the land giant is lower than before.
Photo of the crater taken around 9:30 this morning during the Civil Defense drone flight over the eruption centers. Photo: Almanvarni
Hrauntungun, which flow over a dike north of Sýlingarfell and work to contain the lava flow. Photo: Civil Defence
Noise measurements on the VÍ seismometer in Grindavík from the beginning of the eruption on May 29 to June 21. They show that the volcanic unrest has decreased in the last few days.
I got a screenshot a little while ago, too -- they're spraying water again upper right).
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- #479
There is a reason why that one is still going, per RUV (autotranslated):
Whatever they pay those people, it's not enough.
...Fréttastofa spoke to Hörn Hrafnsdóttir, an engineer at Verkís, during lunch, where water was being sprayed for cooling on one of the three lava tubes, a total of about 9,500 liters per minute.
She said that everything was going brilliantly, at least according to the state of affairs yesterday.
"There was a bit of stress going on then."
Work crews pushed up a dike inside the old gardens to slow the progress of the lava. At the top of the picture, lava is being cooled with water.RÚV / Ragnar Visage
The second two reins have now been closed and it is time to move the injection device to the next tongue and try to cool it there.
"However, it is much more difficult to cool there because there we have a flow from under the lava. So it will be more of an experiment to see how it goes."
Whatever they pay those people, it's not enough.
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- #480
