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Staðuvatn at Grindavík has doubled in area
In the Facebook post of the Southern Volcanoes and Natural Hazards Group, there is a graphical representation of major land changes at Grindavík, where ponds and lakes have expanded.
It says that the lake at the southwest corner of the town, at a place sometimes called Vatnsstæði, has almost doubled in area. The locals have never seen such large floating areas there.
This is due to a landslide [suspect mistranslation, ? deformation] that has occurred following a magma intrusion under the town. The land under the lake is on the southern edge of the area that has sunk the most, about a meter.
A geology professor's take on that and other information:"Everyone has to leave Grindavík
For safety reasons, Grindavík is being evacuated after the Met Office's gas meters showed an increased SO2 value. This is not an emergency evacuation and the town will be evacuated in an orderly manner."
More than 1,600 earthquakes have been recorded since midnight in the area surrounding the Sundhnúka crater series, and the most at the northern end of Grindavík and at Hagafell.
This is what Bjarki Kaldalóns Friis, a natural hazard expert at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, says in an interview with mbl.is.
Most of the quakes are at a depth of 4-5 kilometers, like the last few days, and Bjarki says that relatively little has changed since yesterday.
- There is strong wind on Reykjanes peninsula. That normally hides some of the smaller earthquakes happening. Icelandic Met Office continues to record 700 to 3000 earthquakes each day. Most of them are along the dyke and most of them are in the magnitude range of Mw0,0 to Mw3,1. With the stronger ones happening least often.
- Inflow of the magma into the dyke is at the writing of this article around 73 m3/s to 75 m3/s. On Friday 10. November that inflow was 1000 m3/s.
Parts of Grindavík town has lost power, hot and cold water because of sinking of the ground and movements. Emergency repair is going to be attempted tomorrow if it is safe.
Eruption likely in the next few days
Kristín Jónsdóttir, head of the volcanic activity department at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, believes that the most likely scenario is that an eruption will begin in the next few days. However, the situation of earthquakes is similar to the last day.
"We are seeing seismic activity in the magma tunnel. We think it is most likely to have an eruption. We are seeing signs that indicate that the magma has reached a depth of several hundred meters," says Kristín. Therefore, there are more chances than less that an eruption will start.
The most likely location of the fountain is in the middle of the corridor. "There is of course the entire magma tunnel underneath, but we are seeing the most activity in the middle of the tunnel. So that's the most likely place, but it's just west of Hagafell," she says...
Geophysicist Páll Einarsson says it is difficult to assess the future of the Reykjanes Peninsula. All possibilities are still open and it is unclear which possibility will be on top, whether there will be an eruption or not.
Earthquakes on the Reykjanes Peninsula have been frequent over the past three years. Five times, corridors have set off from the magma chamber with the accompanying earthquake, but only three of them have reached the surface, according to Pál. The fifth is still unclear.