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Statement to all serious posters of this thread: In my view things are escalating fast in Bardarbunga region, so i decide that now on this thread will be ONLY to a serious following/discussion on this events. This is not the space to crazy theory discussions or even off topics of any type. If you want to do it, please open another thread... Thank you for your support, Luisport. Jón Frímann says: November 23, 2014 at 14:11 Ruv News is reporting that Icelandic Met Office installed a Accelerometer on top of Barðarbunga volcano, in the same area as the GPS station is. They have been getting data for one week now. This suggests that magma is now only on 1 – 3 km depth, rather than 5 – 8 km depth as they thought earlier. This means that Barðarbunga volcano can start erupting under the glacier without any warning at all given current earthquake activity.News in Icelandic. [ link to www.ruv.is] The type of sensor used on top of Barðarbunga volcano. [ link to en.wikipedia.org]
IngeB says: November 3, 2014 at 11:17 In the RuV emission [ link to ruv.is] , they summarize the eruption up to now. It is a very big eruption, but still the quantity of lava produced during the Skaftareldar eruption (Laki) was 14x the one of Holuhraun. But also acc. to professor Magnus Tumi Guðmundsson, this is the biggest eruption since then. Measured in DRE, it is about 5-6 x the quantity of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Acc. to more accurate measurements of the lava quantity, the expert says, that it is rather difficult to do that, because of 1) the big surface covered by the lavas, 2) the gas emissions hindering scientists to approach it with instruments and 3) the often impaired visibility. [I think, here, Magnus Tumi also means the weather conditions, snow storms etc.] Re. the connection between Barðarbunga and Holuhraun, the subsidence measures now about 40m x 70 km2, which is less than the calculated magma quantity within the intrusion + the erupted magma quantity. The most probable explanation for the subsidence is though a connection between the subsidence and the eruption in Holuhraun. There is still the possibility of an eruption within the caldera, which would cause a big jökulhlaup and a big quantity of tephra output, it is necessary to be prepared for something like that, says Magnus Tumi.
Luis, This article is extremely important...everyone needs to read it as this event has indeed gone Global! This following quote is very important concerning the toxic gases being emitted by the fissure event: "This problem will only get worse with time and it is unlikely that the eruption will grow in force and start kicking the gas to a higher altitude."
from VC: Napdull October 30, 2014 at 15:06
I’ve got a formula that forecasts the collapse of the caldera floor
Y = depth meters X = days
Y = 5 x sqrt(X + 22.5625) – 23.75
Forecast drop dates are
Drop from Drop Total
GPS graph start date days
0 22 2014-09-12 0.0
5 27 2014-09-22 10.5
10 32 2014-10-05 23.0
15 37 2014-10-19 37.5
20 42 2014-11-05 54.0
25 47 2014-11-23 72.5
30 52 2014-12-14 93.0
35 57 2015-01-05 115.5
40 62 2015-01-30 140.0
45 67 2015-02-25 166.5
50 72 2015-03-26 195.0
Sent some coordinates to my son at Oxford and he gave me the formula. Something tells me it’ll have long blown before we get to the 26th March 2015. If the Holurhaun eruption stops then any magma support for the floor goes and that could accelerate the collapse.
Quoting: Luisport
I think some people here are shoked with my option of posting what i post and choose this title now... i don't want to spread fear and i just hope i'm wrong... people from more exposed countries should at least think on some preparation plan... I'm sorry... i love you all!  I read this on jon´s site: “According to latests news on Ruv this is now the largest lava eruption since 19th century in Icelandnice try148;. It´s big already.
Quoting: Luisport
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 33443944
Irpsit August 26, 2014 at 20:20
I am really going to buy two gas masks. Seriously.
What you will read below is my most doom moment ever in this blog, and I have reasons for it.
It’s not the fissure that worries, not even it it’s a large event, or if the dike reaches Askja, but what it really worries me, is Bardarbunga caldera.
I reckon that a few more M5,8-M6 quakes, along with more draining of magma from within the caldera, and I think the caldera will start to collapse. That’s a powerful beating to the caldera, which by the way has not gone caldera for millenia.
We are already seeing extensive ring faulting, and quite large quakes. Total seismic energy release there has been already equivalent to a M6. About 25% of the threshold of what I think is necessary to pop the lid out, according to mine and Geolurking’s guessestimates. We could of course be wrong.
So, what to expect if it really goes caldera?
– A powerful VEI6 eruption, about 10+ km3 tephera (that’s several times more than Askja, Oraefajokull or the large eruptions of Hekla)
– Ash deposited all across Iceland. At least 1cm everywhere, and perhaps deposits many cms thick. Think 20cm or more. Icelanders migrating on emergency to Reykjavik. Farm sector of Iceland becomes impossible. Tourism too. Iceland suffers major economic losses, and it will be a stress daily life, dealing with so much ash. Many will just travel away. Because for many life in certain parts of Iceland will be impossible.
– Ash deposited in Scotland and Norway of a few mm. European disruption of airlines is massive.
nice try150; Worldwide disruption of climate. Severe cold winters. Cold summers. Large economic losses, and further social unrest, but overall it’s not the end of our western way of living, just a severe setback in some things.
nice try150; Definitively panic would appear because of airline disruption.
So this is not end of the world, but a nasty scenario. Especially for me. Trouble is we are getting within a reasonable percentage of likelihood for that. It’s not a far fetched scenario anymore. It is possible at the moment. And it’s progressing towards it. Albeit we do not know how much energy is required for that.
Quoting: Luisport
 [link to eps.mcgill.ca] off98%20and%20Gudmundsson,%202000.pdf Irpsit August 24, 2014 at 12:09
Seriously I don’t want to think about the possibility of magma hitting the caldera of Askja at the same time as Bardarbunga caldera shakes with M5s and a 40km fissure opens in between.
This is developing too quickly in one of the worst case scenario. And while I don’t wish to cause panic around (after all this is a public debate) we need to ponder about the possibility of such a scenario, how likely it is to develop, and what consequences it would have. But obviously we are entering a set of scenarios of which we know little about.
What would happen at the very worst? Two caldera eruptions, and a large rifting in between. That’s a VEI6 event, probably in the order of 10+ km3 released material, in form of lava and tephra. Not pleasant to have Iceland covered with cms of ash, and also much gas killing many sheep. And also a few mms over the British Isles or Scandinavia. One just has to look back in Iceland’s history to see how often such scenarios occurred.
So far cumulative seismic release does not point for a larger fissure. So that’s assuring. But the fissure is quickly propagating towards Askja and the conduit is already open at both Askja and between Bardarbunga caldera and the tip of the dike, currently outside of the ice cap.And worryingly the B caldera is showing large signs of strain, all around it.
Quoting: Luisport Irpsit August 24, 2014 at 18:53
GPS at DYNC shows 19cm west movement, and a reversal of the 5cm north movement, now it already moved 1cm south, this is because the dike is moving northwards.
Grimsvotn still continues at 8cm southwards.
I estimated around 35-40cm of rifting. That’s almost half a meter, and about 1/4th of a normal fissure eruption.
This means at this rate the eruption will likely happen around 1 month after the start of the rifting event. This is around 16th September. If it continues for a few months, then we will be into a Laki or Veidivotn-like scenario. If it erupts by September then it would be similar of the scale of 1862 rifting event, or slightly larger than Krafla fires.
There is a possibility that it erupts earlier, in smaller scale, when the dike reaches about 60km, as it loses intensity. Or otherwise it triggers an eruption at Askja. Or it continues for a longer time, and it triggers a caldera event at Bardarbunga.
At this point, everything is possible, all options are on the table.
Quoting: Luisport
Irpsit August 24, 2014 at 11:25
Three outstanding facts are clear:
nice try150; ring faulting around Bardarbunga caldera: not good
nice try150; dike fissure is now 40km long, and already reaching out of the glacier.
– It is already inside Askja fissure swarm, and this rate it reaches the caldera within 4 days: also not good
Fourth thing, also not very good: a few quakes show up at Edlgja. I am not sure about this, these have been showing up on and off the last few days (even before the Bardarbunga event). [link to volcanocafe.wordpress.com] Quoting: Luisport  Irpsit August 24, 2014 at 18:44
Fabulous article to read, that puts things into context and can give us a window of what it to come
[link to eps.mcgill.ca] off98%20and%20Gudmundsson,%202000.pdf
Basically, at a hotspot peak every 140 years, activity rises at Vatnajokull and there is at least one episode of rifting in Vatnajokull, one episode of rifting elsewhere in Iceland, and also seismic crises at same time in south Iceland transform zone. Sometimes the rifting occurs without eruptions too. Itnice try146;s like every 140 years, rifting occurs in most of Iceland for a few years or decades and then things go relatively quiet for about 50 to 80 years.
This peak is just around now. And this why we see this.
Reply
Irpsit August 24, 2014 at 18:46
Link does not post well. Paper is “Eight centuries of periodic volcanism at the center of the Iceland hotspot revealed by glacier tephrostratigraphy” by Gudrun Larsen Quoting: Luisport
Dave McGarvie @subglacial · 15 seg
#Barðarbunga. Earlier pic for new followers. Red line is fissure currently covered by ice, yellow is flood paths. [link to twitter.com (secure)] RUV video from a flight above the glacier, showing cracks and ashy gaps in the ice: [ link to www.ruv.is] According to Jon Frimann the video was made yesterday, 22 august. The eastern dike swarm extended almost 5km last night, it’s now probably about 30-35 kilometers in length.
For future memory... Carl August 23, 2014 at 11:32
And the fissure is opening up now rapidly.
We currently have a fissure open from 20 to 2.5km, that would make magma rise straight up from the mantle to the top. Probably intense decompression melt driving what we are seeing now. It looks like the eruption will occur 13km due east of Kistufell. This means that this is not a normal fissure eruption that will take the magma out of the central volcano, instead the main bulk would come up directly from the mantle.
The fissure seems to be narrow enough in extension to follow in line with Irpsits idea above.
I expect that the first part will be explosive since it would contain evolved Bardarbunga magma, but that it in a few hours would go down into a far less explosive stage as pristine mantle derived magma comes into play.
Also, the Glacier is not particularly thick there so expect it to pop up rather fast.
Caveat, I do not yet know 100 percent that it will blow at this stage.
Quoting: Luisport
Earthquake swarm started last night at Bardarbunga.
[link to en.vedur.is] Quoting: MessengerInTheLastDays Irpsit
August 18, 2014 at 19:57
Important update.
I can now tell you, at this level of activity, we still need to wait several weeks until we see a proper sized eruption. Unless a string of M5 quakes hits, then an eruption would just be hours away, if that number of M5 quakes is near 10 (or same equivalent cumulative seismic energy), or one M6 event or near that.
Why is this?
The GPS stations at both sides of the intrusion taking place at Bardarbunga show a lateral displacement of around 2cm per day (1cm/day in both directions).
During the last rifting event at Bardarbunga, the rifting displacement was around 1.5 meters (150cm) as the fissure opened, over some 15km. Let’s say we expect an event about half of it. To be on the conservative side. And 7km is just the same as Gjalp.
At this rate, we will need 35 days, to see a displacement of 75cm as the rift opens.
Total energy combined is probably equivalent to a M5. Until yesterday I calculated total energy to be about M4.5. Today it nears M5 (total cummulative seismic energy). That equates to a displacement of a few cms, which is what is actually taken place. Which is too little!
One M6 equates to a displacement of 50cm, so it is near what it is necessary to see such a fissure ripping apart of sufficient lenght; or a string of 10 quakes at M5.
Thus until this moment, only about 1/10th of the threshold energy has been released.
So this gives 10 times longer time, until we see an eruption of the type I assumed, if the current level of activity keeps.
But a few M5 quakes would quickly speed the process, to only a few days necessary.
So I predict to see either more 9 times of intrusions with the same sort of intensity (if such activity would now stop nice try150; which seems to be unlikely at the moment), or this intrusion continues for more 35 days (until mid September), or the energy increases until the level of several M5 or one M6 event (whitards current level of increasing activity is just a few days ahead). If this intrusion continues for some more days but then dies down, then we would still need another one or few repeats of same intensity, until a fissure event.
Consider this the threshold.
Now, you know when to expect the start of the eruption.
Simple maths.
Irpsit
August 18, 2014 at 20:01
Quakes are also not updated correctly. Besides the M4.5 event in 2:37, there was two quakes around M3.5 at 10:44 and 15:07. The list is just a mess, these two quakes should be revised.
Quoting: Luisport I'm back! Thank you so much everyone for for take this thread as yours!!! We Love you Luis, please keep us up to date. 'll help too! As long as I don't fall back asleep. The weather is awful, we went from Summer to late Fall in the blink of an eye. That's relevant since all the weather systems we get are born East of Iceland and arrive here after dumping half of their contents over Norway, Sweden and the Baltic States. There's a whole Meteorological Science determining where the airmass above your heads has originated from and how it had traveled. Here are the usual tracks. You can use them to see how a caldera eruption will affect you all in Europe :) [ link to en.wikipedia.org] PS! Luis, can you please add this link and the Ash + Dust Eumetsat Near RealTime Image links to your Original First Post please? It would help people a lot! GPS time series around Barðabunga, including recently installed continuous GPS station GSIG in Kverkfjöll [link to earthice.hi.is] Quoting: Luisport Quoting: Anonymous Coward 62759179
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 62759179 Because of it’s constantly increasing size it was becoming difficult to re-locate information web links on the forum. I combined many of them plus links I had found and made a PDF. I uploaded it to Drop Box and it can be downloaded at this Link: [ link to www.dropbox.com (secure)] I hope this small effort helps with your outstanding project. Please let me know if you would like to see any corrections or additions. I am still adding to the file so will let you know when it is updated. Bettie BVB Great. Cow may add it to her site too. Like most people I semi-remember I saw something I should have bookmarked but didn't. Then, trying to back-track and relocate the information can be an exercise in frustration. I discovered it is fairly easy to update information in Dropbox without changing the link so additions should be easy.
Quoting: bvb |
