Irpsit, watching Bardarbunga

August 16, 2014 at 14:18


Don’t think anything will happen today. That’s my gut.

But I think this is the run-up towards an eruption sometime in soon, could be this week, this month, this year or next few years at latest. Or maybe this is already a minor eruption taking place under the thick ice. It wouldn’t be the first time we wouldn’t be sure, and that it is actually taken place already under Vatnajokull.

Trouble is we do not know very well how Bardarbunga behaves, and even the well known Grimsvotn seems to surprise us too.

Well, the run-ups in different volcanoes are very different. Compare 3 or 4 quakes in Hekla leading to its eruption in 2000 (a quite silent sneaky volcano), with a similar situation to today’s when Fimmvorduhals-Eyjafjallajokull was about to erupt ( [link to www.mbl.is] (but remember the first eruption was a tiny fissure at VEI1), to several green stars for the 2011 VEI4 eruption of Grimsvotn, a swarm of quakes that came out of the blue ( [link to thetruthbehindthescenes.files.wordpress.com] and to a similar situation in Katla (several green stars), but in the context of continuous swarms over time, and no eruption took place ( [link to modernsurvivalblog.com]

A VEI1 to VEI2 could already be occuring under the ice. Or maybe this is the prelude to a larger eruption in soon.

If the eruption is a VEI1 or even a minor VEI2, then it could be remain hidden under the ice. And even melted water could only flood some weeks later. So we would never suspect an eruption, like it happen with Katla and Hamarinn in July 2011.
[link to volcanocafe.wordpress.com]