Colours of wonder. Image taken by Lisabet, March 23
The eruption is now some 10 days old. In some ways it has progressed as expected. The row of cones has focussed on one spot, although surprisingly it produced a twin (after exterminating the minor third). The lava is filling the valley but has not found an escape so remains well confined. The Icelanders are flocking towards the eruption: with scant regards for safety. The hill side next to the cone is no longer accessible (phew) but otherwise the sightseers get so close that it is at time hard to see what is smoke from the lava and what from the barbeques. I guess it helps not having to bring your own heat. For the people unlucky enough not to live in Iceland, two cameras have been put up with excellent eruption viewing, freely available worldwide. And of course, those showy Icelanders are using the camera to showcase their lives to the world. Their dogs, their clothes, their phones (a bit creepy to see someone on my screen take a photo of me), even their love lives. (Erupt with a kiss?) Yes, this eruption progressed as expected.
But in other ways, this is an eruption with surprises. Where do we start!
First, the location. The Reykjanes peninsula is chocker block full of holocene lava fields. The tip of the peninsula is still utter devastation, from eruptions that happened in the 13th century (weather and overgrazing may have helped preventing much recovery). But there is one area that has avoided all eruptions since the ice age: between the thermal regions of Krysuvik and the blue lagoon. And the lava decided to come to the surface right in the middle of the safe zone. why??
Second, the source of the magma. It is melted mantle material, without much (if any) melted crust. It has come from 15 km down, not instantly (there was a dike involved which provided temporary storage) but fast. It was expected that over 800 years of silence, magma would have collected in the crust, at 5 km depth or a bit more until there was enough to begin a new eruption cycle. Eruptions here happen cyclical, after all, with of order 1000 years between phases. Previous cycles indeed produced more evolved magma, indicating a more shallow origin. But instead, this magma came from much deeper.
Third, the stability. The eruption rate seems to have settled at 6 m3/s. You would expect the rate to decrease as the pressure in the feeding chamber decreases. That is not happening, as far as we know. That makes it very hard to know what will happen next. Is there now an open conduit to the mantle, allowing the magma to rise up at a constant rate? Or is it like a bagpipe, where a reservoir is slowly being squeezed out at a constant rate, which may be different from the rate at which magma is added to the reservoir? The answer to this will only come when we know whether the magma composition is or is not evolving. At the moment, the MgO content is measured at 9%, in two separate measurements 4 days apart. But that was a week ago and we do not yet know whether it has changed since.
Fourth, the volatility. If this sounds in contradiction to the previous point, know that this refers to how much gas there is in the eruption. It is not too bad. The tourists, even those uncomfortably close to the lava, are not keeling over from the fumes. (It is not healthy either, I should add.) Yesterdays’s reports suggest that this is because the mantle magma had been melted before, resolidified, and them remelted. The first melt had allowed some gas to escape. When the earlier melt happened is not known, of course. It may have been last century, or it may have a long time ago. It may even come from the origin as subducted ocean floor, with the first melt happening on the spreading rift in the ocean that preceded the Atlantic.
https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2021/03/29/kvikan_likist_mest_staerri_dyngjunum/
Fifth, what caused the flames seen at various times during the eruption? It very much looked like a candle flame, but what was the fuel? Lava may glow, it does not burn. Options are carbon from the soil, hydrogen from oxidization of iron-hydride, and sulfur burning to sulfate. It is only seen away from the strong fountaining.
How will it continue? The big question is, how long will it last. We will let our readers decide: the choice is yours. To give a useful number, at the current eruption rate, it would take 7 months to get to 0.1 km3, and 6 years to get to 1 km3, so it is related to how large you think this will become.
At some point the lava may spill over into the neighbouring valley. The entrance is out of view for both our cameras. But that is ok as the lava is not yet going there but is still flowing towards the deepest point in the valley, away from the exit. It may be a month before that changes.
The two valleys are called Geldingadalir and Meradalir. As pointed out here, those are horsey names, with the first referring the geldings (castrated) and the second to the mares. Apparently the latter got the better valley, with better grazing. The first valley is no more.
Various videos have been made by our commenters. Here is one from astropgraph99, recommended for those who like their lava fast. I love it.
If you like your lava at leisure, we recommend the timelapse by our Virtual commenter. I love this one too.
And some beautiful images taken by Lisabet, on 23 March.
Poll
The results of the poll are
Most votes went to a 6 month duration, with 29% of the votes. The options 1 month, 1 year and longer than 5 years each scored 20%. 5 years got 10%, and 1 week got 1%. Interesting, the people who expect that it will last more than 1 year, tend to go for more than 5 years. But overall, the opinion is that it will last months to years! We can take 6 months as the VC prediction.
Regrettably, two people had to be removed from the voting list as they voted many more times than once. We did allow for multiple voting, but that was in case people could not make up their mind. Not to submit the same vote 10 times or more. If this is you, consider yourself as having been told off and please take a class in Basics of Democracy – one person, one vote!
And of course, volcanoes will completely ignore our voting anyway. But the last we time we took a vote, Reykjanes came out as a high scorer for the next eruption in Iceland. VC commenters have a good track record!
This coud last many years..
I think we will get a small lava shield
The lava is almost a picrite basalt now at at 1210 C basicaly a hole into the astenosphere. This one of the hottest eruptions ever seen in Iceland with camera and rather unusual for Reykjanes.
Its not feeding from any shallow resovair at all. It will now act as a syringe sucking magma from the decompressing mantle.
I say that this will last perhaps a decade forming a lava shield
as always very informative, it will last for a long time, thanks
Thank you for the update Albert! Very curious to see how this eruption develops.
Voted 1 year.
Gps stopped moving. The source is “deep”. I think the pressure from a larger magmasource (deeper = larger…?) will not reach an equilibrium in a shorter period. Maybe a quake can cause blockage in the dike. But a new path could be made, shifting spots as Hector pointed to in his last article, steady pressure.
The flames are interesting are they, they lasted for about two days I think?
Carbon is a bit unlikely in my view. There could have been some peatlayers in the valley which had no proper rainwater drain. But climate isn’t very good for growing bogs, low temperatures, vegetation season very short in iceland.
Someone knows how thick bogs have growed in Iceland until now?
There was mention of peat bogs, although I haven’t seen ant in Iceland and I don’t know that it is old enough. If there are pockets of methane though, it would burn with an orange flame, as would other hydrocarbons.
If there is enough water in the ground under the lava, they might be mini phreatic eruptions. Any steam before the “flames”?
There was an article on the BBC I think about 3 years ago saying that archaeologists in Iceland found tree stumps under a glacier. It went on to say, Iceland was tree covered 3000 years ago, the climate in Iceland was much warmer then.
If this is correct here may well be wood and other vegetation down there as the valley sedimentary layers get deeper and older.
Found some info.
Bog layers can be as thick as 3 meters. Most are (much?) less though.
Off topic: Inland bogs are surprisingly mineral rich. I would have thought in such rainy climate (overall), mineral content and bogs pH would be low. But constant aerosolic (volcanic origin) deposition of weathered soil and ash/tephra layers are causing a high nutrient degree. Grass and sedge species dominating instead of sphagnum mosses. As in Irish costal blanket bogs.
There is a bit on that in https://www.volcanocafe.org/icelands-secret-heart-hofsjokull-volcano/ The bogs are enriched by the volcanic ash, both from eruptions and from glacier meltwater. The glaciers store quite a bit of ash.
On the subject of flames. The valley was used to keep horses some time ago. How many? Do we know? Horses produce a lot of manure and if confined to a small area this can build up deposits of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. In temperate climates these move through food chains and various chemical pathways. In addition water can move these elements around etc.
Given the usually cold climate the rate of decomposition or assimilation by plants may be very low. In addition I would assume water flow, solifluction would move them in to areas of higher concentration, pools, dips etc. in the landscape or the horse(s) may have been tethered for long periods of time to a stake. Add the extreme heat and this might explain the erupting gases from the lava lake.
A soil database might be available somewhere although this may not have been for this specific site.
Be interesting to know what exactly the lava has cooked.
https://esc.rutgers.edu/fact_sheet/horses-and-manure/
That is an interesting idea. Methane has also been suggested, from decomposing organics.
Only a coincidence that the GPS movement (and tremor) stopped or slowed down in the movement they had before on or around equinox?
http://brunnur.vedur.is/gps/reykjanes.html
Would be interesting to discuss it with a astronomical physician and an expert who is into inertia from moving viscous. Don’t know anyone, maybe you know someone?
No relation. The equinox was half a day after the change, and the change appears due to a rescaling.
Could you confirm your statement with the GPS/tremor data from the last 10 years?
The fly of the earth around the sun isn’t with edges, so I would expect that effects of the equinox begin before the actual equinox and last afterwards as well…you could also ask some time scientist for a better explanation…
There are no effects from the equinox. Nothing changes, nothing peaks.
Albert, you missed your “April, April…” in your comment! 😉
What interesting info and questions in this sub-meander!
As a former palynologist (dissertation on a Surrey lowland heath to establish viability of technique application to podsols), I’m blushing to admit that I cannot recall any pollen/spore analysis info about Iceland.
I will have to remedy that and report back. *gallops away to t’interwebs*
Thanks Albert, very interesting.
I voted “longer”, because I want to be able to visit often and see it develop. I fancy sitting in a bar somewhere, telling people “I watched it start live, you know, 30 years ago on a computer screen, which was the style at the time. That was during the time of the first pandemic…”
Careful, your grandchildren might think you’re hundreds of years old ;). There have been several pandemics over the centuries, including a flu pandemic in 1918/19 that killed large numbers.
Thank you for yet another great article. I am going hiking today to see the show for real this afternoon! I will take lots of pictures. Might take a look in the ruv or mbl.is camera and see if I see any of you VC people looking back at me 😉.
Oooooh you may see my green tinge showing!
Could you possibly take some photos of the lava edge extent from the eastern exit saddle, and the approach path, perhaps from one of the guide posts? Are the posts numbered in any way?
I would like to have the landscape changes documented. I would be so, so grateful. The problem is, most people are volcano hunters, not geographers…
Yes I can do that 🙂
Thank you so much! *does happy Snoopy dance*
Thanks for another great update Albert. I voted in the poll and then immediately forgot which vote I’d cast upon seeing the results – says a lot about how little we actually know. 🙂
According to NASA, Starship SN11 experienced an anomaly at T+05.49 🙁
So I’ve been seeing predictions that the lava will exit the valley to the east (the lowest exit). However, I am not sure that the predictions have taken into account the slope and distance necessary to get the lava to the exit point. It looks like they’re treating the lava as if it were a lake of water, with surface height limited to the lowest exit point.
Given that the cones are erupting lava that flows to the west, and look like they’re banking up against the rise just to their north, I’m thinking that the lava will end up leaving the valley by the southern exit first, unless something springs a leak to the east. (my guess is that the leak would happen on the south side of the cones, leading a flow behind them to the north and then east)
Thoughts?
If I got the numbers right, the south exit is about 30m higher than the east exit. That means lava will will have plenty of opportunity to back up and overflow any ramparts and levees that may have formed by solidified lava. My bet is still on the east exit.
It’s gonna be spectacular! Just look how many height curves the yellow arrow in the picture above crosses. A great waterfall of lava!
There is a level of chance involved where the lava creates its own barriers and routes. But if the lava is deep enough, the bottom stays liquid and acts as the lake. It can flow underneath.
I have been thinking about this for days now. I’m a landscape scientist by (old) degree, and change in the geomorphology anywhere is my meat and drink. I’ll keep with the horse theme.
There are the two main possible exits; the south-western saddle towards Nithaggi (spp) and the eastern, slightly lower saddle to Meradadalir. I would love to know the source of your thirty metre elevation difference, Thomas. I need to find a decent physical map of the area (I should look for one online).
With the mound at its back, the cone complex narrows the space to the other side of the valley. There’s a possibility that cone debris could cause a blockage or pinch point for the east saddle.
There is another small col between these two to the south-east. It appears to have a similar elevation to the SW saddle, following the contours between the two, but my source is not fine detailed enough to be sure.
If the exit were to be here, things could get interesting fast as the flow could go either way, SW or E, or a bit of both!
I’ve just looked at the article lava maps again over a cup of tea.
There’s another scenario which is possible. If the eastern exit is blocked near the cones, lava may be able to sneak around the back of the vent mound and still overflow to the east.
A bit of a headache as direction is critical for the ultimate path of the lava, north into the valleys or south towards the road and a sea entry.
Fun times!
Sorry, I must have mixed up the details from several sources. When looking at opentopomap.org, which has labeled 10m contour lines, the difference looks more like somewhere between 10-20m. Some other map (can’t find it now) had a three contour lines difference, but those were not properly labeled. Maybe those were 5m contours and the difference is around 15m.
There does seem to be a distinct slop on the lava (a few degrees?) so its necessary to take the distance from the ‘exit’ point back to the vents at the lava slope. This favours closer exit points even if higher.
Zooming and scanning at 14.21pm. I’m only part-way through reading the article, and expanding my brain connections.
The drifting heap appears to have run aground.
Wonderful! Mountain on the move. If it goes any further it will block one of the main lava streams, so perhaps it was stopped by the Iceland Tourist Office.
Watching its progress in the Ruv cam, I think it has turned the corner and is now moving away from this viewpoint.
What a great bunch of people I have seen on video the past 10 days at the eruption.
The eruption is at Shangri-La the mysterious place of happiness and normality.
The rest of the world watch, as Iceland shows us how party and BBQ, with lots of fun, laughing, dancing and the best view one could wish for.
Iceland is the best thing that has happened since 31 December 2019 when COVID19 was declared by the CCP to the WHO…
Thank you Icelanders and thank you Iceland.
As a side question how many volcanic eruptions has Carl successfully predicted on this blog?
Second question is kissing a volcano counted as communication with Icelandic volcano gods?
Some people deliberately blocked the camera’s view of a piece of the left vent’s wall collapsing around 14:00. I say deliberately, because they showed up just before it happened and lingered in front of the camera until just after it happened, instead of showing up at a random time uncorrelated with anything else interesting.
Someone needs to do something to inhibit this behavior.
I did wonder about that. Utterly pointless frustrating troll behaviour if deliberate. It spoils the time lapses if a lump of rock disappears into thin air. “Oh, where did that rampart go!?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhWd1I2JlZk
The flank collapsed over a long period.
There is not much video of it because it was when the webcam was out of focus.
Non the less it is quite clear on the above video what actually happens.
I hope you are not implying they deliberately provoked the collapse 🤔😉
I must be lucky and only happened to see good behaviour when I viewed the cameras, there are always some fools about that like spoiling things for others unfortunately.
Perhaps they had inhaled too much nitrogen dioxide (there is some in the gas emissions – looking at the brownish tinge).
People, please don’t keep photobombing the RUV camera. And if you really, really must, a quick wave and then moving on will suffice, thank you. No need to stand in front of it for 10 minutes waving your arms (or worse, stop right in front of it yakking on your phone apparently oblivious to where you are!) …
Mount the cam on top of a vehicle or a stand. Problem solved.
At https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/video/video/5222624/nieuwe-attractie-ijslandse-vulkaan-trekt-veel-bekijks “Nieuwe attractie: IJslandse vulkaan trekt veel bekijks (New attraction: Icelandic volcano attracts a great deal of notice)”.
Nice images! How would the work in the Netherlands? Ropes on dikes(of the other persuasion, namely waterblocking) whenever the Rhine is overflowing again? The attraction is the same! (mea culpa)
What are the rock types at the valley’s exits? Should lava make to an exit point and go over, it is going to take some of the rock with it. If it is loose sedimentary stuff, that could be quite a lot – like an avalanche.
It looks to be similar to the valley sides, grassy boulder fields, or small frost-shattered stones.
The wonderful, zoomable ISOR geological map of the whole country doesn’t seem to be working at the moment, but from what I’ve been able to deduce from the key of one of their other geological maps, the exit towards Meradalir is described as “hyaloclastite” and “lava cap over hyaloclastite”.
A question about the shared pressure and magma connection between the vents at depth:
We can pretty readily see that the two vents are connected, they have often fountained in unison or sequence. Right now it seems like the left vent has a fairly open conduit compared to the higher right vent, is this allowing more of the pressure to stay at the lower vent this receiving the majority of the lava and resulting fountains? if there was a big enough collapse on the right cone, could it potentially clock the vent and effectively end its activity, or is the lava hot enough to melt through pretty much any blockage, and wont have enough time to cool before becoming open again? Conversely, a large collapse on the left cone could re-invigorate the other?
You can now buy fish&chips on the hiking path to the eruption site https://www.visir.is/g/20212091650d/hefur-solu-a-fish-and-chips-a-stikudu-gongu-leidinni
I had no idea it was called ‘fish and chips’ in Icelandic.
Spattered fissure ‘n’ chips with mushy lava? Ha’ā a’ā ;-D
Good one
An ice cream van next offering a double cone with sprinkles?
Lols, Stars Die likes this.
I’m guessing, based off the quotation marks in the headline and the capitalization in the article main boat, that it is just easier than “steiktur fiskur og franskar að breskum hætti” (fried fish and fries/chips the British way) specially if you are also catering towards touristy clientele
There’s a Pathe (or similar) Iceland newsreel from World War 2 that mentions fish and chips. I think the English spelling established when British troops occupied the island after the fall of Denmark to the Nazis but maybe someone with local knowledge can confirm or correct that.
10 Unique Photos of the Volcanic Eruption
https://www.icelandwonder.com/articles/10-unique-instagram-photos-of-iceland-volcano/?fbclid=IwAR3yNzC8X–fkMlWXijs6QQkk0BSWwGhM72OstJy0yTvet9Oj66EZD0OkcM
Excellent live view of the eruption, a better angle than the other mbl(dot)is camera.
http://k100streymi.mbl.is/spila/webcam0
nice link. also the vents are happy as ever.
Bob Ross approves this comment.
Nice, you can clearly see that lava is moving around the cone to the left towards the exit, sure it is slow at the moment, but it is the right direction
Bjarki, indulge me, but why is it the right direction? Is there a wrong direction?
(No puns about One Direction, please)
It’s the right direction, insofar that it is toward the valley exit, other than that there’s nothing right or wrong about anything.
It is the left direction
We get another view of the southwest corner! Yay!
And it’s slightly higher, so lava movements are easier to track. I’m happy.
Good find; thanks for posting.
The quakes under lambafell seem to have been in a completely vertical column as seen on the 3d plot. Is that indicative of something?
https://daton.is/skjalftar/3d/
Are the two cones cinder cones, or still spatter cones?
I would say spatter cones, because it really is spatter which has built them up. Cinder cones? I would think cinders has more to do with more release of gas, when the lava is ejected.
At https://www.nu.nl/286507/video/ijslanders-volleyballen-naast-vulkaan-waar-lava-uitstroomt.html “IJslanders volleyballen naast vulkaan waar lava uitstroomt (Icelandic people are playing volleyball next to the volcano from which lava is flowing)”
Right now at k100 cam we could see bubbling lava on the pond eft side of twins…what’s happening there??
Thanks for all the insight Albert! Just a small correction, the name of the next valley should be Meradalir, you got a -da- too much there. And the other valley to the southwest is called Natthagi.
Thanks! The hickup has been fixed. Write in haste, fix at leisure
http://k100streymi.mbl.is/spila/webcam0
Webcam closer to eruption added
If you want to enjoy music while watching the volcano’s livestream, go to http://k100streymi.mbl.is/spila/
And appropriately they are playing Donna Summer – Hot Stuff
Very applicable with this eruption. Donna Summer can get her hot stuff from this volcano.
If this new, hot lava runs out over an older lavafield and actually reaches a new depth than keeps the lava liquid, will the old lava start to melt too? Or is it staying solid? I´m curious.
It will heat but melting something is fairly energy intensive (latent heat). The lava carries enough heat to warm the old lava, but not to give it the final push from solid to liquid.
Strombolian activity starting in Etna south east crater; perhaps we will have 17th paroxism tonight.
If it’s like the 16th with equally clear sight, it’s going to be incredible once again. I’m certainly watching as you never know whether it might be the last paroxysm for a while ….
I think there will be the localteam live stream in HD later.
Hopefully. But although some strombolian activity is occurring, tremor is still not elevated and in the green range. Strange.
Here the latest from Boris Behncke:
Boris Behncke@etnaboris1 Std.
After a single, powerful and loud explosion at #Etna’s Southeast Crater on the morning of 30 March 2021, it seemed as though a new paroxysm was about to occur. But only in the evening did Strombolian activity start, which is now very slowly increasing.
Love the locals just having a picnic in front of the eruption here
So do I.
The young lad with a Manchester united hat is backing the wrong team though!
It is nice to see people enjoying nature is such a way.
I sat there for more than an hour just watching the ever changing lava. The whole area around the cones is like a roman theater so it was very easy to walk all around and see this fantastic scenery from all sides. Hot chocolate and flatkaka with hangikjöt goes well with it. 🙂
Around 19:23:53 local time a big chunk of the main cone broke off and fell into the center of the pooled crater, then a big gusher of orange-hot lava rushed out like a wave in the bath tub and soaked the lava drainage channel as it splashed down the cone, quite an impressive sight. http://k100streymi.mbl.is/spila/webcam0
Luckily the dipstick standing in front of the Ruv cam, looking the other way, moved aside just in time.
You could have surfed that wave, if you had an asbestos board and heatproof wetsuit.
Myself looking for that forgotten job place in Iceland.. and the forgotten ticket to Fagradalsfjall
This marked section will probably fall off soonish, you can definetly see light through it at times, and it is quite visible as well on the RUV cam
I think that the front side of the right cone, on which the lava is flowing downhill, will collapse very soon due to the hydrostatic pressure of the magma column exerted onto the cone. A flank collapse like the Mt. Saint Helens did in 1980, but on a very small scale.
just now, 20:17, I have noticed the lava using the channel to the left hand side of the mbl camera is increasing in volume, so apparently some cutting is occurring and I concur, something is going to happen, especially to the small ridge in between the 2 flow channels.
I have been watching it, the crack is steadily increasing
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Well, it was nice while it lasted.
The RUV camera is now essentially useless. People are jumping in front of it every 5 minutes now or more often, often lingering in the way for a while rather than promptly moving on, and worse their presence seems to destabilize the stream, even if they are nearby but not in front of the lens. It stutters, it blacks out for seconds at a time, or it goes to way lower than 720p quality for a while before recovering. Most of the photobombers have mobile phones glued to one ear so I’m guessing it’s an interference or bandwidth contention problem.
The tragedy of the commons …
Does the Rúv’s wireless webcam use the same frequency range as the smartphones of all these tourists visiting the eruption site?
Now we’ve got a kid throwing rocks at the camera,
Someone licked it earlier (and they weren’t a kid).
I wonder what changed? There have been people thronging the site whenever there’s been good enough weather, for a week now, but only today have they gotten to be so ill-mannered with regard to the camera. Before there was the occasional wave at it and similarly but now it’s almost continually obstructed by people, one after the next after the next, and they linger in front of it. Several times an hour some jerk will stand right in front of it and start fiddling with their phone for a while, for example. You can do that standing ten feet to the left or right, guys! There’s really no need to stay right in front of the lens while you check your Facebook!
So, basically … what the hell is going on? Were there some rules of etiquette being enforced until today, and they stopped for some reason? Or is it an emboldening thing, people realizing that getting in the camera’s view isn’t resulting in negative consequences for whoever does it and so the selfish jerks come crawling out of the woodwork who had been fearful of some backlash until today?
Weather isn’t better than on many other recent days, so it’s not that. Stream audience is about the same as yesterday, hovering a bit under 5000 at any given time, so it’s not the prospect of
annoying a larger number of peoplemore attention. It’s not just a single jerk turning up today to make trouble; it’s dozens of distinct people passing by at different times all showing much poorer etiquette than anyone did yesterday or before. So it’s not a decision made by just one person, unless that decision was to relax enforcement of something.Malthus was definitely onto something there.
I’m starting to get really annoyed by them.
At 19:58:50 local time, some steam or white smoke is being emitted from the base of the smaller cone, but about 50 ft up, not near the lava flow, but higher up on the side of the cone, you have to be watching to see it, but for the last hour the lava flow has definitely increased somewhat.
Is this on the RUV webcam? Or the mbl.is camera?
http://k100streymi.mbl.is/spila/webcam0
At 20:10:40 fountaining has started in the main lava pool, in line with the 2 cones, a bit startling to see this. Not sure if this is just temporary, but the last hour I have been watching, this is the 3rd time that I have seen fountaining in this area.
This crack has also suddenly appeared(you can compare with the screenshot I posted a moment ago further up), lava quite readily disappears into it when it spatters there.Could be one violent surge of lava and that section falls off
I saw that too, and the fountaining from the pond has occurred in as many as 3 places at one, in line with the 2 cones, but my attention is upon the steam tendril which is about 10 m up the side of the small cone on the extreme left, it seems to emit steam when large fountaining occurs, so I have been using it to gauge internal gas pressure in the smaller cone.
Some very vigorous fountaining from the lake just now.
There’s also a big overhang on the south vent that must be going to fall soon, and a strange cleft next to the north vent into which bombs keep disappearing.
Aha, my strange cleft is Bjarki’s crack. Can’t look away now, even to type.
20:33:40 the overhang let go.
Gollum splashing around in the lava as he slowly dies in Mount Doom togther with his precious
A big block between the two cone just fell into the larger one.
20:23:36 a big chunk of the main cone on the left fell into the crater with a big spash!
sorry, hard to type when you are watching an exciting lava flow, it was 20:32:36 not 20:23:36
I checked about 2 minutes on either side of the times you mentioned, and don’t see anything 🙁 Should I be able to see it on the RUV cam? I don’t even see any splashes that are larger than the others. I did see there was a piece of the larger cone hanging off that I figured would fall tonight…but can’t tell if that’s gone yet or not since we lost sunlight.
I haven’t been able to rewind any other cams besides RUV, so I can’t see other angles in case RUV doesn’t show it well.
Ohhhh I found it at 20:33:36 somehow…and it was cool!
And as a miracle almost, no one was infront of the RUV cam at that point, so you can go and rewatch it again.
The ruv cam has been compromised by a steady stream of idiots. The build up of lava seems to have pushed them further up the mountain where they found the web cam.
However mbl.is now has a second camera with a great angle.
https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2021/03/30/gosid_i_beinni/
I think it would be a great idea to put the webcams onto a mast of a few meters tall, to avoid idiots compromising the webcams.
Plus a ladder, a silly hat and a box of tomatoes. And see what happens.
But seriously, I wonder if humans 50000 years ago also ran to the volcanoes, sat there, amazed, having the time of their life. They didn’t always fight with sable-toothed tigers or each other. They also had their quality time…
I recall that documentary on netflix discusses a lot like that.
On Vanatu. The people of the village would visit the volcano and spend the night at its active lavalake to talk to the spirits for guidance.
Yes, sure, but what about non-spiritual motives? Why do we always believe our ancestors didn’t just chill? And visited a volcano because its just a nice place to be. No gods, no spirits, nothing transcendental. (Every d*#mn toothpick the archaeologists recover gets a religious interpretation. Why?) — Ahem, maybe that’s neither the right place nor the right time to discuss this…
The local tribes on Vanuatu believe there are gods in the volcano’s. We had to get permission from the tribe leaders before we climbed and they also came up with us.
20:54:00 the fountaining in front of the large block adjacent to the north cone is starting up again.
At 21:00 a drone can be seen filming the left vent.
Seems the reason for the many people infront of the RUV cam today, is that the wind has changed so authorities are guiding/herding people to walk on “this” side of the eruption, compared to the streams of people we’ve seen behind the cone the other days.
The path on the other side is otherwise the easier to use.
timelapse March 29 12h32- 14h37 to and 16h00 to March 30 09h30. only the ruv cam. A second one with only the mbl cam will follow later.
Also a side by side view from yesterday (which was supposed to be published this morning and now seems ages ago) is new, though it offers nothing new except 2 views for one.
I can hardly keep up.
https://youtu.be/HU58Rf3JnwA
Yes the people in front of the camera are oo much today. Does everyone has need for five seconds of fame? Several times the connection was knocked of then as well. Though I truly enjoy the happy faces
Love the timelapse! I was wondering about the island. This really shows it’s route: first it blocks the flow, building a lake, which starts to drain through a chanel on the righthand side of the island. Then the pressure in the “uppercut-lake” builds, until it rushes down on the left of the island. But the pressure stil builds, units the entire island is pushed downstream, choking the righthand-chanel.
Now there is a smaller chunk floating naar the cones, wondering which way that will go …. Will it block the flow, building pressure in the upper lake?? Will this push the flow towards the Meradalir-exit of will one of the islands shift again?
Add some rockfall at the cones, mysterie flames and lost of fountaining…. So much to look forward to, hope this last FOREVER!!!! 😍🌋
Please be sure to erase all the grockles, especially the abusive ones. A crotch on a 50″ screen is NOT pleasant or amusing.
This gives more detail on the chemistry. Plenty there to cause flamable gases including Methane – add in the soil (is it peat?) and its a bucket chemistry fun! https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs142p2_043440.pdf
This was a reply to Albert way up the thread…?
Tuesday
30.03.2021 19:12:39 63.943 -22.037 5.6 km 2.9 99.0 6.4 km NNE of Krýsuvík
We have us a fresh 2.9 quake at the vedur website. However, there are now four events with exactly that ominous 2.9 magnitude, so probably 2.9 is the new 1.1, i.e. there is a kind of deafult mag assigned to some stronger signals. I guess.
No, this one was checked and people have reported that they felt it.
Yeah. But the four largest recent quakes all have a 2.9 assigned. Could be coincidance, but it looks suspicious. Here are the top 5:
1 2021-03-30 19:12:39 2.9
2 2021-03-29 04:49:29 2.9
3 2021-03-29 04:05:19 2.9
4 2021-03-29 02:11:41 2.9
5 2021-03-29 05:19:07 2.6
Gotcha
Japan is jealous
https://www.jma.go.jp/bosai/volcano/#type=warning&event_id=511&lang=en
https://twitter.com/Icevolcanx/status/1377013218841923591
The latest measurements on lava flow here – real uncertainty is in numbers for the last hours.
http://jardvis.hi.is/eldgos_i_geldingadolum
They too give a lower eruption rate for yesterday, similar from the appearance on the cameras. Today, I think, it is back to the previous levels.