The Hell Machine

/ 08/04/2021

Guest post by Chad

The three musketeers, firing away

As is now abundantly clear, a new eruptive cycle on the Reykjanes Peninsula has begun. While an isolated eruption did happen in the ocean off the end of the peninsula in 1783, there has not been an eruption on land since 1240, today 781 years ago.

The eruption ongoing now has ratherbroken the regular cycle of eruptions at Reykjanes. Normally those begin at Brennisteinsfjoll and go west over a few hundred years, but this vent is on Fagradalsfjall, a mountain right in the middle of the peninsula. This area would not be expected to activate for at least a century yet, but here we are, watching the camera religiously as this new volcano grows before our eyes.

The magma is being generated at a great depth, nearly 20 km or twice as deep as normal eruptions in this area begin, and by mantle that is nearly totally melted to result in a lava that has a very high concentration of olivine. This sort of basalt even has its own name, picrite, and it is the closest thing to the ancient komatiite lava that erupts on the Earth today. This has been interpreted as a possible case for a shield volcano to form at, something which has not happened here for many millennia, but I think there are rather more profound implications for this. The magma is fluid and extremely hot, well over 1200 C, and that is enough to allow both physical and thermal erosion of the interior of the conduit, which will serve to only allow more magma to flow, in a compounding effect. Direct mantle eruptions are rare, but one that is currently ongoing if hard to observe is going on under the ocean near the island of Mayotte near Madagascar. It is not particularly intense, but since it began in mid 2018 some 5 km3 of lava has erupted to date.

The magma for eruptions like this is created by decompression melting as the pressure drops, a self feeding cycle that is limited only by the rate of mantle flow to the area. It is a self sustaining machine, the Hell Machine as I like to call it.

Hell Machines are a rare sort of eruption. Like said above they are perhaps best categorised as some sort of hybrid between a shield volcano and a lava flood fissure eruption. The eruption rates may be sustained at a relatively high rate for a long time, well above the rate seen in the formation of shield volcanoes but also never getting to the colossal rates seen in the big fissure eruptions, at least not for any long duration.

Mayotte is an example of a Hell Machine that is erupting now, it is in the deep sea and it may be that most such eruptions are, but there is a historical eruption like this that occurred on land and it offers some tantalising clues.

On the 1st September 1730 an eruption began on the island of Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands. It was relatively large, creating a cinder cone that was ultimately named Caldera del Cuervos, as well as over a few months the similarly sized Caldera del St Catalina and Pico Partido cones. This constitutes what would have been a typical if somewhat larger than average eruption in the Canary Islands, but we now know this first eruption managed to set off the Hell Machine. Eruptions continued into the next year, though it had declined from the initial high rates as expected, the flows were still fed at an impressive volume to sustain over a year. Submarine eruptions well off the west coast and going up all the way to just inland beginning in June of 1731 marked the completion of the hell machine, it was now in full working order, and eruptions marched eastwards back onto land to flood even more of the island. Observations after this are poor as few inhabitants stayed beyond this point but the eruptions continued into 1736, erupting some 5 km3 of lava, constituting the large majority of the volume of all eruptions in the Canary islands in recorded history. Lanzarote has no active central volcano, and has not possessed one for millions of years, the eruption of 1730-1736, or Montanas del Fuego as it is known locally, was fed out of the mantle directly by extensive melting under the base of the crust. Perhaps most notably, all the eruptions from the late Pleistocene and Holocene on Lanzarote before this were on the northern part of the island, the area where the Montanas del Fuego eruption occurred had not been volcanically active for possibly several tens of thousands of years or more, a certain similarity it does share with Fagradalsfjall.

Lava fields on Lanzarote. Source: Becerril et al. ,Assessing qualitative long-Term volcanic hazards at Lanzarote Island (Canary Islands), 2017 Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 17, 1145-1157

The Signs

The first sign of a hell machine is that the eruption is persistent and erupts out of the mantle directly, something clearly the case already. An eruption should also be a rifting event, where the rift is kept open by new magma, and this also seems to be happening, as a dike has formed within the crust going from less than 2 km depth down to at least 7 km, with possibly many feeding points below this that are not resolved. The very high temperature of the lava will also serve to enlarge the pathways, something that may take longer than a week to become evident but which is expected.

So far our eruption is quite small, even tiny, but it has a big future. The first obvious sign could be that the vent increases in output, or that it stays constant but another vent opens. We may already be seeing this, as the vents are rather a lot larger than they were to begin with, and the output appears to have increased. Deflation is not observed along the dike either, which would suggest the eruption is being fed by continued decompression melting in the mantle, a process that may increase accordingly with the eruption rate and set the hell machine in motion.

What will become of the Reykjanes peninsula if this occurs? Perhaps the most direct consequence is that land within perhaps 10 km of Fagradalsfjall is potentially at risk. There is no danger to Reykjavik but Grindavik may suffer if not from the lava then from the gas emission. The effect it will have on the normal Reykjanes cycle is also unknown, most typically the section of the transform fault at Brennisteinsfjoll is the first to go but this time around the section going through Krysuvik was set of by the recent intrusion, leaving Brennisteinsfjoll in a precarious situation. Decompression melting at Krysuvik may well have already begun now in preparation to its awakening, and Brennisteinsfjoll could wake up rapidly following its eventual quake. Eruptions here will resemble those from the Reykjanes Fires, but taking a back seat to the lava flood that is just beginning now at Fagradalsfjall. We are watching history creating itself.

Perhaps this will not come to fruition, it may turn into a shield instead, or even stop. But with all the signs it is looking like the future is grand for the new little volcano.

Chad – 2021

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866 thoughts on “The Hell Machine”

      • I think that’s an extension into the last southern lobe of geldingadalir, fringed by further ridges some tens of metres high.

        • Yeh the foto is definitly to the south, seen in on the webcam few minutes ago. (The view now is great, showing the flows from fissure 2 towards geldingadalir). But I though in the early days they predicted Geldingadalir would flow into Meradalir trough the east-exit. Unfortunatly this has been out of webcam-range from the start, therefore my question: Does anyone have some info on that?

    • I think the dell that is in that direction is counted towards Geldingadalir also… The breakdown of which dale and dell belongs to which collection is a little fuzzy at best

  2. Is this another new fissure opened up in the middle of the Geldingadalir field?

  3. You’re not the only one that’s lost. I guess you are referring to the cam observing fissure 2 (left, mimicking the old vents) and 3 on the ridge.

    Hard to keep track with all this snow and black lava. Everything looks the same. All the cams, vents …

  4. Yes, I got tricked by the good old ‘reply button trap’. The above answer was supposed to answer Andy’s remark.

  5. To clear things slightly up, here’s a stitching I made of the entire area, do click on the image for better zoom

    • Thanks Bjarki. So what I missed: Fissure 2 spills now directly into Geldinga valley. Not sure if we all agree that there is a fissure 4 inbetween 2 and 3.

    • Very nice….now that’s something that I can sink my teeth into, I’ve lost perspective on this days ago 🙁

  7. is there a romatic term for the many people who choose to gather at the red hot rock spill that we call lava? They are so fickle…. they are only interested in red hot flowing lava and the minute You stop/ that’s the end of the interest. lava worshipers? Lavwors/ Lawoes? Idiots? i don’t know… but i doubt it’s safe to go anywhere near this evolving earthen monster.

  8. https://twitter.com/fidbee/status/1380926853599334402

    patricia ifill
    @fidbee
    It is 12.50 pm but it looks like mins to 7pm because the ash from the volcano in St Vincent is covering our island, Barbados. We have been advised to stay indoors and only go out if it’s necessary. The air is filled with the smell of sulphur, eyes are burning and nose running.

    We have to turn the lights on inside to get light into the house. Washing cannot be done, cars must be driven with windows up but air conditioner off and we have to wear shades when outside. All fish markets are closed and some businesses have closed for the day.

    • Hope they are wearing masks…. that stuff can damage lungs. And running the cars is hard on the engines. Don’t use Your windshield wipers until You throw water (lots) across the windshield. Our eruption from Redoubt turned us into black midnight in the middle of the day.

    • i wonder how many of those people think the flow on the right has stopped??? Beware the wolf behind.

    • Are those people mad? Imagine if there was a sudden convulsion and the lava trapped them in that little spit of land between the two flows. Crazy stuff. On instagram I follow a 22 year old survivor of White Island and her recovery experience is teaching me that maybe volcanoes are best viewed on webcams.

      • Strange! My email showed me a comment that doesn’t appear here. What blog am I supposed to read. I’d like the link please.

      • I have read somewhere that Vesuvius killed a group of tourists this way sometime during the 19th century. Trapped between two tongues of advancing lava and an unscaleable cliff. No way should people have been in that tiny area between two fresh flows, suicidal no matter how Instagrammable (ugh)

  10. There is a small gulley just downhill from the large gathering of people at the toe of the lava flow… wonder how long thats been there? and is it a hint of what could happen?

    • Looks like there is some tiny spattering from the snow melting under the lava.

      • Yes.. Think this is when it change direction of flow back to first valley

      • That is how pseudocraters are made, if that happens on a bigger flow that has a more solid surface 🙂

        Can imagine how spectacular it must have looked when the Laxahraun flow went over the area where Myvatn is now, hundreds of pseudocraters like this but on a way bigger scale. Probably would have looked a lot like the bubble burst littoral cones that formed on the ocean entries in Hawaii, just with hundreds of them and some of them being a lot bigger. It is interesting and a bit disappointing that none formed during Holuhraun, maybe wet sand is too porous.

    • Just after 15 min, you can see blue flames behind the lava.

      • re blue flames…. i thought those were the police cars on the far hill side..

        • That possibility had occured to me too. You can see flickering and flaming, but the hot air in front can do funny things.

    • Gas flame at 18:00 that’s the best of that particular beast I have seen.

  16. Last question regarding this topic: Isn’t what we call 4th fissure the small one that appeared together with No.? Remember? there were two fissures at once, a long one, which is fissure #2 and a small one south of it. Both were feeding the lava river. Sorry for my confusion.

    • Pressure wave on satellite video, priceless.
      A first for me.

  18. Since at least ~9:50 UTC on April 10, #LaSoufrière has been producing stronger explosive events every ~1-2 hours. This #GOES16 Mesoscale image sequence shows the most recent pulse at ~16:30 UTC.

    According to Simon Carn
    @simoncarn
    Volcanologist. Professor of Geology
    @michigantech

  19. oh, pooh, i’m back…. can’t watch curling … it’s been held up due to positive covid breakout at the games. What a year, eh?

  20. Well done Chad – great to read an article from you. After last years drought our volcano friends are really putting on a show. Seems we have to keep an eye on Mount Pelee too.

    • After looking at the surrounding of the cam this is 100% not St. Vicent. Looks more like the taal island with the main crater.

  25. I think LaSoufrière is a very well established VEI5 now.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if it nears VEI6 threshold. The size of the ash cloud is impressive and very tall. Yes it could be the first VEI6 after Pinatubo. But this is just wild speculation.

    • I doubt it’s going to get to that level, I think it’s limit is a VEI 5.
      Admin could delete this comment if I am wrong in the future

    • I think it might be more like VEI 3, maybe 4, but I don’t really know. As Hector Sachristan has alluded, there are no pyroclastic flows reported – yet.

      The only VEI 6 eruption to have occurred in the Caribbean that I know of is the Qualibou Caldera in St. Lucia. It formed during the Pleistocene about 32-39 kya. It’s not explicity stated in the GVP, but a caldera that big (3.5×4 km) and the nature of its product (Choiseul Tuff) would have had to involve such a large eruption, probably at least as big as Pinatubo in 1991. BUT…it’s possible that La Soufrière might have had a VEI 6 eruption in the past, as it does indeed have a caldera.

      Pelee and La Soufrière (St. Vincent) both did have VEI-5 eruptions in 1902 for sure, though.

    • My guess would be a VEI 4. I’d say the large crater of La Soufriere formed in a VEI 5 eruption at some point in the past, it was already there in 1902 which is classified as a VEI 4.

    • VEI scale also measures volume, so you can get a really big eruption theoretically that is only a VEI 3. That is the case of large maar craters that dont erupt further, the explosion creating those is probably just as powerful if not more so than maby VEI 5 or even 6 eruptions. Of course basically all effusice eruptions max out at a 1 or 2, Laki was a 4 but also had a phreatomagmatic high fountain when it began, otherwise was a 1 or 2.

      I think I saw somewhere the dome was growing at around 4 m3/s, and it began around 4 months ago now so more or less 120 days. That leaves it with a volume of about 40 million m3. If the dome had been completely destroyed, or an equivalent amount of material, then this eruption as of now is a VEI 4, powder is less dense than a solid piece if the same material.

      I cant remember the exact day it began or the actual rate of extrusion but this should be close enough. To reach a 5 it has to be around 8x bigger than it is now though, which is going to take a while unless it goes full plinian.

      • Given that the ash is centimeters thick, not meters, and the the volcano is only just over 1 km tall and the dome around 1 km long, I expect this is still a VEI4. A VEI6 would have required that the entire volcano had blown up down to sea level. Someone would have noticed. White ash presumably mean rhyolite. This is a Tallis event.

      • And combined with low solar activity, maybe a bit of much needed global cooling. But this is a big unknown still. Maybe SO2 impact is still negligible.

  27. re LaSoufriere : any signs of pyroclastic flows yet?

    • No reports yet. There are still people in the red zone waiting to be evacuated, in 1902 the whole red zone was completely devastated by pyroclastic flows very early on (with the first big explosion), the fact that those people in the red zone are fine, shows that the violence of this eruption is very little compared to 1902.

      • I do hope they get evacuated as soon as possible though, there’s no telling if the worst is over or not. A few people apparently chose to stay in red zone, it doesn’t seem the 1902 eruption is in their memory, they are worrying over the ash fall but do not seem to be aware of the potential pyroclastic flow hazard.

    • There needs to be common sense!
      Surely it will be impossible to vaccinate many thousand people, including children during a massive eruption.

      Neighbour islands should accept the people escaping the eruption, otherwise there will have blood in their hands. I mean they can keep social distance, do testing, etc.

      I mean, common sense. The world seems to have lost it.

      Let’s say something has a car crash. I have first aid training. Do you think I would hesitate to save a person’s life because of covid risk? Surely not. Covid is a terrible disease but it’s not the only important thing in the world.

    • That is terrible if true…how is covid relevant in the middle of a volcano eruption and the danger it is to peoples lifes? Some people are just horrible.

    • It appears to be true.

      Given that the chances of surviving COVID even without vaccination are nearly 100 times higher than the survival rate from a pyroclastic flow ….

      Admittedly, you would not want a COVID outbreak amongst a traumatised group of people but there are other ways of reducing the risk.

    • Dont worry too much about it, only if a vent opens on the side of Volcano Island and gets the big lake involved. If it is in the main crater again it will probably behave like the last eruption, boiling the crater lake and turning into a big fountain, Taal has eruptions a lot like Etna when there isnt water involved, so could be quite a sight. If it erupts in Taal lake though then yes that is when it is time to leave 🙂

      I think the place that you truly belong though is New Zealand, Taupo area, rhyolite volcanoes as far as the eye can see 🙂

      • You can really see how the lava level drops just as new fissures open, it is interesting that happens actually as the elevation isnt different, the new vents actually might be even a bit higher up its hard to tell at this point. Definitely looks like a wide open conduit at the Gollum vent though, maybe not quite big enough to be a lava lake but a good 20-30 meters or so wide, probably most of the lava flowing from it is going under the edge now directly into the lava field, it never seems to visibly overflow anymore.

  38. SCOTT: What in blazes is this?
    RUV1: Didn’t you order 720p?
    SCOTT: Laddie, I was watching the telly a hundred years before you were born and I can tell you that whatever this is, it is definitely not 720p.

  39. Is there a detailed and accurately located map of the quakes that occurred under Fagradalsfjall in 2017?

        • Widespread yes, but the eastern lobe actually lines up very well with the eruptive vents now, as well as the overall trace of earthquakes. It was said that the first lava was showing signs of having sat at a shallower depth for a bit, not a long time but it didnt erupt immediately out of the mantle within a week. I think this could be more than a coincidence.

          Not sure about now, the magma is the same chemistry but I suspect it is a bit more direct now, more primordial. It was said the magma temperature was 1180 C at the start while 1220 C as of recent, this is likely why. The temperature really is astonishing, the only case I know of where hotter magma has been observed is at Kilauea but that is the most powerful plume volcano of them all, it is to be expected.

        • Katla had a bit of a wobble in 2017, too. Possible subglacial activity.

  40. I wrote a comment that ended up on the previous page.
    In the theme of naming vents after Tolkien characters. Fissure 3, to name after someone who burnt brighly, died young, did a lot of damage and left a lasting legacy.
    Feanor, who else.

    • haha…o yee……but on a second though wasnt an arctic fox maybe a vocano fox?? black as lava traces…sneaky creatures they adapt so fast

    • Was it at the very bottom of the viewing picture? Perhaps the fox is attracted to left over food of the sightseers.

    • scamper, scamper…. Thanks for that! Nice catch and share….

    • Thanks for that Randall. I wonder how the wildlife reacts to this upheaval. Good papture of the humane kind!

    • Yes, I was just thinking it was looking like it was wanting to get in on the act. Can’t remember a deep swarm like this under the caldera for a while, but maybe my attention has been distracted by Reykjanes.

      Sunday
      11.04.2021 02:33:06 63.629 -19.093 24.5 km 0.5 99.0 5.5 km N of Hábunga
      Sunday
      11.04.2021 02:29:31 63.637 -19.033 24.0 km 0.7 99.0 7.2 km NNE of Hábunga
      Sunday
      11.04.2021 02:28:42 63.638 -19.057 19.0 km 0.6 99.0 6.8 km NNE of Hábunga
      Sunday
      11.04.2021 02:27:39 63.629 -19.080 22.2 km 0.9 99.0 5.6 km N of Hábunga
      Sunday
      11.04.2021 02:27:10 63.628 -19.072 22.1 km 0.8 99.0 5.5 km NNE of Hábunga

    • Noted it too. Not common in this location.Usually very shallow quakes here and only sporadic deep ones. Is this signs of new intrusion? The drum signals look a little wet (to my amateur eyes)The magma chamber is also relatively shallow here as I remember it so this should be far below.

    • Nice. The ​7 minutes long swarm has a Greip-like signature. Magma move.

      Credits IMO.

      • Nice catch! Does look like a bit of magma rising.

  43. A question, if I may. I don’t know anything about volcanos, but my understanding is that pyroclastic flows happen when the ash column is too dense to be supported by the air around it and collapses back down the slopes of the volcano. In La Soufriere, the column has reached the stratosphere and is presumably starting to get pretty cold by that point. What factors are the difference between the column collapsing as a pyroclastic flow and “just” falling as ash?

    • @ HighStreetDave. I am not 100% certain but I think a pyroclastic flow may be caused by the sudden density of materials x explosive pressure.x release of gases If ,say ,the dome of La Soufriere collapsed then there would be more loosened material and a sudden pressure caused by the explosion .If you think about Mount St Helens, then the explosive force, blowing out the side, caused large amounts superheated materials to be ejected. This mass would be too heavy to rise and gravity would pull it downward. Depending on the topography around the volcano, a flat area including the ocean would allow the flow to gain speed and travel further than if there were valleys and hills. It would still be too fast to outrun though!
      Ash on the other hand is ejected by explosions that have not been hindered by pressures from sudden collapses.
      This shows how they move https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvuP7kuX7Dk
      This is a very detailed clip of the start of a flow and the horrific consequence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvjwt9nnwXY

      • Thanks @Diana, that’s very helpful. That’s completely different to how I thought it worked! Every day that you learn something new is a good day.

  44. The most recent explosion at ~05:00 UTC looked stronger & generated significant lightning – seen here in #GOES16 IR data with GLM Energy Density. Per
    @NEMOSVG
    , this event seems to have caused an island-wide power outage (perhaps due to the lightning).
    https://twitter.com/simoncarn/status/1381126645172568064

    https://twitter.com/VincieRichie/status/1381106455248535554
    Fresh scoria from #lasoufriere #svg collected at #rabaccariver ~7.4km from #volcano ⁦
    @uwiseismic

    • Wow nice image. Compared to China this is a significant cigar.

  48. I was browsing youtube on videos regarding de Pinatubo eruption (my girlfriend is filipino so i have an increased interest in her country) and came also across a video about the top 5 eruptions.

    1. Tambora
    2. Krakatoa
    3. Quetzaltepec
    4. Pinatubo
    5. Katla

    But looking on the internet gives you like 10 different lists and i’m sure there has been articles about it here as well. So i guess it’s a never ending debate all depending on your list of criteria.

    • @Benja (<- in case the reply button scam happens): What I find uninteresting about these lists is the fact that even the 250th eruption on such a list would knock you out of your slippers and scare you to death. Or the other way round.

    • Soufriere St. Vincent hit 42000 ft according to the most recent estimates and looks a certain VEI4 now (might not be done yet). Depends on the DRE really.

      I reckon Nisyros is one to keep an eye on.
      And Taal is worryingly not done and has continued to expand and tremor.

    • This must just be ones caught on cam surely?
      These eruptions are ants in the universe on the grand scale of things.
      Check out Wah-Wah springs or the Oruanui eruption.

    • Confusing is that Krakatau was a bigger bang than Tambora, but a much smaller volume. Pinatubo was a VEI 6 but it is not even slightly comparable in sheer power to what Krakatau did, an entirely different magnitude even. Not all VEI 6s are created equal. It is exactly the same comparison for effusive eruptions, Pu’u O’o was 5 km3, Mauna Loa 1984 was only 0.2, but one took 36 years and the other took 3 weeks, no doubt which was the bigger eruption, its about intensity.

      Katla has a maximum of a VEI 5, Eldgja was a VEI 6 but also lasted over a year so hardly intense, it would have been like Etnas recent eruptions but lasting for months not hours, very impressive but not in the same league as a real explosive eruption. Im not sure why Katla is on this list, maybe it was written in 2011 when the media was obsessed with it.

      • VEI is supposed to capture “explosivity” (it’s in the name) of an eruption but all the information I can find on VEI suggests that it only really cares about total the volume of ejected material. Really just a measure of delta (potential) energy over an arbitrary time period. A better, but way harder to estimate, index would take into account time. The partial of energy with respect to time is power, which seems like a more interesting thing to look at. Then again, the size of explosions of munitions are measured in tons of TNT equivalent, which is just a measure of energy conversion. You could slowly burn a cucumber and get a kT equivalent, but that doesn’t mean the cucumber explodes. :/

        • OK, slowly burning a cucumber is a really bad example. You will need ~6 MJ (about 0.0000015 kT) of energy to completely dry a 300 g cucumber. When you combust the dried material you will regain about .2 MJ of heat so that’s a net loss of 5.8 MJ per cucumber. Back of the envelope and all that. 😀

          But I think the point about delta time still stands.

        • Yes that is the point, a VEI 6 is just any eruption that makes over 10 km3 of tephra and less than 100 km3 of tephra, it doesnt actually matter how long it takes to do that apparently. Eyjafjallajokull was a VEI 4 but it took a month, Grimsvotn a year later was also a VEI 4, but it took 2 days, and was about 9x as big overall. Clearly not a comparable eruption. Even more so, Taupo has had a VEI 8, Oruanui, and then 1800 years ago it blew up again just the same, difference is one was over 1000 km3 of material and the other was only 50, but the Hatepe ignimbrite is just as big as the Oruanui ignimbrite. If anything I would give Hatepe a higher VEI, it was clearly a far more violent event. Its very misleading sometimes.

          VEI scale also gives the very wrong conclusion that effusive eruptions are insignificant. Mauna Loa in 1950 erupted about 0.2 km3 of lava in a single day, that is just as intense as a VEI 4, even a low 5, but because there is no tephra it is a 0. In fact rather than the opposite ebd of a spectrum Hawaiian eruptions trend directly into plinian eruptions, even in one eruption, look at Etna just recently, it was doing both at the same time.

          • I would argue we need something as an addision to the VEI-index. Something to measure relative danger, effect and disruption of the modern society.

            Looking at the VEI4+ eruptions of the 21th century is does not quite add up. There is one VEI5 on the list. With zero casualties. Also a VEI1 with 245 casualties.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanic_eruptions_in_the_21st_century

            To express the relative danger the VEI-index is clearly not the “tool in the toolbox” for that. Local authorities do increasingly better work, but a universal index measuring effects on all aspects of life could help. Also in giving better warnings?

      • Let’s just wait a minute! Eldja,hardly intense? Would we say the same about laki since it was a VEI 6 over 8 months? Of course not. There hasn’t been a study that clearly maps up all the phases and cycles of the Eldja eruption unlike the Laki eruption. We don’t know how intense the eruption was but it’s clear that it was intense in order to produce it’s climate effects.
        To say that the maximum VEI for Katla is a 5 is rash, if that were the case then Katla reaches it’s maximum pretty regularly. For reference, that’s like Krakatoa having a VEI 6 every 350 years

      • You may be underestimating Tambora. That was heard very far away. Instruments were not as good as in the time of Krakatau. What it sounded like nearby we don’t know. There were few (if any) survivors within 20 kilometers

  49. With all the rain, there seems to be a pond developed below the Geldingadalir cam, doing a fair impression of a boiling saucepan!

    • That’s a full rolling boil alright.
      I think the chemical concentrations in that hot water will be very interesting.
      Will there be any correlation with the deep sea vents at the mid ocean ridges? I wonder.
      Certainly easier to get a sample but a bit dicey regarding risk assessment!

    • I think I would prefer the rain falling in Iceland today, rather than that. Counting myself lucky there are very few explosive volcanoes in my neighbourhood.

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