Lately, I’ve been busy with a project that has precluded me from posting in VolcanoCafe. I have wanted to post about the ongoing awakening of Kilauea’s East Rift Zone, but that will have to wait for now. Instead, I thought of posting something about what I’ve been working on lately. For reasons, I’ve found it interesting to document historical large hail events in Spain, and today is the anniversary of one of the largest storms in terms of hail size in Spain if not the world even. This storm, locally known as the “Pedrisco de San Roque”, took place on 16 August 1859, in the province capital of Albacete. I fished it out of oblivion by looking into old, historical digitized newspapers. There is at least some relation to volcanoes, so it’s not entirely off-topic, and there have been floods and earthquakes in VolcanoCafé before, so why not hail?
Indeed, hail is not as dramatic or deadly as hurricanes, or tornadoes, or floods, which are far, far better documented in contemporary literature. But they are a very relevant meteorological phenomenon that has been very prominent in the more rural world of many decades past when a summer hailstorm could ruin the crops of a village and drown it in poverty. Old newspapers dedicated much time to hail despite their much more limited space than current news. Back then, it seemed more present as people were more familiar with hail and its detrimental effects. So here is a story about a particularly remarkable hail event from 165 years ago.
Geologic setting
The area of Albacete is home to an interesting volcano-tectonic history, so while we are at it we might well look into it. SE Spain is actually a subduction zone. Europe has some of these stealthy little-known subduction zones, or pseudo-subduction zones, that are sort of stuck but still have oceanic slabs hanging down into the mantle. One of them is the Caucasus, where stratovolcanoes with typical subduction zone chemistry are found, like Elbrus or Kazbek. A less volcanic one is the Carpathians, with subduction beneath the eastern side of the mountain range, and another “typical” albeit weak stratovolcano which is Ciomadul. Yet another zone is the Gibraltar slab, a sheet of Atlantic crust subducted underneath the Gibraltar Strait and going down several hundred kilometers into the mantle. I don’t fully understand all the complexities in the area, but I expect all of this pull continues to try and move some stuff around, so probably has something to do with the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. The area is not presently volcanic, but until recently (geologic scale recent) there was a volcanic arc in the area, a very small one at that, but a volcanic arc.
Map with places mentioned.
In the Mediterranean Sea closest to the Gibraltar Strait, a series of submarine stratovolcanoes grew. Arc volcanoes also formed on the coasts of Spain and Morocco. In Spain, the main volcano was a volcanic field on the southern coast of the country, the Cabo de Gata volcanic field. Cabo de Gata volcanism was typical subduction zone calc-alkaline chemistry, although a relatively weak volcano. It was active from about 13 Ma to 8 Ma (million years ago). I have never been, but despite heavy erosion, I expect lava domes, pyroclastic deposits, and intrusion exposures must be outstanding in the arid landscape of SE Spain. After the Cabo de Gata volcanism, there was a phase of intraplate volcanic activity that lasted from about 8 Ma to 6 Ma. This phase yielded small monogenetic volcanoes over a wide area of SE Spain, but with the curiosity that they erupted exotic magmas of “lamproite” affinity.
What are lamproites? I don’t know too well, and I’m not sure anyone does. These magmas are weird. Very weird. They are a vast family that belongs to the larger family of ultrapotassic volcanism, very common around the Mediterranean. Ultrapotassic is a variant of the yet larger family of alkaline volcanism, but with the particularity of having a lot of potassium and little sodium, sometimes making very explosive caldera volcanoes, having isotopic compositions that generally point at heavy contamination of ancient continental crust, and happening around subduction and collision zones. The mainland Italy volcanoes are the foremost occurrence of ultrapotassic volcanism in the world (like Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, or Colli Albani), and there is also the relevant example of the active Gölcuk caldera in Turkey.
Spain’s ultrapotassic volcanism is very minimalistic and just comprises some sparse, isolated, monogenetic volcanoes. The magmas are so odd though, mineralogically and chemically speaking, that various names: fortunites, verites, jumillites, and cancarixites, were coined exclusively to classify the SE Spain lamproitic lavas. Lamproites are unusual in that they can be high in magnesium and high in silica at the same time, so sort of being primitive and evolved simultaneously. They can rise straight from very deep, in fact in cratons lamproites can carry diamonds, as in Australia. Maybe they can even be compared to effusive kimberlites with more viscous lavas. They are rare, none are known to have erupted historically. 8 Ma Piton de Cancarix is the most prominent example in SE Spain, a dome or plug with columnar jointing that crowns the top of a hill.
Other minor volcanism has continued in the SE Spain area very sporadically and will probably continue. Regular intraplate volcanism. For example, a single volcanic cone in Cofrentes that is 1-2 million years old, or the volcanic field of Campo de Calatrava, which continues to degas magmatic CO2 at present.
The San Roque hail of 1859
Amid this geologically alive area lies the city of Albacete, capital to the province of the same name and stage to a massive hailstorm this day, August 16, 165 years ago. It had 16,000 inhabitants at the time. The reason for this area’s storm activity is also rooted in geology, particularly the Africa-Europe collision. Collision has pushed much of Spain into elevated mesas and mountain ranges and closed the Mediterranean, turning the sea into a remarkably hot and salty mass of water. In summer, radiation from the Sun heats the high areas of the Spanish interior where air rises and pulls more air inwards on the surface so that moist unstable air of Mediterranean origin can then blow from the coast towards the highlands. Albacete is found in one of such breeze areas. When cold air in high levels of the atmosphere associated with lows or cut-off lows moves over Spain it can interact with the moist hot air and trigger intense thunderstorms. Air blowing in different directions at different altitudes, the westward Mediterranean breeze on the surface versus the eastward winds spinning around the low, combine to produce rotating thunderstorms known as supercells, which over the rough, complicated topography of Spain have it hard to narrow their updraft (ascending winds) into tornadoes, but are very proficient at producing giant hail. Every year several supercells bring hail exceeding 5 cm in diameter to eastern Spain. These are somewhat similar to volcanic plumes, both thunderstorms and volcanic plumes can keep fragments of solid material suspended in the air because of their intense rising air currents, one drops chunks of ice, the other chunks of rock, but in the end, both are types of falling projectiles that can shatter crystals, damage roofs, or injure people. Of course, the ice melts away, and the rock does not, but both come from strong currents of rising air.
There are two sources with detailed information on the San Roque hail that I’ve found. First, is the newspaper from Albacete city “La Semana”, I haven’t read the original news, but the text is reproduced in many other Spanish news a few days after the storm. Second, is a letter from an Albacete habitant sent to Madrid which via personal contacts made it to the Madrid newspaper·“El Clamor Público”. According to these sources, it’s possible to get a fairly good idea of the events. At about four and a half in the afternoon, an unusual sound could be heard in the city, it was similar to a train, but people did not know where it came from. Unbeknownst to the inhabitants, a powerful thunderstorm was approaching and already carried gigantic hail that, as it impacted the ground, made a deep, sustained noise that carried to a distance ahead of the storm. This noise is called hail roar. Around five in the afternoon, some fragments of hail started to fall over the city, and ten minutes later, a shower of hail and water unleashed in full force. As translated from the El Clamor letter:
“The first hailstone that fell in the house, or rather that we saw, was in the patio: it broke into five pieces each like a lemon: the ones that hit the wooden shed felt like cannon shots. The pieces that broke on the opposite wall and on the paving have destroyed the windows of the balconies (…) Tomorrow or the next day I will have to re-til it, because the roofs look like a pile of ruins.”
When large hailstones fall on hard surfaces, they shatter into smaller pieces, and from the letter the secondary fragments propelled to the sides were large enough to shatter windows. The size of the hail may have been gigantic, as we will see later, and this resulted in heavy damage. La Semana gives some examples of the mayhem that the falling fragments of ice caused in the city. Hailstones caused severe injury to the heads of some people, knocking a man unconscious, and also killed sheep because of serious head damage. The hailstones shattered crystals and roof tiles and also caused some remarkable damage to the roofs of the city:
“In the barracks, a hailstone of such enormous size fell that it shattered a ceiling beam, and the people who were found inside fled in terror to the basements and caves to take refuge. At the Institute, more than thirty holes have been opened in the roof. In many houses, which we do not detail because it would take too much time, the hailstones have made large holes, especially in the roofs and sheds of little resistance.”
The matter of the size
According to La Semana:
“With regard to the size of the hailstones, everything we say is unbelievable because we ourselves would never have believed that stones larger than eggs had fallen, and on Tuesday we saw them nine inches in diameter and weighing three pounds and two and a half ounces. Stones weighing two pounds, and pound and pound and a half in weight have been found in many garbage dumps.”
And according to the letter in El Clamor:
“Some 33-ounce stones and many 20-ounce stones have been weighed after the storm ended. In a house in Plazuela del Hospital they had the serenity to weigh one that got into the doorway in the middle of the storm, weighing 4 pounds minus two ounces.”
What makes the storm so interesting is the mentioned size of the hail which would be among the largest overall reported events worldwide, and above the records considered by “World Weather and Climate Extremes Archive”, which however is either not aware of some bigger reports or has disregarded them because of the measure not being verified by scientists when taken. The units used in Albacete are the same Castilian units that were in use historically over most of Spain. A Castilian pound is 460 g, an ounce 28.75 g, and an inch 2.32 cm. I’m not sure how the distance was taken but weights were widely measured at the time with scales because of the need to measure amounts of food or other materials, but I’m no expert in this and if anyone reading the article knows something about late 19th-century measuring scales I’d be more than interested into any insight. People were curious to know the size of hail, and having no cameras or mobile phones to record images and share them, the information consisted instead of measuring weights, which was a very common practice for hail in Europe and the world until 2000 or so when visual media gradually kicked in and information got better but worse at the same time, and now hail weight measurements by people is a very rare thing to see.
The point is that La Semana describes stones as up to ~21 cm in diameter and 1450 g in weight, few details are given though, like if the measures correspond to the same stone or not, or when or where it was collected, but both values are quite exceptional. The letter in El Clamor gives details for a 1770 g hailstone collected while the storm was happening that entered a doorway. The record hail weight recognized by the “World Weather and Climate Extremes Archive” is 1020 g in Bangladesh in 1986. When I mentioned this news before people, they were interested but I only got to know the opinion of two meteorologists who thought the values were too high to be correct. On the one hand, the values are indeed very high. On the other though, two different sources roughly coincide in the weight, and old sources of information tend to be more reliable than contemporary news sources. I have worked before with Hawaiian newspapers from around the same time, from 1868, for the article regarding the Mauna Loa eruption of 1868, and found them to be reliable, similar to how I feel about weather news in Spanish newspapers when handling them. The damage to roofs with many holes opened through some of them I think is suggestive of many stones weighing around 500 grams, which coincides with the statement of 20-ounce stones (~600 g) being numerous as mentioned El Clamor, below 500 g I think it would be very difficult for them to fully puncture roofs. But of course, this is not a debate that will be settled immediately, and it has merely started.
Regardless of the exact size of the hail, it was quite big and reminds me of how houses near Ruang got holes in their roofs during the volcanic eruption earlier this year. Isn’t it amazing how nature often parallels itself in very different things? Well, I hope I can return to volcanoes soon and drop a much-needed update on Kilauea, I’m also traveling to Etna towards the end of the month and maybe I’ll feel inspired and write an Etna-something.
References
La Paz (Murcia). 20 August 1859. Page 1. https://prensahistorica.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.do?path=1000100478&posicion=1&presentacion=pagina
El Clamor público (Madrid). 19 August 1859. Page 3. https://hemerotecadigital.bne.es/hd/es/viewer?id=0afe57a9-8001-4209-8253-f8e0e562348b&page=3
The shallow earthquakes are focusing on the northern part of the former erupture areas now, and increasing in frequency. Shall we see that as a sign that things are about to happen? And just south of Stóra Skógfell again?
Not yet. The levels are actually very similar to what they have been. There are small variations from hour to hour, but nothing that signals that it’s about to go.
Looking only at earthquake data in the northern part of the dyke, it has now been in the noisy phase for the same amount of time as before the last eruption (one month, give or take a few days), it has reached the same number of accumulated quakes, and the accumulated seismic moment release is also at the same level as before the last eruption.
Does this mean it’s ready to go now? Maybe, maybe not. The trend between previous eruptions has been that increased buildup has been required for every eruption. If that’s the case, then it means it could still be a couple of weeks before it’s ready. If the breaking point is about the same as before, then I’d say it’s primed and ready to go now.
One thing that I don’t see mentioned anywhere is what part the overall rifting process plays here. We are so focused on the inflation at Svartsengi that we might be missing the bigger picture. What if we lift our eyes and look at the plate motion in the surrounding region? Directly in line with the spreading axis from the eruption site we have stations NYLA and STAN. If you look at the plate motion at those stations you can see that the plate spreading is slowing down. Maybe the built up strain over the last 800 years is slowly running out over this segment of the rift and it simply takes longer for the plates to separate enough to allow for the next eruption? Is the rifting controlled by push or pull, or both?
If the eruption doesn’t happen in August, but September, it will likely be the last eruption of this year of Sundhnukur. The dormant period continues to grow as we’ve noticed.
That is the right question. The eruption sequence began with a big rifting event which created a pressure instability. Over time that will resolve itself. At that point the eruptions may cease or more westward. We are not yet there, I think
Last three hours no quakes, so no significant change. If you get an increasing number of M 2 quakes from hour to hour, you should watch the webcams.
The recent quakes on Grimsvötn and Bardarbunga were maybe a prelude to the current Flood on Skaftá river. The area apparently continues to react to the flood.
Usually the jökulhlaups happen without preceding quake activity. You often get quakes immediately after the subglacial lakes have drained, since it reduces the pressure, but otherwise it’s unrelated to the general quake activity under Vatnajökull.
The subglacial lakes are permanent features created by hydrothermal systems melting the glacier ice. They slowly fill up with water until the level gets high enough to start a new draining event.
These three quakes happened right in the area of the western Skaftá cauldron, which is believed (but not yet confirmed) to be the source of this jökulhlaup.
Thursday
22.08.2024 01:59:46 64.497 -17.666 10.0 km 1.6 99.0 7.0 km E of Hamarinn
Thursday
22.08.2024 01:54:09 64.438 -17.674 4.4 km 1.2 99.0 8.5 km SE of Hamarinn
Thursday
22.08.2024 01:33:38 64.449 -17.691 9.6 km 1.8 99.0 7.1 km SE of Hamarinn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9rZle2WgN8 looks interesting – Volcan de fuego, Guatemala
Latest Darwin Award candidates: https://watchers.news/2024/08/20/climbers-narrowly-escape-death-after-eruption-at-mount-dukono-indonesia/
God, waiting for the Sundhnúkur fissures to erupt is like watching paint dry. By this point, I expect the eruption to happen next week, only for it to jump in surprise and say “Hello”. I try to keep my mind on other things, but waiting for it is just taking over my mind right now. I am watching old videos of the start of the May 29th eruption and wonder “is it going to be like this?”.
Just going to pour what I think may happen (don’t take my word for it, may not happen), based on its volume-
It might be the biggest “initial” eruption of the series (where the fissures are at full power) and make reaching about 40 million m³ in the few days, maybe more if there is this one fissure that’ll last for a week or two. There is a chance the dike may bypass the defensive wall in Grindavík and produce a fissure similar to the one in January (may or may not destroy structures). That eastern wall defending the power plant will be a place where lava pools and goes elsewhere (I thought it’ll go through that gap to the south but they might’ve put up a wall there already). The eruption might start where the previous eruption is and the cones from previous eruptions cut by the fissures. Now, there are a few that may think it’ll reach the ocean, but I have a feeling it might not.
The longer the eruption waits, the more “ammo” it gains and the chances of this eruption being bigger grows every day…
Again, all my opinion, do not take my word. It might happen in a different way than I imagine, but I’ll be surprised if it happened the way I think it has…
Heh! 😀 For what it’s worth RÚV and IMO are feeling the same way…
Still no sign of an eruption (21 Aug)
He seems a little disappointed! Ah well, for a natural disaster specialist there’s always Skaftá to be interested in instead.
Glacial flood on Skaftá River – Civil Defence “level of uncertainty” issued (RÚV, 21 Aug)
If they’re warning about hydrogen sulfide it suggests there just might be some arriving magma under all that ice.
Hydrogen sulphide comes from the geothermal fluids and is not a sign of a new batch of magma. In geothermal energy extraction, H2S is a problem that needs to be handled.
I see Greip’s been busy today.
Yes, I think greip’s having a toddler tantrum.
Thanks, Hector! Hail is an interest of mine, mainly for practical reasons.
I live in an area (Northern Arizona, high altitude) prone to severe hail. I’ve personally seen, about ten miles from here, what happens when a T-storm lingers over an area for a while; two feet (minimum) of hail accumulation, on a hot July day. I saw it about an hour after it fell, and it wasn’t melting much (and the air temp felt chilly, compared with the 90F before the storm.). That’s the most hail I’ve ever seen (though 6 inches of accumulation isn’t unusual at my house.) It was a bit smaller than pea-sized, though at my house, I’ve seen six inches in depth of hail that’s marble-sized.
The largest hail I’ve seen at my house is egg-sized (and ovoid in shape), though only a few as part of storm that mainly dropped inch-sized. Those were smooth and solid, and had distinctive layering inside (3 layers).
I’ve seen solid hail about the size of baseballs, due to driving through a neighborhood when they started to fall. No small precursors, just the big ones, and only a few for the first few seconds (the first one I noticed hit a lawn). Ince I figured out what was going on, I drive like a maniac to the first vacant spot under a carport I could see and parked there (yes, trespassing, but extenuating circumstances and all that), then listened to the hail hitting the carport (about once per second, sounded like a sledgehammer). Left big dents, too. It also destroyed pretty much every roof in the area. A lot of cars had their windshields smashed in.
The oddest (to me) hailstorm I’ve ever been in was in Scottsdale, Arizona (Phoenix suburb, and low altitude, about 1200 feet) I lived there at the time, in an apartment that had long tin-roofed carports. I heard a big clang, and went onto my balcony for a look; massive hail, and when it hit the carport roof, it was exceedingly loud. The hail was roughly 3 inches, but what was so odd about it was it wasn’t solid, it was mush, sort of like a tightly made melting snowball. When it hit, it basically splashed, like slush.
So, having had my own experiences with large-ish hail, I very much sympathize with those people in Spain and their monster hail. Yipes!
CJ
Seems based on this if the recent trend is maintained Kilauea will be back to normal again in about a week, maybe 2 if it has to overshoot. If that doesnt happen it probably means magma flow into the ERZ is higher, and if there is no uplift then magma flow into the ERZ is at least as high as supply rate. That situation is very likely to result in a new long lived eruption somewhere on the ERZ again.
I hope HVO was only being conservative in their recent release, they seem to be really weirdly downplaying that the ERZ has become active about a decade earlier than they expected a few years ago.
That’s worrying.
Is there much danger of a long-term eruption akin to what we saw at Pu’o’o, though lower down the ERZ, such as the Puna region?
I’m very much hoping that’s not the case.
It is most likely another shield would be east of Pu’u O’o. The ERZ after 2018 and up to 2020 was showing magma activity as far as 15 km east of Pu’u O’o, and that station is still showing weak subsidence that shows the flank is moving in that area. Magma hasnt yet reached that far but my expectation is that when the magma chamber at Napau and Makaopuhi (and Pu’u O’o) is filled back up to the 2020 level, that magma will go eastwards again. If we see that and it is sustained it is very likely a shield will form thereafter.
Although it is also very likely somewhere else will erupt first, the summit cant lose pressure without erupting from the middle ERZ or lower, so with that now active it is kind of a waiting game for Keiki Pu’u O’o.
There is still a bit of activity in the upper rift, close to the rim of the old caldera, so some magma may well still be flowing. Further down the ERZ there has been some movement but this may just be due to tectonic adjustment from the inflation along the chain of craters. I don’t think it has activated further down rift, at least so far.
There is magma going as far east as under Pu’u O’o, it just isnt making much noise, probably because it is in line with the spreading rather than at an angle.
image deleted for too slow loading
I am afraid images this size and slow in loading cause problems on the site. Do you have a smaller one on a better link?
Thanks! Yes, clear focused inflation. Not connected to the most recent intrusion but the largish earthquake that happened just now on the pali could be related to pressure from this inflation.
Its very hard to see those not being related really. 4.7 is also pretty strong, probably the flank actually slippong a bit, whjch only makes it easier to flow through… It will be interesting to see how this looks in another few weeks.
Its also pretty crazy that all of the ERZ stuff only started less than a month ago and already looks like this. Parts of the ERZ have lifted by nearly 10 cm.
MP3R station on Pu’u O’o lava field shows sharp S + E movement of the station:
Contrary to this, JCUZ (closer to Pu’u O’o cone) has moved N and E:
KERZ between Mauna Ulu and Pu’u O’o inflates like a rocket with W and N movement.
According to the GPS stations the center of uplift is between Pu’u O’o crater and MP3R station. Would a possible eruption again happen on the 1983 line Napau-Pu’u O’o or can it happen south outside of the line?
Probably trying not to panic people in lower Puna
Do the Mediterannean volcanoes mirror the division between the former Tethys sea and the “continental” part? The Tethys came from the east and expanded during Jurassic Age towards the west, but later the ocean shut again in the west.
The western volcanoes of Spain and Italy have alkali magma while the Greek (eastern volcanoes) have classical subduction zone magmas. Santorin f.e. has the range from Basalt to Dacite and subordinated alkali magmas. The three remaining important Greek volcanoes:
– Nisyros has Andesite to Rhyolite
– Milos has Andesite to Rhyolite
– Methana has Dacite and Rhyolite
Is the Iberian Micro Continent still rotating or did it quit this movement?
Western Mediterranean seafloor is original Tethys crust I think, the Greek volcanoes are arc volcanoes. The volcanoes in Italy are probably not exactly but related. I remember seeing that the eastern Mediterranean seafloor is much younger and so there is a rifting and upwelling component too.
So basically the Tethys actually isnt really lost, not yet anyway, there is a bit left.
AVO has published a satellite animation of Great Sitkin 2021-2024 that shows how the summit crater has been filled with lava:
https://avo.alaska.edu/image/view/195691
Volcanophil:
Thank you. That’s a very nice video and we can expect more filling to occur. It makes is easy to see how calderas become summits.
Is this normal for the Vogar shakestation to show? A second yet discontinuous line that is around 5 Hz has shown up (no idea when) and a few spikes showing on the þorbjörn shakestation at 1e-4 (maybe amplified by machinery). Is it something other than magmatic/tectonic?
A closer look just in case.
Difficult to tell during the day with the recent stormy weather, and lots of work being conducted on the berms. I’ve been mainly looking at the low frequency waveforms on a night time and there is still nothing much standing out as yet
Vogar is close to human activity. You will see all sorts of signals there, most of them unrelated to volcanism.
Focus on Grindavik and Thorbjörn. If you see bursts of strong vertical lines in the spectrogram that show up on both of those, separated a minute or less between events, then it’s time to turn on the webcams.
I doubt that you will catch any magmatic signals by looking at these plots. You need some specialized filtering and signal processing to separate actual tremor from background noise, and even with those algorithms some non-magmatic signals will leak in. Best chance to catch the start, before lava is actually spraying out of the ground, is by looking for that intense earthquake swarm.
Road closure again in Hawaii.
https://www.nps.gov/havo/learn/news/20240821-chain-of-craters-temporary-closure.htm
This is not recommended for you to emulate, when you want to see a volcano in action. This is Mt Dukono Aug 17th. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwtUKOLA3HU where some thrill seekers want to get really close up.
Bruce Garner gave me permission to share his prediction charts for the next Iceland fissure eruption near Svartsengi. See
According to his charts, the next fissure eruption in Iceland is very close now, I’d guess Aug 29th – Aug 31st.
A run of quakes has just started at Svartsengi. Mostly less than mag 0 but happening every 30 seconds or so.
Mini-swarm … 21 quakes in 15 minutes. All small, all centered around Sundhnuk.
Looks suspiciously insignificant yet … I’m getting my hopes up. Last time we didn’t see much either as it came up.
May be coincidence but I see the four trucks are leaving / have left the berm on the Sundhnuk 2 camera.
Timestamp 21:19:11 2024-08-22
Mag 2.2 aM
Depth 1.1 km
Needs to be verified, but if mag 2.2, this is significant
quake at Stora-Skogfell
Ongoing swarm Iceland. Reports sirens going off at Blue Lagoon but not confirmed.
Confirmed by RUV
The Icelandic Meteorological Office has activated a response due to an impending magma flow at Grindavík. Seismic activity has increased and there have been pressure changes in boreholes. The work area is being evacuated. Hjördís Guðmundsdóttir, communications director of civil defense, says that the entire reaction system and coordination center of civil defense have been activated, where they are working on a red alert. Then boreholes indicate that a magma flow is starting. The news will be updated.
There it goes!
Big earthquakes happening now… 2e-4 at Grindavík.
*þorbjörn, not Grindavík.
Clustering is beginning now.
Just had a 2.2 quake.
Prepare to make ze poppy cornies, boys! We might have a big one here (and hopefully without any houses destroyed…)
It started at 20:48 … it’s now 35 minutes later. I can feel the heat. STEAM!
Lava!
We got one!
Wall of fire! 😮
Lots of lava already ponding up https://livefromiceland.is/webcams/langihryggur
https://livefromiceland.is/webcams/fagradalsfjall
Albert, I have noticed the 4 mag 2+ quakes now on the NE side (around 21:35-21:50 local time) I’ve not this before after the fissure eruption starts.
The quake at 21:19 has been relocated and officially recorded as mag 2.58. close to where the eruption first started
Fissure eruption is on! I will have to back up camera to locate start time.. Huge wall of fire
Steam pulse starts at 21:25:34 pm Iceland time, right where the steaming was going on the past few weeks. Lava breaches the surface at 21:25:51 pm Iceland time.
Well here we go
anyone know closest location?
Right where the steaming was going on for several weeks. Camera https://livefromiceland.is/webcams/thorbjorn2
Thanks Randall. Having probelms seeing too much, Just had cataract surgery. Glad it waited for me.
On the icelandic version of the IMO page there is a diagram containing the coordinates of the midpoint and most northerly and southerly points. The text is quite small though. Chrome won’t play ball trying to copy the link.
There are also images from the coastguard.
Any estimate on flow rate yet? Looks like a lot of lava, most ponding on the east side fortunately, but a tongue now moving westwards. 21:43 pm.
Looks like it is expanding towards the main cone… might cut it in half.
*MAY cone, not main.
Hope they cleared the lagoon and power plant by now. Lava is making a run for it. Looks like it’s alotta lot.
3 mag 2+ quakes now.. wonder if weight of lava is triggering them?
hmm 🙁 4th mag 2+ quake just now 21:50:37 pm
Lagoon was evacuated immediately after tremors started and the PP can be operated remotely. Protective berms for Svartsengi have been beefed up since the last eruption. We’ll see what happens.
Livefromiceland cam 4 got the start perfectly. Zoomed in at first visible lava:
https://www.youtube.com/live/YAQzsB9ev9Q
Go back and watch the start.
That was absolutely cool! The webcam person was instantly onto it. Nicely done! I liked all the machinery going back and forth along the line of the berm minutes before the lava fountains started.
MET is quick to post updates: https://www-vedur-is.translate.goog/um-vi/frettir/jardhraeringar-grindavik?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB
Updated at 10:15 p.m
A series of images from a webcam at Stóra-Skógfell.
It shows the evolution of the lava spread every 10 minutes from 21:30 to 21:50.
Based on these images, the lava flow has traveled about 1 km in 10 minutes.
The time lapse also shows the lava fountain heights diminishing. I wonder if it is possible to infer when the main gusher is finished?
That’s 6km/h, faster than typical walking speed.
Quakes are still occurring as of 22:28 pm on the NNE side of the fissure lineament, I counted 14 of mag 2+ since 20:50 pm in this area, most to the NNE.
Mag 3.5 aM (to be verified)
Time 22:37:38 2024-08-22
depth 2.9 km.
First we had rock. Then we had hard rock. Now we have hot rock. 🙂
Are those Tenacious D lyrics?
Lava flow is advancing fast. It’s already coming around Sýlingarfell if I’m not mistaken. It’s not so easy to keep track of direction when it’s dark and everything glows orange from lava.
Updated at 10:30 p.m
The eruption has furthest to the north.
The total length of the crack is now about 3.9 km and has therefore extended by 1.5 km in about 40 minutes.
Good news for Grindavík. At least for now.
That is further north than usual (maybe except for the December eruption)…
There’s now been a magnitude 3.5 earthquake.
It’s lengthening the fissure towards the north.
The question is, how far will it go.
Interesting. Didn’t quake as much after the eruption started the last couple times.
Maybe due to increased pressure and land subsiding, forming a new graben?
MET Office shows fissure growing to the north-north-east, 4.1 km long now
If the trend continues, we might have a Xmas eruption.
The big quake has now been upgraded to a 4.2.
https://www.youtube.com/live/hGUELw4j6gQ?si=cnJH13BFV3QI-apz
If anyone wants to the northern part of the eruption at Vogar…
Updated at 22:54
The fissure now extends as far north as the fissure that opened during the eruption in December last year .
So it has gone northwards again. No ocean entry 🙁 but also limited damage. I cant help but wonder if this means eventually the fissure could be this whole length though. So far the lava volume is still a lot less than the older lava fields and there is no sign of slowing that is reliable. Its unlikely this is the last eruption here.
Northern end has maintained intense fountaining last 1/2 hour (23:15-23:45 pm)
And still growing to the north, based on Vogar cams…
Hello folks, I have a question about fissure propagation. Once an intrusion initially breaks the surface, does magma propagate along cracks just below the subsurface or does this place tens to hundreds of metres below the surface once an initial ‘vent’ has been established? I’ve always found it curious that fissures largely seem to progress outwards gradually from the initial source point and in perfectly straight lines bar the occasional offset. I’m assuming larger vertical fracturing may be involved but I was wondering if there was an established model for this process?
Its a bit of both. But lava fountains need some depth to be able to accelerate so my assumption is that anywhere with fountains is probably at least 1 km deep likely more. But shallow dikes do exist in completely passive eruptions, lots of those were found as flank vents of Pu’u O’o as far as 3 km from the crater. But you also can get deeper dikes without high fountaining.
Basically, high fountains = deep dike, passive effusion can be either.
🙂
https://www.youtube.com/live/R-H-99XPnzM?si=sXSZtH17OZHA7EB8
Isak is live.
Still not seeing much of a decrease in seismic activity along the dike.
Seems the southern fissures are weakening as the northern ones appear and grow stronger…
It is 01:33 am in the morning, but has the northmost fountains increased a bit? I see that rock is still cracking in that direction.
First circle is the newer fissures (much newer ones out of frame) and second one is burning power line…
Got that from Vogar.
Is there any other cameras pointed to that northern area?
Sorry for the misinformation, but I thought the power line was on fire… it is not.
New zones have been set up.
Carefully thinking about the last 2 fissures eruptions and this one, the emergence of lava tonight has convinced me that the steam area in the middle of the Svartsengi lava field was actually a leak in the whole system, which allowed steam to escape the past 2-3 months. I view it as the leaky lid on a boiling pot. The fact that it never stopped steaming indicated that volcano gases, in particular steam found an escape route. Tonight the lava simply went out the leak at the start then the fissure lineament grew from that point onwards.
Its a great location for Grindavík. But not necessarily a good sign… An eruption the exact same distance, but in the opposite direction would have its end in southern Grindavik, a couple hundred meters inland of the harbor. Grindavik is still almost unscathed. But whenever it falls, the next south-skewed eruption, it probably *really* falls.
Incidentally it is very clear where the feed is located. Obviously the last two extended eruptions built cones in the same area. But the December, January, and March eruptions all had their southern end pretty much exactly there too…
Frankly the February eruption is the odd one. Its the only one so far to be south-skewed. But its not just that. Its northern end didn’t make it particularly close to the spot. I wonder if it was a borderline failed rifting. It had the smallest inflation drop of the entire Svartsengi series other than the actually failed rifting at the beginning of March.
It seems clear that the pressure balance favors intruding north. But the more dikes you stuff up there, the harder that direction will get.
There seems to be a tendency for fissures to move north rather than south. Fagra I, II and III did the same thing. Grindavik is on the Euro-Atlantic plate. Thorbjorn and everything north is on the American plate. The fissures start close to the border and tend to stay on the American plate. The only exception so far since 2021 has been the brief fissure at Grindavik. I would guess that this situation will continue. Grindavik is not safe but may well survive – which I would be very happy about. The Blue Lagoon is not as secure..
Something is occuring at the fissure. There is some black smoke coming out.
Agreed.. huge cloud of black smoke now at 2:37 am. https://livefromiceland.is/webcams/fagradalsfjall
mag 2+ quake at 02:49:46 am.. waiting to see the mlw measurement.. at north end of the fissure lineament.
mag 2.27 at depth 1.3 km
As a320 mentioned, there is a black cloud amongst the fissures (phreatimagmatic in origin?).
There’s reports of a new fissure beyond the northern most end of the currently erupting one, but not much is coming out of it. It’s out of view of the webcams.
https://livefromiceland.is/webcams/vi_thorbjorn it is very hard to tell if the yellow cloud coming up on the left area is from fissure emissions or simply due to degassification of the lava but I don’t recall seeing this previously.
Definitely increasing in emissions now at 03:12 am. definitely new vents opening up. See https://livefromiceland.is/webcams/vogar and https://livefromiceland.is/webcams/vi_thorbjorn
Helicopter flyby over this new fissure at 03:17 am. (small white dot to the right up above the vent)
Another mag 2.54 quake at the north end of the fissure line, at 03:17:41 at depth 1.5 km.
Of course…. The one time I turn in early it decides to blow up…
Again wonderfull and majestic to see, never get used to it.
HVO released a new map showing deformation from the recent intrusion
Was basically due west of Pauahi crater and south of Hi’iaka crater, a bit west of the Chain of Craters road. The dike was also very short, and the lines are very close and defines on the interferogram. It didnt erupt, but it was probably very close, another one in the same area might just about do it. At the rate of deformation and inflation ongoing we might get a round 3 in a but over a week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-H-99XPnzM live stream drone just starting
was not toggled over to drone until 14:45 into that feed 🙂
oh i’m an idiot – that was last night – but still great footage
People in Vogar really have a special view today.
Just one more:
(Btw., officials call this eruption ‘Philip Daniels’-Eruption after the first describer in VC)
Oof, really just a benefit of having too many monitors 🙂
I thought it was slowing down, but it was just so far north that most of it is out of view from the usual cameras. Imagine landing in Iceland and the first thing you see when going from the airport to Reykjavik is this view.
Yes, its really bad luck that so many cams have been installed and yet they can’t see the northern part of the lava field. But goog luck for the Reykjaviki and the taxi business.