The Woolly Mammoth-Sized Eruption Poll

Following on from Carl’s latest post on some unrest in Iceland, I wanted to gauge public opinion on who they thought was going to make the headlines proper rather than the usual clickbait nonsense from the bile-spouting tabloids. I hope recent misleading headlines haven’t swayed our visitors into voting for their latest scare stories! Try to base your vote on information from official sources, trained experts in the field and your own personal knowledge and discussions on VC.

I know there’s a lot, but in addition to the major central volcanoes, I also wanted to include the ‘little’ volcanic features or large shield volcanoes that are often discussed in this blog. This was originally one big long list with only one vote, but we decided to split it and add three votes to the second poll to give a better gauge of public opinion.

For more information on the majority of the candidates, please refer to the Woolly Mammoth guides from Carl:

An older version with more of the candidates listed:
www.volcanocafe.org/the-woolly-mammoth-guide-to-icelandic-volcanism

Updated version that covers the Reykjanes Ridge and Eldey-Geirfuglasker Volcanic Belt:
www.volcanocafe.org/the-woolly-mammoth-guide-to-icelandic-volcanism-2018-chapter-1

A Woolly Mammoth-sized map of Iceland with (I think) all the candidates can be found here:

Click for a mammoth-sized version. This is an optimised ~2 MB JPEG image, the full uncompressed version is currently parked on the Moon to free up space. Map by Beardy Gaz.

If you’re still not sure about some of the candidates, you should be able to find more information by searching the blog using the search widget in the right-hand column.

Please vote only once on the first poll with the ten main offenders, you can vote three times in the second poll. You can view the results at any time using the link below the voting button. The poll will close on Friday evening and the final winner will be announced then, along with the runner-up and black-swan awards. Hilarious new headlines in the tabloids will be available on Saturday morning in paper-form for you to use during your morning ‘visit’.

Note: The following are to include the central volcano and associated fissure swarm and volcanic features unless otherwise stated.

Out of the main central volcanoes, who's going to erupt next?

  • Öræfajökull (39%, 83 Votes)
  • Hekla (30%, 64 Votes)
  • Katla (14%, 31 Votes)
  • Grímsvötn (not including Thordarhyrna or Háabunga) (10%, 22 Votes)
  • Bárðarbunga (not including Hamarinn) (3%, 6 Votes)
  • Askja (2%, 4 Votes)
  • Þórðarhyrna (Thordarhyrna) (1%, 3 Votes)
  • Eyjafjallajökull (0%, 1 Votes)
  • Torfajökull (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Vestmannaeyjar (Surtsey, et al) (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 214

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Who else might erupt next? (Pick three)

  • Reykjanes and Svartsengi (13%, 52 Votes)
  • Herðubreið (12%, 50 Votes)
  • Goðabunga (9%, 37 Votes)
  • Hamarinn (6%, 25 Votes)
  • Deadzone (of unknown origin) (5%, 22 Votes)
  • Vatnafjöll (5%, 22 Votes)
  • Krafla (5%, 20 Votes)
  • Kistufell (4%, 16 Votes)
  • Kverkfjöll (4%, 16 Votes)
  • Hengill (4%, 15 Votes)
  • Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja (3%, 13 Votes)
  • Greip (unknownabunga) (3%, 12 Votes)
  • Trölladyngja (2%, 10 Votes)
  • Eldey and Geirfuglasker (2%, 10 Votes)
  • Upptyppingar (2%, 9 Votes)
  • Beerenberg (2%, 9 Votes)
  • Háabunga (2%, 7 Votes)
  • Loki-Fögrufjöll (2%, 7 Votes)
  • Snæfell (1%, 6 Votes)
  • Langjökull (1%, 6 Votes)
  • Nafir-Skjálfandadjúp (1%, 4 Votes)
  • Tungnafellsjökull-Vonarskarð (1%, 4 Votes)
  • Þeistareykir (Theistareykir, inc. Theistareykjabunga) (1%, 4 Votes)
  • Esjufjöll (1%, 4 Votes)
  • Hofsjökull-Kerlingarfjöll (1%, 4 Votes)
  • Eldey (1%, 3 Votes)
  • Ok (1%, 3 Votes)
  • Eldeyjarbodi (1%, 3 Votes)
  • Snæfellsjökull (1%, 3 Votes)
  • Prestahnúkur (1%, 3 Votes)
  • Skjaldbreiður (0%, 2 Votes)
  • Brennisteinsfjöll (0%, 2 Votes)
  • Hrómundartindur (0%, 1 Votes)
  • Grímsnes (0%, 1 Votes)
  • Helgrindur (0%, 1 Votes)
  • Tindfjallajökull (0%, 1 Votes)
  • Ljósufjöll (0%, 1 Votes)
  • Skerjadjúp (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Heiðarsporðar (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Fremrinámar (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 175

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80 thoughts on “The Woolly Mammoth-Sized Eruption Poll

  1. I would like to vote: hekla, Öræfajökull, then Grímsvötn, but i can’t. didn’t fiound last two. Not sure i understood “Who else might erupt next? (Pick three)”.
    A funny question for journalists: what are the selection biases that we can be met by organizing an internet vote?

    • You can only pick one for the ten main volcanoes. The second poll has three picks as it’s such a big list and it includes many unknown features.

    • Selection bias? Many. I voted for Upptyppingar simply because I wanna see it on main stream news, it would be EPIC.

  2. …well… that was enlightening.

    I didn’t realize just how close the Goðabunga cryptodome was to the Fimmvörðuháls cones. Now I see why some made the assumption that was the magma source.

  3. I voted Grimsvötn
    Thats where the hotspot is
    And almost all historical Iceland eruptions have come from Vatnajökull

    • Greip is quite active in depth past years, so it might be the next key factor. Question is in what direction does the main part of the pulses go … ?

      Ne rien va plus! 😀

      • For those of you new to VC. “Greip” is an unofficial name given by VC to an anomaly that appears to be a nascent volcano next to Grimsvotn from the seismic data. It is not yet recognized by official sources. The reason for the name is that in the folklore, Greip is a sister of Gjalp, a giantess responsible for a flooding river that slowed Thor’s progress on a trip to Geirröðr he was making on foot. The Gjalp eruption caused a jökulhlaup. In keeping with Icelandic wry humor, they appropriately named the fissure causing the event Gjalp. Since it is right next to what we at VC call Greip, and is her sister, it seemed appropriate.

        Note: In keeping with his personality, Thor later kills the two sisters and their father who were trying to kill him.

        • Gjálp and Greip weren’t killed, just permanently crippled after Thor broke their backs by pressing/crushing the chair they sat on up into the roof.

        • Thank you. I had assumed that would have caused death.

          Ant idea how these Jotun are linked to Grimurs wife?

    • I’m with you on this one Jesper. Even with the recent activity under Hekla, I still think Grímsvötn is the most probable candidate.

  4. Or, for the ultimate tabloid disaster epic: ALL OF THEM!!!! 😀

      • to the group: don’t bother Google with “Ragnaröcano”. They’re behind the times…. too slow….. and now i wonder how long it will take for google to list Ragnaröcano…. 🙂 Best from motsfo really enjoying the sunshine this morning before the remains of the latest pacific typhoon brings us rain…. it’s been an incredible sweep of record breaking warmth for Alaska…. i love it…..

  5. Katla is as Carl says … cotton candy for arlarmist media. Faily Star, Daily Fail, Faily Express loves it
    Each time it shakes there medias goes overhype
    It will be fun when it erupts.. and how these newspapers reacts 😂

    • I think technically it could have erupted at least twice in the last 10 years alone, but without breaking the glacier it won’t be able to be confirmed.

    • My thoughts exactly 🙂

      It’s not manually checked yet and annoyingly there seems to be a delay in the drumplots, so it’s not possible for us to verify either. The drums are updating, only with a delay in the data. I noticed this earlier today. Hope it’s just a glitch and not a deliberate new feature.

      There is a number of foreshocks, but no aftershocks. Does that tell us something about the source process?

  6. Whats the threat to Reykjavik itself?
    There is lava flows pahoehoe type inside/near Reykjavik from middle ages.
    Someday it will happen again 😬😬

    • Lava could come from the Krisuvik system. Lava has flown before into some suburbs. But that must be a long fissure. Not common.

      Reykjanes system is far away from the capital, but the airport is right next to the volcanic region, but slightly outside of it. An eruption there would make such a show as you would land by airplane.

      Another system that can also affect Reykjavik is Hengill. Lava has flown near the city suburbs. And Hengill has the potencial for much larger lava flows. But that’s also rather uncommon.

      No system would affect directly Reykjavik itself with lava, just some of its suburbs.
      The only immediate concern for Reykjavik is actually the winter with its never-ending windstorms, rainstorms and snowstorms… eheheh 🙂

  7. Interesting news from Kilauea by HVO: “Sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission rates at the summit, Puʻu ʻŌʻō, and the lower ERZ are drastically reduced; the combined rate is less than 300 tonnes/day, the lowest sustained emission rate since before 1983.” Whether or not this signals the end of the eruption entirely will be interesting to see.

    In other news, I have been given a role with VolcanoDiscovery as a news-provider! So any reports of activity anywhere will be very useful!

    • That’s either very good news (present eruptive spasm over) or very bad news (a blockage in the plumbing system) And not one that Super Mario could fix

      • Not to be pessimistic but given that it is kilauea the second option is more likely…
        As you probably saw from some of my older comments it is very unlikely that this years eruption actually took out the system in place within the rift, in fact it really only drained out the upper shallow chamber connecting halemaumau to kilauea iki and the southwest rift, which is maybe 1/4 of the total (still about 1.3 km3 though). It is unlikely right now but an eruption comparable to this years event could still happen within the LERZ over the next decade and with people seemingly very eager to reoccupy the lava in most places this could be a big problem, a new eruption wouldn’t have to forge its own dike rather than use the 2018 one and erupt both a lot faster and a lot more quickly to reach high rates, compare 1955 to 1960.
        Not to mention the 20,000+ people wandering around at any one time within the surge zone of the 1790 explosion…
        Pu’u o’o was exactly in the best place it could have been, most of the lava was in uninhabited national park, a major eruption of any description at the summit or a second event near heiheiahulu would be very damaging and in the former potentially lethal.
        Kilauea has suddenly gone from famously boring to one of the most potentially hazardous volcanoes on earth…

        • The almost complete lack of SO2 means that there is no shallow magma reservoir left under the existing conduits. Gas can find its way through blockages better than magma can. But there is still underground activity, as shown by the rather steep change of tilt near Pu’u’O’o.

          • Inflation at Heiheiahulu is becoming clearly noticeable by now. Heiheiahulu is at the upper part of the LERZ, and the Pu’u’o’o and Mauna Ulu areas do not show any the deflation so the magma is probably coming from the summit all the way down to the LERZ, so a good open conduit right now. And judging from the fact that the GPS at Heiheiahulu has been displaced towards west then the intrusion is centered downrift from the GPS.

          • Yes, it can be magma flow but in that case it is completely shielded from the surface as there is not a hint from gas emissions. Alternatively, it can be the dike closing. It is kept open by the magma pressure, so when the pressure declines the dike can narrow. This can push magma along and keep the pressure higher than it would otherwise be. That could even explain a westward GPS drift, if that is where the dike is closing. Two models – the future will tell which (if either) is right.

          • I suspect that there is a small magma chamber under this area too, there have been two shields in this area in the last 500 years as well as several fissure eruptions including 1955. This is probably the lowest area that magma can flow to continuously at the base rate, shields have formed along most of the east rift above this point, 4 of them in the last 50 years alone. However all the eruptions below this point seem to be high volume rapid fissure eruptions like this year. The fact several shields have overlapped at this spot also supports this idea. I would say this spot is probably the best point to draw a divide between the LERZ and the MERZ.

            I also agree that this is probably continued supply to this location, the dike closed from the far end over the course of the eruption so it would be more reasonable to assume it continued to do so afterwards, at least as far as heiheiahulu. I would put the chance of another eruption happening at or near heiheiahulu as pretty high, and another LERZ eruption as fairly high too.

          • Over the past week, Pu’u’O’o has started another round of contraction. The magma underneath it may still be draining out and perhaps this is getting into the ERZ.

          • I have also just recently considered the possible implications that having this much stored magma could have. If your theory of kane nui o hamo being the first big shield on the east rift is true then that is pretty significant. It means that in the last 1500 years or less the rift has become as viable as the summit as a place for big slow eruptions to occur. The kane nui o hamo eruption probably created the first substantial magma body in the rift, the ones underlying makaopuhi and napau. As time went on these collapsed possibly many times but stayed there overall. Around 1500 there was the possible big flow from pu’u huluhulu that probably opened another storage area, and then shortly afterwards the shield under heiheiahulu. In 1750-1790 era heiheiahulu formed and expanded on the 1500 pagan chamber. In 1969 mauna ulu erupted for 5 years and expanded the upper rift storage area, and from 1983 up to now an entire new magma chamber has formed under the pu’u o’o complex, and finally as if the past few months the feed has started getting into the heiheiahulu chamber again.

            In this model there are now semi-permanent magma chambers under mauna ulu, makaopuhi, napau pu’u o’o, and heiheiahulu, as well as probably one under kilauea iki and keanakako’i, the south caldera (probably same as keanakako’i) and one on the southwest rift near the kamakaia hills (this one is less known though and probably fairly recent, has yet to collapse). This coukd amount to as much as 2 km3 of magma if it could all be linked together to drain in one event. This could have massive implications, if this much magma is stored in the rift it could lead to frequent large eruptions with many being 2-15km3 shields that erupt for decades, then terminate with intrusions and major eruptions in the LERZ. This could continue until the rift is so open that the entire thing just drains out in a single very big lava flow probably at least in part from submarine vents, leading to profound changes to the rift, effectively a caldera event but on the east rift. This century has seen the most lava erupt from the east rift since surface records are exposed, far more than the previous event in the 1700s or late 1400s. On top of that it still isn’t actually over despite causing a caldera collapse and a holuhraun sized lava flow much bigger than anything thought to be possible on kilauea before now.
            Perhaps this voluminous activity is indicating a new period of summit overflows is on the horizon, with a fairly imminent risk of the east rift completely draining out and restricting magma to the summit. A true full drain of the east rift would probably have to be an event that is even bigger than this years eruption, maybe something not seen in Hawaii since before people discovered the place. This century at kilauea will be very interesting for sure.

          • I guess also if the heiheiahulu deformation is ~10 cm and the peak of inflation is east of the station then there must be some fairly sizable magma input. If a radar map of the area for some point this week exists then a rough volume for how much new magma has intruded could be calculated, and from that a supply rate too. Given that it took pu’u o’o about 2 months to inflate about 35 cm but most of that was over less than 2 weeks this is fairly significant deformation.

            At 5 m3/s supply rate the amount of magma accumulated after 2 months since the eruption ended would be about 26 million m3 total. Not all of this is in an eruptible position but a fair amount of it seems to be going under heiheiahulu. At the current rate of inflation by the end of December the ground will have risen 25 cm from the value it had during the eruption. This would indicate an inflation of maybe twice that at the epicentre (maybe under highway 130) which is rather enough to have an eruption as big as the fissures in 2011 already, so by the time something does give somewhere it will likely be quite damaging and maybe a lot bigger than one might expect after such a huge draining of the volcano. Anywhere between pu’u 8 and heiheiahulu should definitely be very aware of the risk.

            If it erupts now or within the next few weeks then it will be probably similar in size and scale to fissure 17 or the 1955 eruptions except with new lava, but if it holds off until next year then things could be a little more scary. It is possible that an eruption there might also start with more significant fountaining, as magma hasn’t been in the heiheiahulu area since 1961 and there has been no real degassing vent for months now leading to a chance for more vigorous fountaining. 1955 and 1977 were able to reach 300 meters, their magma was more evolved and viscous than recent stuff, these could be considered to be partly strombolian so this sort of activity might initiate a new eruption near heiheiahulu.

          • I just did a bit more maths and if the inflation is steady then it will get to 65 million m3 of theoretical magma by the end of this year. That is about the same as what erupted in 1955 from the upper vents which erupted most of the lava, and these vents are only a short distance away from the steaming fissure on highway 130, where magma rose quite close to the surface, close enough to open surface fissures but not release SO2 (1000-500 m deep?). I think if this keeps going the chance of an eruption in the very near future is almost certain.
            I actually said I predict kilaueas nest eruption to be in December to February next year, except I thought it would be at the summit.
            1/2 a point? 😉

          • But there you would be assuming that inflation at Heiheiahulu is going to continue at a stable rate, and that is something that might not happen. I think activity in a close future will be ERZ dominated but maybe next eruption can still come from the summit. The supply is right now getting to the summit and it might build up there or get down the rift, it will be interesting to keep an eye on the GPS at Heiheiahulu to see if this inflation is just an short-lasting effect of this year’s eruption or if it will continue ramping up.

            There is a magma reservoir in the Aloi crater area that is also the one associated to the Mauna Ulu dike, it already existed before Mauna Ulu and was probably the source of a couple of intrusions into the Kulanaokuaiki Fault, the best example in 1965, it was probably enlarged by the Mauna Ulu eruption afterwards. Remember when I said that the Kulanaokuaiki fault is maybe the most active of the Koae Fault System and that where it meets the rift zone is where one of the largest upper ERZ reservoirs must reside? well that location is Aloi so one of the places to expect pit craters developing at some point.

  8. I voted Eldey (meaning that my highest guess for next unknown eruption is a submarine eruption from the Reykjanes system). There has been many swarms in past years in the region, most tectonic, but the area is known for eruptions once or twice a century.
    I voted also Kverfjoll (as its Vatnajokull and so near Bardarbunga)
    And I voted Hamarinn, which shows sustained inflation since many years.

    Of the ten ones I was undecided between Hekla and Oraefajokull, but went for Oraefajokull.

    • On the B-list one of my options was Beerenberg on the grounds that it’s had several eruptions in historic time AND is so bloody remote that the next eruption could come as a rude shock – limited monitoring up there

      • It was on mine too. It erupts often, and can certainly hold its own against Icelandic volcanoes. And outcompete any minor one.

  9. why do i think Carl voted for the dead zone> Did You, Carl??

    • Not a bad candidate considering that the region north of Vatnajökull had a stress relief episode when Holuhruan occurred (no matter where it’s magma ultimately came from), and that the Dead Zone has been accumulating tension at 18mm/yr since 1783. {4.23 meters of extension that has not been allowed to occur yet, just thinning of the crust}

        • The fun bit about this poll, is that it touches on “The wisdom of crowds” concept.

          Individually, none of us are experts, but we do have a collective understanding of the geology at play and can make reasoned choices based on that understanding. It doesn’t mean any of us will be correct, but I think we as a group will be fairly close.

    • I have to admit, I put a cheeky vote in for the deadzone…

      • Don’t count out your “cheekiness.” A long time back, Carl announced the new volcano trivia questions were coming out in just moments and me being an jerk, posted my answer just before he posted the question and I got it right. Sometimes shooting from the hip is dead on accurate.

    • Well, let’s see here. From north to south, the most recent stress-relieving events along the eastern rifts have been:

      Krapla 1980s
      Holuhraun 2014
      Grimsvotn 2011
      Skaftar Fires 1783
      Eyafyallajokull 2011
      Eldfell 1973
      Surtsey 1960s

      One of these is not like the others. One of these just doesn’t belong.

      Everyone should be eying that remaining section of rift the way they would a long-locked section of the San Andreas or of the Cascadia subduction zone. In all three cases (representing all three types of plate boundary) I’d expect a sizable event in a maximum of a few decades.

      • Krapla, was that intentional?

        Eyjafjallajökull doesn’t belong here, as far as I’m aware, as it’s not related to the rifting process. This was a regular intrusion from depth that reactivated shallower magma storage. Infar images of before and after would shine a light on this if they exist.

      • You forgot askja 1875 and bardarbunga 1865 but yes the southeast part of the dead zone is a rather notable gap in the recent rifting events.

        Of the volcanoes bordering the dead zone you have katla, thordarhyna, grimsvotn, bardarbunga, torfajokull and debatably hekla.
        Torfajokull is probably almost dead, and bardarbunga has just had a big rifting event, so this area is probably out. Grimsvotn is recovering from a big event, but also has a huge supply and so it is a wild card.
        Katla is much more interesting. It hasn’t erupted for a century, and usually it is more frequent than that, so a fair amount of magma has probably accumulated under it and big rift could tap into that and cause a big eruption. This would be a fair bit smaller than eldgja but big nonetheless.

        Thordarhyna is the most risky. It has done large eruptions in recent time, but is almost unknown as to be considered just a part of grimsvotn. It also sits right bext to the dead zone, and seems to have a very sizable magma supply and habit of erupting big during hotspot events so this is the volcano to watch out for in my opinion.
        There is also the rather scary scenario of grimsvotn intruding into it before a big rifting event and so you get basically another skaftar fires but in part under the glacier…

      • Eldfell is probably not a rifting event. The rift at this position does not yet rift. Neither was Surtsey. Not all fissure fires involve rifting.

  10. Oraefajokull… Because of those most likely to erupt it seems to be the one which is showing a consistent increase in seismicity. I could easily have opted for Hekla because that could erupt at any time… Maybe tomorrow? But also maybe it really has changed its bad, boomy habits and will now behave like a respectable young adult.
    Or not !

    Of the others my first choice was Herdubreid. I noticed it heard Carl and I talking about it, and today it seemed to be offering its own views on the matter.

  11. https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/mashable.com/2018/06/12/hawaii-lava-green-crystals-kilauea-eruption.amp

    Well this is really interesting. This years eruption involved a lot of olivine rich lava, enough that crystals are common and easily visible. Somewhere along the conduit the magma is bypassing the summit…
    I don’t know how much olivine is required to classify a basalt sample as being picrite but I can’t recall any time when crystals like this were ever erupted from pu’u o’o in recent years, and the only time after 1960 that it almost happened was during high fountains from mauna ulu and possibly a few from pu’u o’o, and December 1974, all very high effusion rate eruptions. It could be that the rifts actually always have feed from deeper than the summit chamber, linking to the main feeder system. This also fits with those numbers I found of about 4 km deep source of degassing for 1959, 1969 and 1983-1986, with these all being somewhat below the generally accepted depth of the main magma chamber.

    If this indicates that the recent eruption was a deep intrusion that dredged through the olivine layer then that really makes things complicated and also goes against the data from the quakes. It is actually sort of surprising that there is no straight up answer to what the lava composition is after 36 years of continuous observation and 13 km3 of lava to choose from… It took only days to determine that fissure 17 was andesite.

    • Well, olivine crystals tend to accumulate on the ground of a magma chamber. They normally get to the surface with violent eruptions only. Not so this year, the magma on the top of the mountain drained out through the LERZ. It is not really a surprise, that the olivine crystals where washed along, as the magma chambers were almost completely emptied. Evidence of this is the sharp drop in SO2 emissions as stated above.
      Second possible source of olivine could be the old differentiated magma, that was already sitting in the LERZ from previous eruptions.

      • I see the second possible source more likely, I think the highest olivine contents for Kilauea’s lavas are from LERZ eruptions like 1840 (or older prehistoric eruptions like Halekamahina). The summit reservoir has been very active during the Pu’u’o’o eruption with lots of magma entering and leaving it, the magma has probably been completely renewed more than once, I don’t know if olivine cumulates can remain in a magma chamber under these circumstances.

        • I dont see anywhere in the article that the lavas have above-average olivine contents for Kilauea though. A geologist states that the lava is crystal rich which would mean it is evolved, likely to be because of mixing with old and not so old ERZ magmas with the one coming from the summit. But they do not mention a particularly high concentration of olivine.

          • I would have expected that olivine crystals on the millimetre scale would be considered olivine rich… This was also during the fountaining stage of fissure 8 so maybe it managed to tap into a local deeper source, like a magma from an earlier deeper intrusion, one that had more olivine and held it at a shallower depth than might be expected as a general rule. Or maybe the pu’u o’o magma is actually that rich in olivine and it just doesn’t get erupted rather than settling on the magma chamber under it.
            It is hard to find any info on this event but in 1998 there was a surge at pu’u o’o which was almost like an attempt to return to its high fountaining glory days. There were no actual high fountains but the extra lava burst out of every erupting or recently active vent on the volcano, most of it merging into a single big a’a flow that reached the coastal plain in only a few hours before stalling when the surge ended. The effusion rate was briefly increased from about 10 m3/s to maybe even as high as 300 m3/s. The summit also deflated strongly in similarity to the 1980s episodic eruptions.
            If this lava from that surge had more olivine than otherwise then that could explain it, that pu’u o’o had a lot of olivine sediment at the bottom of its magma chamber and this got dragged along down the 2018 intrusion.

  12. My money still is on Grimsvötn as the next eruption, I think the runup at Öræfajökull is still in its early stages.
    Hekla is completely unpredictable though.

    I also expect Kverkfjöll to erupt in the near future. Apart from that I had Herðubreið amongst the “also-rans”, but to be honest I doubt we will see an eruption there, not that i would absolutely LOVE to see one.

    Completely out of the blue I just had a feeling about Þeistareykir 😉

  13. I voted Hekla. But perhaps just because its the one who bites before it barks..
    Öræfajökull looks to be on a steady road to eruption.

    • I had a dog that acted like that. Doberman. It would close it’s prey and sink in it’s teeth in total silence, then would wrestle you to the ground. The neighborhood bully found that out the hard way. I had to tackle the dog to get it to turn loose of his arse. Despite being a cretin, the bully learned to stay out of the yard. That dog did not like him at all.

      • Strange dog. If you were outside his turf, he would bark and warn you. If you were in his turf, you get no warning, just game on.

  14. Well, I thought I had found something interesting.

    Turns out it was just an artifact of the plot projection and not a dike structure. Rendered in Gurgle Urt, it’s just quakes scattered across the caldera.

  15. HVO reported today that Webcam images of the fissure 8 cone show that a portion of the crater wall near the northern spillway area has slowly shifted during the past 2 weeks, indicating some instability of the cone in this area.

    • Well, there goes Los Angeles… or so the Tabloids will report.

  16. Another sword in a lake…

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pa9mmk/8-year-old-girl-pulls-ancient-viking-sword-from-lake-is-our-ruler-now

    “Legend holds that King Arthur’s reign was foreseen by an enchanted lady in a lake, who granted him the sword Excalibur. By the same rules, Saga Vanecek, an eight-year-old Swedish girl, is now on a divine path to rule a great kingdom after she discovered a 1,000-year-old sword in a lake”

    Kalmar Union v2.0 ?

    • Listen, strange girls lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony !

        • Hear hear. As Nixon said, we should listen to the silent majority.

          (I did but it seems to be on a different channel than our politicians use. At least, I am not hearing what they say they are hearing.)

      • Eh. Seeing the shape of modern democracy its worth a shot. She is already more mature than some of our politicans.

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