What if Katla erupted?

/ 05/12/2021

Myrdalsjökull glacier and the Katla Volcano. Photograph by Chris 73.

First of all, I should clearly state that there are no current signs that an eruption at Katla is about to happen in the near future.

Instead, the reason is that I was asked by one of our readers, Patricio Oliver, what would happen if the volcano erupted, especially for the inhabited areas.

This is a very good question; we rarely write about eruptions from the perspective of what the effects would be on the local population. First, we need context.

 

The Icelandic LIP

Conjecture – All Icelandic volcanism is a function of strain caused by the spreading of the MAR and magma intruding from the Mantleplume and the Mantle.

 

Katla 1918 eruption.

Iceland is a true geologic marvel, but few people realise that for the last 14 million years it has been running the tectonic show for the entire Northern Hemisphere. We know this because that before the Icelandic Mantleplume was born 16 million years ago, directly under the MAR, Northern America was moving in the opposite direction.

As the mantleplume started Northern America switched trajectory in a geologic instant. One good thing is that the oceanic crust above the mantleplume was thin, otherwise we would have seen volcanoes that was epic in size and scale of eruption.

Instead, the crust was too thin for ‘super-eruptions’, and we got numerous slightly more manageable eruptions to deal with.

On average Iceland is spreading at a rate of 2.8 centimetres per year, but at the point central of the LIP it can move apart at express speed during larger events. The largest known spreading event occurred at Eldgjá as the local rate of spread was 150 metres in a year. Don’t worry, it somehow averages out into 2.8 centimetres again over time and distance through processes that we still do not fully understand.

Now, let us look at the chain of other large volcanoes along this portion of the Mid Atlantic Rift (MAR).

 

The Local MAR

Overview of the Mid Atlantic Rift in Iceland. I stole this image from Alamy that stole it from a paper that I could not find online. If anyone can find a better image with more details of the various parts, I would be much oblliged to switch it out.

The Mid Atlantic Rift is more complex as it goes through Iceland than what I am describing here, I am after all concentrating on Katla now.

Katla belongs to a chain of large central volcanoes that stretches all the way from the easy to pronounce Þeistareykjarbunga down to Eldfell on Heimaey. From north to south these large volcanoes are, and yes there are more small volcanoes there, Þeistareykjarbunga, Krafla, Askja, Bárðarbunga, Grimsvötn, Þórðarhyrna (it just flows off the tongue), Torfajökull, Hekla, Vatnafjöll, Eyjafjallajökull, Katla and Eldfell.

These are all fed by plume-derived magma at various grades, and are subject to the ripping apart of the MAR. There are though a couple of features more local to Katla that is also interacting with it.

 

The Local Group

Katla is affected by no less than 3 different regions of the Icelandic Portion of the Mid Atlantic Rift. The first one of these is the East Volcanic Zone (EVZ) that roughly runs from Grimsvötn down to Katla.

South of Katla you have the Vestmannaeyjar Volcanic Belt (VVB), this is where the Mid Atlantic Rift is desperately trying to find a new and shorter route through Iceland. Over time this one will take over as the new MAR-route. Over time the VVB will connect the islands into a peninsula that makes landfall south of Katla.

To the west you have the South Icelandic Fracture Zone (SIFZ), this feature is mainly not volcanic, with the glaring and obvious exception named Hekla that is the Easternmost part of the SIFZ.

By now most people would feel that this was a complex enough setting for any volcano on the planet. Nope, this is where it starts to get really funky.

 

The Dead Zone

Eldgjá, the unzipped crack of Katla. Photograph by Andreas Tille.

In the movie Stalker by Andrej Tarkovsky, they enter a place called The Zone, a place where physical laws and causality are suspended. The Dead Zone is similar in many ways.

Obviously, the laws of physics and causality are not suspended in the Dead Zone, but we do not understand what is happening enough to yet understand what is going on in there fully.

The Dead Zone is an intensely aseismic area located roughly inside an area that is bordered by Katla, Vatnafjöll, Torfajökull, Þórðarhyrna, and back to Katla. The margins of the Dead Zone can at times be extremely seismically active, but inside the area very few earthquakes occur, and they are very small when they do happen.

It is believed that the region is made up of ductile hot crustal material that is more akin to rubber than rock, and that this causes the aseismicity.

We also know that the area is prone to suffer from the largest known effusive eruptions on Earth, and that it during those eruptions suffers from the fastest tectonic movements on Earth. What we do not know is how it happens, what is causing it, and why it is happening at this spot and at no place else.

It is the beating heart of the LIP, and I will come back to this feature in an upcoming article about Vatnafjöll.

 

The Katla Central Volcano

Katla is one of the Big 3 volcanoes in Iceland if you look at the combined ability of explosive and effusive eruptions. Yes, Grimsvötn have caused larger explosive eruptions, but the average explosive eruptions are smaller out of Grimsvötn, and yes Bárðarbunga has caused larger effusive eruptions. But Katla is on average as good as Bárðarbunga and Grimsvötn at producing the greatest shows on Earth.

It is the ability of causing on average large explosive eruptions that set Katla apart. Only one confirmed eruption at VEI-3 has happened in historical times. The average size is in the large VEI-4 range bordering to VEI-5, and a VEI-6 is never out of the question from this volcano.

It is also able to produce effusive eruptions in the near 20 cubic kilometre range out in the Dead Zone, this last happened in 934AD at Eldgjá.

The last confirmed eruption at Katla happened on the 12th of October 1918 and it was a borderline VEI-5. The current hiatus is unusually long, but not unheard of.

Like most other volcanoes a prolonged hiatus will often end up with a larger than average eruption, so when the eruption happens next time, it is likely to be in the VEI-5 range but that is far from a certainty.

 

The risks of Katla

A volcano like Katla comes with a diverse set of risks depending on the size of eruption and where it happens. I will here go through the risks in order of likelihood to cause problems.

Jökulhlaups – Katla is situated under the Myrdalsjökull Glacier. The glacier has completely filled in the caldera with Ice, and during an eruption the geothermal heat caused by the eruption will melt large amounts of the ice causing massive jökulhlaups.

The Jökulhlaup caused by the 1918 eruption was large enough to create 5 square kilometres of new land on the beaches near Katla due to the amount of tephra and ash deposited by the water.

The Jökulhlaup of 1755 had a peak discharge rate of 200 000 – 400 000 cubic metres per second. More than the combined output of the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile and Yangtze River combined. Not something you wish to be in the way of.

Ashfall – Even though this is not deadly in and of itself, it will in large amounts cause roofs to collapse and damage building and infrastructure. If the prevailing wind is southerly during an eruption the local villages will be impacted.

Southerly winds would also cause problems for airlines in the same way as happened during Eyjafjallajökull in 2010. Obviously, the problem would be even greater since the amount of airborne ash would be much larger.

Volcanic bombs – The world record of Lava Bomb killing is set by Hekla with a 12kg lava bomb being hurled 32 kilometres before decapitating a farmer, Katla is amply able to hurl lava bombs quite a distance. The safety zone here during a larger eruption would be around 30 kilometres.

Pyroclastic Base Surges – This would be counted as an uncommon risk and would only be a factor during a VEI-6 eruption. It is when an eruptive ash column collapses and hot ash and gasses fall down and come running down the sides of the volcano. If that would happen nothing within 50 kilometres would be safe.

Rifting Fissure Eruption – Having 10 to 20 cubic kilometres of lava gushing forth within a few months would be bad mojo indeed. Do not around be the safety tip here due to the ample amount of volcanic gases.

The good news is though that the volcano will give off ample warning signs prior to erupting, so evacuating the locals will not be a problem. And also, the locals are well aware of what they have to do and are well prepared to do so.

 

The Fallout of Katla X

The Village of Vík. Photograph by Efrainlarrea.

So, in a few years Katla will suffer from the hypothetical eruption X. It turns out to be exactly like expected, it was a medium sized VEI-5, it caused a large jökulhlaup peaking at 50 000 cubic kilometres, the beaches got extended with yet another 5km.

There was only one death that happened during the eruption, it was caused by a French volcanic tour guide who smuggled in tourists through the safety checkpoints. One of the tourists tried to steal drugs from a village pharmacy and succumbed to volcanic gases.

The Bridge across the Road 1 was washed away, and the road was closed for a week after the eruption before the Icelandic authorities had it replaced.

In Hólt and Vik several roofs caved in due to the weight of ash, but the houses was rebuilt in short order. Some houses at the outskirts of Vik were destroyed by the Jökulhlaup and was also rebuilt.

After two years all was back to normal in Iceland, and everyone was waiting for the next large eruption.

The eruption caused the SAS Airline to default due to volcanic ash and bad food. It was missed by nobody.

 

Conclusion

Why is Iceland so uniquely able to withstand large eruptions compared to other areas in the world?

The first thing to remember is that Iceland is sparsely populated, and there are not that many people living near the biggest volcanoes in Iceland.

It is also important to acknowledge that the Icelandic Met Office is among the best volcanic authorities in the world, they will be able to forecast an eruption and evacuate the locals with ample time to spare. Well, not perhaps in regards of Hekla, that one just has to be special…

Also, the knowledge and preparedness of the Icelandic people in regards of volcanic eruptions is second to none. They know what to do, they are ready to do it, and they will do it when needed.

If Katla erupted anywhere else on the planet it would be an unmitigated disaster, but in Iceland it will be a nuisance of temporary nature before the locals go back to eating the national dish, hamburgers.

CARL REHNBERG

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754 thoughts on “What if Katla erupted?”

  2. @Jesper: Wasn’t it you who attempted to create lava in the backyard?
    DIY: https://www.themarysue.com/syracuse-lava/
    So should be possible after all (except for the gasses, though it is looking like there is some gas in that basalt, at least it’s breaking from the lava and combusting then in that video.)

    • Problem isnt the temperature it is the heat conductivity. I have tried to melt a piece of basalt with a propane torch and it glows read but still looks solid. Same for some andesite, just glows but still looks solid. Rhyolite or granite is too high in silica to melt under normal conditions, rhyolite lava is mostly made on a large scale from basalt melting continental crust which infuses the felsic magma with volatiles and especially water which lowers the melting point a lot, by over 1000 C. I dont actually know if there is a place that has a large volume of rhyolite formed by direct evolution as opposed to melting silica rich crust,

      Best way to make lava would be an arc furnace. Very easy to make only an arc welder and carbon electrodes, should be possible under $100 and is much more powerful than a gas torch.

      • Either use acetylene (2400 °C in air vs 2000 °C with propane) or pimp it with some oxygen (2500+ °C with propane) =D
        You can get the amounts you need easily from an oxygen concentrator^^
        There are models out there which have 85% oxygen at 10 l/min flow rate (unfortunately oxygen concentration drops as you increase the flow rate)

        • Acetylene is much more expensive though, unless you live out in the middle of nowhere and need something portable. Also, from personal experience trying to melt anything with a carbon rich flame is near impossible, the soot builds up and completely insulates the object. 2400 C is childs play temperature for carbon, it really needs that extra oxygen to burn it all away.
          Supposedly burning things in nitrogen oxides makes a much hotter flame than pure O2, nitrous oxide is able to get a nearly 4000 C flame with acetylene. Would assume other NOx would be even more, N2O as a liquid is used as a rocket fuel and higher temperature is desired in that application. But NO2 is very dangerous, like chlorine but it is also neurotoxic, best not advise Jesper to do that, an arc welder is much safer…

          At least where I live just the torch head costs more than an arc welder of any size…

        • The reasonably cheap ones basically deliver max 1l/MIN at 100% and proportionally more at lower concentrations. I have one I bought in preparation for covid jan 2020. Whether it would have helped me survive is another matter.

    • As Chad says .. the heat conductivity is very low in basalt, better to try in a very hot kiln

      But Electricity Arc Furnace is best as he says. Electric Arc and lots of refactory insulation around it

      Still our fireplace in our previous home was a real monster, with that hurricane suction under the ash bin, managed to melt lipari pumice there. That fireplace got so hot that is was possible to burn anything, despite high moisture content

    • That fireplace was an insulated box with suction under the ash bin, you got a ferocious suction there .. and I coud easly go beyond 1100 C amazing that the glass window did not explode or melt, The cats dead mouses and spoiled apples, and even moldy watermelon shells was possible To catch light inside That fireplace.
      Mostly we fired with wood and coal, we installed refactory plates To protect the metal box from heat corrosion. I dont know the Model of That fireplace But a real beast for soure. Its a 1990 s type if I remebers correct

      It was possible melt small pieces of fine grained diabase, basalt and sillicous pumice in that fireplace. Glass was easly to melt

      • Sadley it became little of our own waste incenirator, dad often put inedible food scraps and other leftover plastic junk from buyed stuff there togther with the wood .. not good at all, But in souch extremely high temperatures There is little dioxins I guess.

        Still you should NOT burn your own trash, go to recycling and put it in its place where it should be.

        Mum became enraged When she discovered his behavour

        But our summer- house neighbur is much much worse with his junk burning

      • Also extremely high temperatures generates nitrous nitrogen oxides and Thats not good either, after years of firing that box had been through alot of beating the metal parts inside where flaking alot and lots of corrosion: The New house owners likley have buyed a new fireplace

        But that old fireplace where as efficent as Hell itself 🙂

      • I think you could have managed it with an additional blower or something like that 🙂
        Just using coal + blower must already get extremely hot.
        If it wouldn’t have been hot enough you always could have added some additional oxygen.
        As a side-note: I love pure oxygen, it is sooo many tons of fun to play with =D <3

        • The air intake under the ash bin acted as a blacksmith blower its just as strong.
          I acually melted a real steel screw during one of these firings placed inside the pile and placed it on the air intake grind bars

          That fireplace was a real hurricane of suction

    • But that isn’t brand new..?
      I remember watching exactly that video no later than September…
      Impressive nonetheless.

      • It was new to me 🙂

        What impressed me was the self awareness, and the ability to reason so well about itself.

        • Ok, apologies 🙂
          Yes, but it is.. somewhat scary too 😀

          • I am probably one of the few who are not afraid of AI and their impending taking over the show.
            They just simply can’t do a worse job than we have done.
            And, they are kind of our offspring, our children, in a way.

          • I am, and for the very same reasons that you don’t fear them.

            Homo Stultus is the current dominant hominid remember? When you really really need something screwed up, leave it to a human. And if a human codes the AI… garbage in = garbage out.

  4. Not so dead zone. Yesterday 4,0 in Poland.

    Yes there are some missing gaps between Denmark and Iceland. But Faroe–Shetland Basin and Faroe-Iceland Ridge do contain some seismic lines.. called Westray-, Brynhild-, Clair-lineages all going through Faroe Islands pointing to northwest Iceland. Note the mountain formation in Faroes NW-SE direction.

    This is unexplored territory but I belive there is a faint tectonic line all the way from Carpates to Vatnajökull. The most largest volcano eruption in known history of Iceland was eruption of Öræfajökull in 1362. It blew its top cap off.. But it is still the highest mountain (2110 m) in Iceland. And on this previously mentioned line..

    In 1362, it erupted explosively, ejecting 10 cubic kilometres of tephra, similar in scale to the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The wealthy district of Litlahérað was destroyed by floods, pyroclastic flows and ashfall. Sailors reported pumice “in such masses that ships could hardly make their way through it.” Thick volcanic deposits obliterated farmland, and ash travelled as far as western Europe. More than 40 years passed before people again settled the area, which became known as Öræfi. The name literally means ‘an area without harbour,’ but it took on a meaning of ‘wasteland’ in Icelandic, as the 1362 eruption had drastically altered the environment around the mountain.The volcano likewise took on the new name Öræfajökull. Source: wiki.

    Bàrðarbunga second highest peak (2009 m) in Iceland is on the same line. Enjoy the beautiful dialect in this humoristic video:

    https://youtu.be/tW2VqOs_ayE

    Maybe I need a beer, cheers.

    • Odd how in the video blurb where it says: “Now scientists say: ” is never linked to any peer reviewed works.
      Strange.

      What worries me most is this Igor Kryan has 362,000 subscribers.
      That’s a lot of non-critical thinking in action.

  5. Did Grimsvötn central summit volcano exist before the Sakursunarvatn eruptions? Or was it there before? And what was there before the caldera complex formed?

    • Carl sooo IF Grimsvötn is not a trapdoor caldera, any chance for any longer lived activity next time? In 1784 and 1785 If I remebers correct, there was a glow seen over Vatnajökull, that coud have been a tuff cone in Grimsvötn thats grown large enough to go fully effusive. If the magma chamber keeps growing as it does today in Grimsvötn, we are going to get an unusualy large event next time

      • Lack of the mythical trapdoor does not in any way causate longlived eruptions, the eruptive pace is just to high.

      • Sierra Negra is often written as a ”trapdoor caldera” by geologists but perhaps a poorly defined subject. Sierra Negra haves an inflating sill that slowly lift the whole caldera floor, and when pressure gets high enough it blows at the ringfault

        • Problem is, what is ringfault volcanism and a trapdoor caldera?
          If it happens at different spots, it is ringfault volcanism (Tondano), or where there is a trajectory to the movement of the eruptive centers (Atitlán).
          A ringfault caldera erupts on the same side over a prolonged time, with one end of the caldera floor working as a hinge (Long Valley), then you get fairly evenly increasing uplift from the hinge (almost none) to the other side where you have maximum uplift.

          Problem is that even Long Valley seems to not follow the proposed mechanism, since it to all points and purposes are a resurgent dome caldera.

          I am not saying such a caldera does not exist, I just state that it is one of those versions of volcanism that have become fashionable among both scientists and volcanoholics. 🙂

    • At least we haves Kilauea To enjoy, the never ending lava machine it truley is, the supply must be insane these days. If Kilaūea somehow gets constipated .. then You are going to have an event that dwarf Leilani. But Kilauea is very open these days, and seems to be building up its summit shallow stoorage.

  6. This is not North-West-Iceland though. This is East-Iceland. Plus:
    “Above and below that reverse magnetic layer we find normal magnetic polarization. But, as we go deep down into the bottom layers of the volcano we find that they are strongly reversed in magnetic polarization. This put’s the origin of the volcano prior to the Brunhes-Matuyama Reversal 781 000 years ago. (And no, a polar reversal is not an extinction event.)”
    https://www.volcanocafe.org/oraefajokull-a-challenge-for-volcanology/

    If we take these years by 2 (for cm) we get a little over 15 km (if I calculated right) and push the guy 15km further west (WSW?), and we are getting a volcano, supposedly the oldest in Iceland that started once on the MAR.
    So I am not really seeing why the fault lines in the North should be so important.

    • I followed you all the way up to:
      “So I am not really seeing why the fault lines in the North should be so important.”
      Could you explain the context for us? 🙂

      • No, you explain please if they are in the end and if JuHa is right. Not my task. So put differently: Why then would the fault lines in the North be so important? 🙂
        Better. A question.

          • Landslides happen (underwater, too).
            Some causes:
            Gravity. Soil and rock slope instability (has its own world of mechanics). Sea-level rise after glaciation. Minor quake (plenty of ancient faults in the old Norwegian rock). Freeze-thaw action dropping a mountainside into the sea . Sub-sea erosion from deep currents.

          • So, you posted an article about Öraefajökull when you intended to link to Storegga Slide?

            Could you please rephrase your question, if there is any, into a form that both sides of the discussion can understand. I am not a mind reader.

        • Denali, I do not understand that sentence.
          I do admit for instance that the Gakkel Ridge does not have any importance on Öraefajökull. Please explain which fault line in the north is not relevant to Öraefajökull, because that is the only place reference in you comment.

          And what Juha has to do with it I do not get, he is inventing faults between Finland and Iceland that runs through my house, but he never mentioned Öraefajökull as far as I have seen.

          One has to give a bit of clarity in life… 🙂

          • That is precisely the point, Carl:
            “And what Juha has to do with it I do not get, he is inventing faults between Finland and Iceland that runs through my house, but he never mentioned Öraefajökull as far as I have seen.”
            Some things might be due to my fine, albeit not perfect English. I just said that that monster is a typical Icelandic volcano. And you explained, not for the first time (Albert did it quite well with Fagra further west) the spreading ridges there.
            To make it clear, I go with your Dodo sentence.
            Poland is another chapter.

          • Clarity. Hope it was clear enough. was just interested in a beer. Didn’t work out again. Will have a glass of Valpolicella instead.

          • Denali can you write the question in English, and then again in your native language (so we can try and understand what you really mean).

            And if it’s not obvious to google translate – can you let us know which language it is too 🙂

  7. Lava keeps flowing into Kilaueas rootless lava lake, the lake crust rises togther with the rising lava levels, and small pahoehoe spill breakouts resurface the lake crust. It just keeps going and going, soon the 2018 drainout bowl will be competely gone. Hawaii is a seriously powerful hotspot, wont stop at all, I guess its normal for Kilauea to erupt non stop during a human lifetime, she did that before Major caldera events

    • The Kilauea supply is insanely high large these days, and there is No flank eruption. Its possible that Open conduit summit lava lakes woud behave souch too on Kilauea, knowing that the magma supply is simply so high. Kilaueas supply today is way too high for circulating lava lakes, so they overflows constantly.

      The 2008 – 2018 overlook open vent pipe lava lake was keept from overflowing by the Puu Oo flank eruption that constantly tapped lava from the summit magma column. In 2018 Puu Oo conduit backed up and the overlook lava lake started To overflow constantly.

      Had Puu Oo eruption never happened then the 2008 – 2018 Halema’uma’u eruption woud have overflowed like hell constantly .. the caldera woud be gone If that was the case

  8. Carl since This is a Katla Article

    Is there any possibilty that Katla Many erupt in our lifetime? Did she erupt in 1955 and 2011? althrough that never broke the surface

    • I was not around in 1955, so I can’t answer for that.
      2011 was a purely geothermal event without any fresh magma involved. Possible a minor phreatic blast, but more likely just a geothermal well blowout judging from the signals at the time.

  9. Nyiragongo is trying to get back its lava lake
    But only glowing holes been seen at the crater bottom, and sometimes its just a tiny hole, generaly strombolian bursts from them. Back in 2003 when the 2003 – 2021 lava lake formed you had a massive fountaining hole, that was the pipe down to the magma chamber. Not soure there will be any Big lava lake this time

  10. So Greip Is a proto volcano that have not erupted yet? But is there an alive magma chamber below there?

    • Not a nice read.
      Why do you post this link?
      What has this to do with volcanoes?
      This is a volcano blog, is it?

  12. Magma composition map of Iceland.
    Notice How the Thoelitic basalt prefers areras with large ammounts of partial melting, while the alkaline magmas prefers areas with smaller melt rates in the mantle. Snafellsness Penninsula is the most alkaline magmas in Iceland where partial melting in smallest

    • Katla is in the transitional alkaline, perhaps having a similar magma composition as Etna.

      I wonder How Alkaline Icelandic magmas really can get, there is No Basanites or Nephelinites in Iceland since partial melting is too large in Iceland But Canaries haves them.

      Iceland have really huge ammounts of melting, and that explains why there is Not alot of alkaline magmas in Iceland. Most magmas in Iceland are Thoelitic Basalts very similar to Hawaii in composition.

    • Anyone here knowing the viscosity of the Katla Basalt? Well that will depend alot on the temperatures rather than sillica content. Many alkaline magmas haves much lower sillica than than the Thoelitic non alkaline fagradalshraun, yet They are much more Viscous because of lower temperatures.

      Katla is a mildly alkaline basalt, perhaps similar to Etna, althrough Katla is not as alkaline as Surtsey was where melt rates are lower

      • https://opinvisindi.is/bitstream/handle/20.500.11815/324/PhD%20Thesis_v10-5.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

        Not sure if it shows the viscosity or temperature exactly but this is a detailed study of Eldgja. based on the distance the lava flowed and how the vents look on google earth the lava looks to be very fluid though, it is not at a viscosity that katla would be a highly explosive volcano if the glacier was removed. So deglaciated Katla would probably have eruptions that look at lot like Etna paroxysms but bigger.
        Paper also shows Eldgja was initially a single fissure, a deep eccentric eruption at the northern edge of Myrdalsjokull, and that a dike moved north from there. So it was sort of like Holuhraun but the magma source was ultimately from the deeper source instead of directly under the caldera. There was another eruption around 7000 years ago in the same area, but it didnt go into the rift. Seems Katla is not by itself a rift volcano, just that Eldgja was a satellite vent in the right place to invade the rift from Grimsvotn, it might have been a bit of a black swan for that to happen really.

        • Actually, Okmok might be a good visualisation of a deglaciated Katla, at least historical activity anyway. In historical time its eruptions have been basaltic but high intensity, so make fast a’a flows and tall fountains, even subplinian VEI 4 in 2008. Seems Okmok completely destroyed any magma chamber it used to have before its big caldera eruption, now it is starting again from scratch an only erupting basalt.

      • The Chicxlulub Impactor where about the same size as Okmoks Caldera, perhaps a few kilometers wider than that, and Swift Tuttle is almost 3 times as large as the caldera.

        Okmok is a Very Young caldera as far as I knows

  13. 3.7 mbLg N FUENCALIENTE DE LA PALMA.ILP
    2021/12/10 21:57:53
    13

    +info
    4.2 mbLg ATLÁNTICO-CANARIAS
    2021/12/10 21:57:49
    19

  15. Saw there are some bets involving eating hats going on. I am going to add my own and that is Kilauea will do a major caldera forming eruption before an eruption of bigger volume than Holuhraun happens in Iceland. I am going to use DRE values on that, so 1.5 km3+

    • I wants both Iceland and Hawaii to be erupting, But you knows what I wants
      My hunger for large basaltic eruptions haves No limit now.. I wants ”The Flood” I wants to see a new mega LIP
      Hungry for eruptions you know, Holuhraun and Leilani was too small 🙁
      😈 I wants the biggest badest flood basalt that you can ever imagine.
      Its LIP or bust.. thats How it is for me these days. Well well Im getting mad

      We will also see If Etna can produce an Ionian style summit paroxysm

      But indeed Mauna Loa looks promising too next time

    • We live in wrong geological days today for Mega Eruptions, there is No Supercontinent that can overheat earths mantle, and There is too many plate boundaries today where the heat escapes.

      It just me that wants the Megalodon of Basalt eruptions, ugh Im so addicted to my mega lava flows

      Even if Laki happens again .. it may not be Big enough in scale to satisfy me : O

      • You might have another kind of hunger then, the hunger my grandmother told me about: the hunger of a big famine. Be glad you can’t turn them on with a switch. You might have M.A., but you belong to the rest of the western world in one thing: We are spoilt as we always had enough to eat. It’s a good thing, but it shifts values. My mother had Rachitis between the two world wars.
        I’m glad I know my grandmother’s stories, I take nothing for granted. My husband, older than me, had to steal coals with his siblings after the WWII.

    • I’m going to bet we won’t live long enough to find out whether you’re right.

      • You have to set on Eternal Life after death to find out.

    • Have to disagree with this one, Kilauea has an open conduit and no real reason to do a major caldera forming eruption. Iceland has several outlets priming for an eruption in the near to far future, and certainly some fissure swarm could do bigger than 1.6km3ish, or even a big blast from somewhere like Oraefjokull or Askja.

      • It can do that anyway, it did that 500 years ago, an event that was many many times bigger than Leilani, It happens when the pent up built up summit magma chamber either springs a Leak in the rift or blows through ring faults, Leilani 2018 was a smaller type of caldera formation drainage at Kilauea. For now Kilauea is Busy building up its summit magma chamber that where damaged in previous drainout events

  16. Photo: Grimsvötns 2004 tephra Island in the meltwater lake at the eruption site. Most Grimsvötn caldera eruptions stops when they reach this phase. Had it continued in 2004 it woud go effusive and lava woud start to flow out from that hill, becomming a mini tuya.

    GL Edit: Attempted link removed. I tried to fashion it as a functional link but WordPress barfs on it when trying to parse it for display. I would make a copy of it for local media, but it is copyrighted (sorry). If you can locate a clean version without webp extensions or scripting BS, it should work.

  17. I wonder if Carl has brought forward the eruption at Katla… a tiny uptick in what is obviously some normal background activity… If Katla erupts tomorrow we can blame Carl… but that would be unfair(ish) 🙂

  18. What do you guys make of this? Clear Lake volcano in California has been bubbling away for quite some time…. thousands of quakes yet nothing from USGS…

    • I’ve already brought this up before and it’s because of the Geysers facility and not any geological reasons

      • The Geysers are the dominant source of quakes, fer sure…but the nearby (NW) Maacama Fault has been anomalously active….a handful of quakes a week, with several in the 3Mw range in the last few months.
        The Mendocino Triple Junction has also seen a “typical” flurry, but nothing out of the ordinary.

      • Funny thing those triple junctions. They are some of the noisiest geologic features you can find on Earth. Most triple junctions are highly unstable in all but a few configurations and tend to migrate down one of the plate boundaries until they reach a stable configuration.

    • Yes. I think this volcano has earned itself a song for becoming the new number 1.

      On the danger of breaking the “Be nice!” rule here, I want to share it with you, obviously without notes.
      ——————————————————————
      The volcano, the volcano, it is still going on, on La Palma!
      The volcano, the volcano, it is still going on, on La Palma!

      From day one up to today
      spills lava ev’rywhere
      hope it’s not till may
      that it no more is there!

      That cute little volcano that’s still going on, on La Palma.

      Cute volcano, little volcano, it is still going on, on La Palma
      Cute volcano, little volcano, it is still going on, on La Palma

      And ev’ryday you think
      “Now it’s shutting down!”
      Look is that a twist:
      new quakes shaking the ground,

      at the volcano that’s still going on, on La Palma!

      The volcano, the volcano, it is still going on, on La Palma!
      The volcano, the volcano, it is still going on, on La Palma!
      It will keep going on, on La Palma.
      ——————————————————————

      Once again, I know that this is nowhere like funny, and volcanoes aren’t cute in any way, and I hope only the best for the people on La Palma.

      However, in my opinion it fits the situation just too good, as everybody dwarfed that volcano when we still used to look at Fagradalsfjall…
      And thus it was thought cute and little against even littler FAF 😮 , until it showed it’s power.

  22. Apologies if I missed someone else mention this; apparently a poor studied volcano called Davidof in the Aleutian Islands has had it’s alert level raised to yellow by the Alaska Volcano Observatory due to a number of earthquakes that has been going on for a week though they’re is some uncertainty on if it’s volcanic or subduction related.

    • If it is volcanic that could be bad news, Davidof is fairly explosive as it goes.

      • There is suggestion that it is…

        Davidof hasn’t erupted in the Holocene? How big could it be?

        • Coud be perhaps a sizable VEI 5 If you are lucky.. Probaly is a big stale Andesite magma body under there with enough gas

  23. Alan Whittington
    @agwhittington
    Experiments reveal that lava flows erupted from #Nyiragongo are Not significantly less viscous than lava flows from Hawaii. They move fast because they flow down a steep-sided stratovolcano (not a gentle shield like Kilauea). http://jvolcanica.org/ojs/index.php/volcanica/article/view/35

    Right just as Carl says. Nyiragongo is about as fluid as Hawaii and Fagradalshraun, not more.
    The reason it flows fast is because of steep slopes and very fast eruption rates when the lake drains through the volcanos side. Nyiragongos summit lavas looks about as fluid as Kilaueas. Nyiragongo is not as liquid as water, thats a media myth

    Hawaiis viscosity is just as low, perhaps even lower in some cases. But Nyiragongo haves indeed very low viscosity, one of the very lowest ever seen for a sillicate based melt

    • Both Iceland, Hawaii, Congo and Galapagos can have very very very fluid lavas, mostly depends on temperatures rather than sillica content. High temperatures are very good at lowering the viscosity like it did at Fagradalshraun 2021, because it breaks down the sillica polymers.

      • There is a paper wandering about that indicates that fluorine can change the viscosity of a magma. Dunno if that was seen here in the cafe or in the moderator back channel. All I read was the abstract. If I remember, the presence of fluorine tends to thicken it.

        Pure conjecture; This could be a partial explanation as to why the SILK tephra was so widespread. Florine could have made the magma as sticky as rhyolite and enhanced the fragmentation of the ash as the gases escaped.

        For all: SILK is silicic tephra originating from Katla.

        Further reading: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015GC006118

        Unfortunately, Florine content is not indicated in Teprhabase, but you can poke around in the geochemistry for what they have on record. http://www.tephrabase.org

        • Fluorine is probably a part of what makes the initial Hekla magma so explosive.
          It has fluorine sticking out its arse in huge amounts.

          • Fun fact, I have a sample from the 1104 eruption, it is almost dead white.

            As I got back home I had to stick it out on the balcony because it still released so much fluorine gas that the entire apartment stunk like a chemical factory.

            After two years I could bring it in, that is how long it took to degass the sample that I had dug up.

    • Nyiragongo is an example of a final tier pyroclastic cone volcano. Fagradalshraun could be seen as a newly forming one when it was active, Pu’u O’o in the 1980s was at a much more advanced stage. Nyiragongo would have been formed by millennia of lava fountain eruptions, probably on top of an existing cone complex, up until probably very recently when its cone collapsed into a caldera and lead to it forming lava lakes instead. This was probably within the last 250 years as the notorious lava lake drainouts have only happened since the 19th century. It also looks possible the flank eruptions are becoming closer in time, ~1820-1896, 1896-1977, 1977-2002, 2002-2021, interval is getting less.

      • How fluid is Nyiragongos lava really compared to others? The Nyiragongo geological measurements have yeilded one of the lowest viscosities ever measured for any sillicate lava on Earth.

        But Fagradalshraun and Halema’uma’u are extremely fluid too because of their high temperatures, perhaps They are equal? .. like two oils with similar viscosities but very difftent compositions

      • The 1973 Krafftt film from Nyiragongo is very Impressive, the lava lake looks like a bubbling pot of liquid iron, with numerous bubbles welling up as fast as in it woud be in water, really looked like liquid iron..

        But Thats been also seen in Kilauea after the overlook pit walls fell into the old lava lake disturbing it

          • Visually I see no difference, only that lava in Hawaii and Iceland is more silvery. At the temperatures involved even andesite would be a fluid lava (Hekla, fissure 17), maybe not quite like that but certainly a free flowing liquid.

            The real problem was there was never a very good chance to compare Nyiragongo and Kilauea. Vents on Kilauea rarely open next to steep slopes, while Nyiragongo is basically only steep slopes. That was until this past year, the start of the filling of Halemaumau had lava racing down to the bottom of the caldera at over 90 km/hr. Studies on lava channels on relatively gentle slopes also suggest lava from Kilauea can flow very fast at times, that was even observed in 2018.

            Then we got to see the lava cascading down steep slopes on Fagradalsfjall, it is a world away from Hawaii but the same flow features are seen there too, and the lava is basically the same. Similar looking flows show up everywhere in Iceland regardless of composition. The tholeiitic plume basalts of Vatnajokull, the MORB of Reykjanes and Krafla, the transitional alkali basalts of Katla and Vatnafjoll, the alkali basalts of Surtsey and Snaefellsness, all are nearly identical superfluid lavas that are just erupted on flat ground like in Hawaii. Nyiragongo is not unique for its lava, it is unique today for having that lava so high up in large volume inside basically an oversized cinder cone.

      • Yes a very very Impressive sight back in december When lava flowed 100 s of meters down to the caldera floor of Halema’uma’u .. yes flowing at almost 100 kilometer an hour

        I loves , loved the splash pool in december/ januari 2021 where the lava fall ended up in .. boiling like mayhem and churned up.
        I called that ” lucifers bath”
        A very impressive sight basicaly hot as pig Iron too

      • chad

        Any chance at all that I will get an eruption on the scale I wants in my lifetime? I think its pretty small chance, But it always exist that chance

        What place should I lay my hope in for that?

        • Grimsvötns magma chamber just keeps getting bigger, really fun, Grimsvötn and Mauna Loa will be the Big ones next time

        • Best you do some time travelling back to the Jurassic and write a piece about

          Central Skåne Volcanic Province

          (reconstruction pic based on modern Rotorua, wikip.)

        • If you mean an eruption of mass extinction scale then no, probably not even on Io. If you mean an eruption of lava in the 10-100 km3 range then that is possible but unlikely, there are no volcanoes in Iceland that are currently capable of that, and that is the only place currently able to do that on land. If you mean an eruption of 1-10 km3 though, that is in my opinion very likely, Kilauea will end its current episode of intense volcanism with a major eruption low down on the ERZ, it will be mostly submarine but parts of it could be on land, and the summit will erupt on a massive scale, no big lava flows but massive fountains and plinian eruptions.
          Veidivotn is also probably due to rift this century. Before Eldgja there were rifts on veidivotn every 200-300 years, but Eldgja and Laki were massive events that took up so much strain that Veidivotn has only rifted once in the last 1000 years now. But Based on the behavior of Grimsvotn and Katla neither does rift eruptions like this frequently, so Veidivotn is likely to go back to its older pattern. In any case that is probably going to be the next really big eruption in Iceland, probably much less explosive than 1477 as there is not much water around anymore but it will be fun to watch 🙂
          There is also the less likely case of Vatnafjoll erupting, it has been a long time but if it has got any magma supply at all something has to give eventually, and the last eruption from Vatnafjoll itself was over 2000 years ago so it has been long in the making.

        • I don’t know what scale you want, but you wouldn’t want a VEI 8 eruption and a VEI 7 eruption only if it’s very far away from everyone. The misery that comes from it is hard to imagine.

          • Kuwae is pretty far away from most places, albeit not every country, Australia, NZ and China being closer. Yet The eruption of 1452 (VEI 7 or 8?) is an assumed culprit for the second pulse of the Little Ice Age and famines.

            I’m not keen on that kind of thing.

          • There is no spot far away for a VEI-7 to not cause at least a minor global famine.

        • Does anyone think we’ve had natural VEI9 in the Archean or similarly old times?
          So should not be directly related to Chicuxlub or something like that.

          • For this question Mars and Venus pop up right away, so this question is for Albert or Hectór.

            This is not Archean, but was possibly very large:
            “Next time I will meander off into the far more fertile volcanism of Chad and the Ti Besti rift. What I find so interesting with the volcanism here is that it is so badly studied and poorly understood, even though it may in all fairness be the world’s largest volcanic system.”
            https://www.volcanocafe.org/the-forgotten-volcanoes-of-libya/

            So, Carl has written about a large system in Africa.

            Archean traces are difficult to find.

          • Between a major impact and a major volcanic eruption, there is a difference in time that has to be taken into account, in the first case, the energy is released into the ground, the time it takes for the impact body to stop and disappear into vapours, i.e. a few seconds afterwards, it is only a problem of the mechanics of hot gases and shock waves, for the volcanic eruption it will always take much longer and we will never have all the available energy in play nor extreme shock waves.

            For nuclear explosions, the time to release the energy is in milliseconds and then it is like the meteor.

            Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

          • No, first of all VEI-9s does not exist on the scale.
            But for the sake of discussion let us talk about plus 10 000 cubic kilometre explosive eruptions as VEI-9s.

            No would be the answer to that, back then there was no crust thick enough to contain volumes that big. It would also have taken an ungodly time for that much magma to evolve from primordial basalt into more highly evolved magmas needed for a large explosive eruption.

            Instead what we got was enormously large flood basalts, probably on a scale that would have made even Jesper go “this is a tad much”.
            There is a slow but steady shift from giant arsed flood basalts towards larger and larger explosive events as crustal thickness increases and ever thicker plates subduct under each other.

            If there would ever be a VEI-9 it would be in our distant future, but by then I am fairly certain that we will either have killed ourselves, or the AIs have taken over the show and we live on multiple planets, or some alien civilization has decided to intervene and stop us from extincting ourselves.

        • You want to “hope” for this place, Jesper? It’s not totally out of the question:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDnNzhuSMtQ

          Basically I don’t understand these “hopes”.

          The volcano is one thing, everybody dead in an area of 100 km. The other thing is a total collapse of infrastructure in Europe and North Africa, looting and famine.

          It says 39.000 years ago it was large enough. It might have contributed to the demise of the Neanderthals. And imagine, they couldn’t do calculus or work with a computer, but it is certainly imaginable that they knew better how to find food, better at least than a city person from Berlin or Stockholm or the most overestimated place in the world, London. Only: When the deer also died there is no food. When trees collapse or burn there is no wood for your oven.

          • I believe, Jesper, you have no concept of the follow-up, you just see the event which in itself has a beauty, of course.
            Most people here know you and ignore it.
            You have to imagine some stranger though who sees these fantasies under next to every single post – at least recently – on VC. They see somebody dreaming of an apocalyptic scenario which 99% of all people abhor.
            It’s an open place, Jesper, and it’s well stored. It can still be found – maybe – after 1000 years.

            What you have is no excuse for dreaming openly of a desastre in a repetitive and for most people here extremely boring way.

            It’s getting boring, Jesper. Your boredom makes other people bored with unrealistic and bad ideas. You should leave it out and write it down on a piece of paper for yourself.

            The problem is, it can happen. It is improbable, but not at all excluded as a possibility. To wish for it is just not right.

  24. Looks like Ol Donio Lengai is still erupting
    Anyone knowing how souch limestone magma is made?

    • “To resolve the interaction processes between magma and limestone in detail we have performed a series of time-variable decarbonation experiments in silicate melt, at magmatic pressure and temperature, using a Merapi basaltic-andesite and local Javanese limestone as starting materials. We have used in situ analytical methods to determine the elemental and strontium isotope composition of the experimental products and to trace the textural, chemical, and isotopic evolution of carbonate assimilation. The major processes of magma–carbonate interaction identified are: (1) rapid decomposition and degassing of carbonate; (2) generation of a Ca-enriched, highly radiogenic strontium contaminant melt, distinct from the starting material composition; (3) intense CO2 vesiculation, particularly within the contaminated zones; (4) physical mingling between the contaminated and unaffected melt domains; (5) chemical mixing between melts.”
      https://academic.oup.com/petrology/article/51/5/1027/1439569

  27. It looks like Kilauea might actually be slowing down, the eruption is getting a bit weaker and the summit is beginning to inflate again after slight contraction over the last month that was probably associated with a slightly elevated eruption rate. There was a recent update on the volume though and it is now almost 38 million m3, or about 80 million m3 in the caldera now total in about a year. In that total there is also net inflation of around 8 cm over that time. Seems the supply is more or less the same as it has always been for years, just now it is forced to fight gravity so less can escape easily.

    I hope it lasts long enough for me to see it next year 🙁

    • Its just a deflation event .. it will come back soon in full flow again

      • Looking more at long term trends, DI events having such a big impact is a sign the eruption is now at total equilibrium with the magma chamber. The deeper magma reservoir is beginning to inflate again as shown on the GPS, which is probably more a sign of gravitational pressure than increased risk of a new surge. It would really make sense to see inflation associated with a summit eruption, it is pressure driven rather than gravity, especially now the crater floor is much higher in elevation.

    • I been on Big Island many times
      Have you been there too? Are you going there?

      I seen the lava flows from Puu Oo and even left a fast careful light footprint on a hot pahoehoe toe. But in Hawaii we generaly do not toutch the active lava, since its Kino Lau ” peles body form” for respect of the local culture

      Big Island is Latitude 19 to 20 ..
      so it Will be very hot at sealevel,
      over 30 C in the shadow even in december. When are you going?

      Well I dont know acually If Hawaii woud be warmer If it was on the Equator, its already quite Equatorial in temperatures at sealevel

      But there woud be No dry side on Hawaii If it was on Equator. No trade winds on the Equator. Entire Hawaii woud be very green

      • At Kilaūeas summit its warm days and cold chilly winter nights. And hot in summer

      • Intention to go in April next year, though nothing confirmed yet.

        • Will be very hot, even at latitude 20
          The high humidity makes it feel worse too. Hawaii is in a high pressure area on the planet, where the air sinks and warms up

          Thats why its so warm there despite not Equatorial

          But in summer Hawaii turns the To the Equator as the planet tilts, summers on Big Island is sweltering even if There is No seasons really at sealevel.

      • But I wants to move to Iceland.. If I shall live anywhere, it must be Scandinavian for various reasons

        Hawaii Big Island is too difficult To live in

        • Hope you do get to live in Iceland, Jesper. I know you are keen! You can be our special Iceland reporter.
          Need to wear thick jumpers…

        • Yes .. needs to get away from Northen Sweden, terrible place, and so boring too! I have never liked my homecountry, and none seems to like or respect me either up here, expect my parents.

          Its time for a change, Iceland is probaly much more including as a society

    • Kailua Kona side was murderous heat for me even in december at lat 19, almost Impossible to do anything outside more than swimming in the warm clear blue ocean. I guess all the black lava rock on Big Island, makes for a powerful local day heating effect as it soaks up the sun. Oahu was much much cooler for comparison

      Kilauea will be pleasant if you go in winter .. since its height above sealevel

    • Are those populated areas in the image?
      This was always going to happen. And it’ll keep happening.
      Majority of Java is relatively fertile, no idea why they’re living downslope of a highly active and steep volcano.
      I know people are going to say poverty, but come on. I have little sympathy for this.

      • The problem is that most places are in one kind of danger zone or another. May it be tornadoes, earthquakes, blizzards, floods, or other dangers.

        We can try to be aware of the dangers in our direct environment and prepare emergency kits etc. However, not everyone will be able to prepare in such a manner. It is easy for us to say that poverty should not excuse living near an active volcano.

  30. The presence of gases in the South area of the volcanic emergency has raised alarms from security forces devices monitoring air composition in the exclusion and evacuation areas. This is a moment of “real pilgrimage of letality”, as sources of the Security and Emergency Directorate of the Government of the Canary Islands consulted by this Digital. These gases have triggered the appearance of dead wildlife in the affected areas, according to the images cited to this editorial. #volcánlapalma #eruptionlapalma #gasesvolcán #gasesletales #gaseslapalma #animalesvolcán #emergenciaLaPalma
    Canary Volcanological Institute

  31. What’s going on? The comments seem to be in a muddle? Or has a discussion dropped back onto an older article and swamped the current one?

    • There were some comments in an older post but not many.
      The problem is, no active volcano at the moment is as interesting as the one on La Palma, and about this volcano there is not much to write about since it already has done all interesting things a Canarian volcano possibly could do.
      In the last days it also became the longest eruption since 500 years, but that too has already been discussed above.

  32. Much much more interesting than more comments I would think is another article about La Palma.
    There is, for instance, chad who says this may take even longer than it has.
    Then there are PEVOLCA that expect the volcano not to survive New Years Eve.

    Why those different thoughts? What tells us chad could be right? What is in favor of PEVOLCA’s thoughts?
    Maybe too, why is the tremor playing crazy? Could this be related to a close volcano deletion?

    I’m really looking forward to such an article 😀

    • I would not say that it is behaving weirdly.
      Being a dyke swarm volcano you can get rather spectacular eruptions that shift in behaviour and location at a whim in such volcanoes.

      Currently the GPS, and the fluctuating pattern is describing a state of decline in systemic pressure.
      This means that I lean towards the forecast of Pevolca, but I do not know that I would categorically state that it will stop erupting prior to New Years Eve.
      But, to all points and purposes the eruption is in its final stages.

      Personally I do not think I will write an article about it.
      But, everyone is welcome to do so if they feel that it is merrited. 🙂

      • This puts locals in a catch 22: should they provide firework or will the volcano take care?

        Everybody hopes the firework has to be provided by locals, the damage is already sufficient.
        You can still see the flows of 1949 being almost uncovered by vegetation.
        The surface covered now is much more.

        Local economy will have to adapt to the new reality: less bananas and more volcano tourism.

        • Problem with volcano tourism is that it most often requires an erupting volcano, interest disappears quickly as the eruption is gone.

          This is why it is so hard to do extended volcano tours.
          You need a convenient, beautiful, and as safe as possible volcano, a few other volcanoes that are impressive but not currently erupting, volcano-tourism is not that easy…

          • With the exception of Lanzarote. Lanzarote is a real show, a more or less black island with white houses in a blue sea, beautiful.
            It’s completely different from La Palma. La Palma is green and mountanous, barrancos all around the north.

          • It’s basically two groups of islands: Lanzarote (plus La Graciosa), Fuerteventura (eroded) and Gran Canaria, dry mostly sunny. Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma El Hierro, more rain, further from Africa and therefore Atlantic climate, green. Tenerife, further east, has less rain though than La Palma.
            You are right, most people don’t travel for a volcano. Mauritius and the Seychelles, extinct volcanoes, beautiful beaches, have a lot more tourism than Réunion, next to no sandy beaches, although Réunion is prettier.

      • Thank you for your estimation, Carl.
        In the blog http://www.casamartin.de/kolumne/kolumne_la_palma_aktuell.shtml I read that they too expect the crazy tremor dance be due to phreato(-magmatic) activity due to sinking pressure.

        chad, do you, with the newest trends and data, arrive at that conclusion too?
        If not, then what view point might hindering you?

        Thank you in advance 🙂

  33. Curious as to why there are now deeper quakes in the mantle and also some shallower quakes if La Palma is showing signs of slowing down.

    3.0 mbLg SE EL PASO.ILP 2021/12/13 03:38:46 46km depth

    2.8 mbLg SW VILLA DE MAZO.ILP 2021/12/11 16:51:10 42km depth

  34. The Pevolca warns that the air quality is extremely unfavorable in Los Llanos, El Paso and Tazacorte

    El Pevolca alerta de que la calidad del aire es extremadamente desfavorable en Los Llanos, El Paso y Tazacorte

    SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Dec. 13 (EUROPA PRESS) – The General Directorate of Security and Emergencies of the Government of the Canary Islands, based on the information available, and in application of the Special Plan for Civil Protection and Attention to Emergencies due to Volcanic Risk in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands (Pevolca), has warned this Monday of that the air quality is extremely unfavorable in Los Llanos de Aridane, El Paso and Tazacorte, on the island of La Palma

    .https://www.europapress.es/islas-canarias/noticia-pevolca-alerta-calidad-aire-extremadamente-desfavorable-llanos-paso-tazacorte-20211213095234.html?fbclid=IwAR2u3ve9I47_Lj1mP-kTp09syOh7Fxtb5f8PZnxNGl2WMTcNC4rcIu8uP38

  35. Somebody made a remark that there were no comments here, but on the Tarawera post instead. It had a reason. I saw on USGS that an earthquake of 6.5 happened yesterday far south, so I looked it up. It was west of Marquarie Island. I read some bits about this piece of “earth”, in reality mantle rocks and found s.th. about Polynesians, so I took it to Albert’s post about Polynesians.
    Albert answered I got it wrong, but I didn’t even know the place before the earthquake. I just mentioned what was said about it in Encyclopaedia Britannica.

    Anyway, it is an interesting place, close to Antarctica which is made from deep material from the mantle. It has the size of the German island of Sylt which is more hospitable though. In case Americans google it do it with images, because then you will find a structure that you have seen once: Red Cliffs like in Martha’s Vineyard. That’s why Polanski made a movie there which in reality is based on Martha’s Vineyard where he can’t go for obvious reasons.

    Back to Marquarie: It is sitting on the Marquarie Ridge between the Australian and the Pacific Plates and has a unique composition of rocks, partly from the mantle, which made it a UNESCO site being the only place on the globe with this composition. The earthquake was 10 km to the west of the island. There is supposed to be one earthquake this size per year there. It should be under the Australian Plate. The Marquarie Ridge goes on north to the southern tip of New Zealand, and the island is sitting right west of the southern tip of the submarine part of Zealandia, albeit it doesn’t belong to it having oceanic crust. Politically it belongs to Tasmania, Australia which is north of it.
    You cannot see it on the wiki map, but you see the ridge:

        • It’s interesting. The Maquarie Fault Zone (which the Maquarie Ridge is part of) is a transform fault zone.

          • Yeah, it is inviring for me though to look for it with ‘subduction’. and indeed, some researchers think it might be the initiation of a subduction zone:
            One of them:
            “Following opening of the oceanic basin (Figure 5a), progressive rotation in relative plate motion results in the reorganization of the plate boundary in short individual spreading segments, while transform faults lengthen (Figure 5b). The process evolves until transform faults eventually coalesce to form a single,
            albeit discontinuous, transform plate boundary, along
            which plate motion becomes dominantly accommodated by strike-slip motion (Figure 5c). At that stage, subduction may nucleate in discrete locations representing discontinuities along the plate boundary, which are dominated by transpressive deformation (Figure 5c). Subduction vergence during inception of the subduction zone depends on local geodynamical conditions and heterogeneities.”
            https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00407032/document

            Looking at the line of the ridge and the New Zealand Alpine Belt it is also tempting to think of an orogeny. South Island might be twice as large at some point in the future (10-20 Ma?)

          • vcreader, Did you look at the time-lapse video? It took me some time to figure it out what the heck I was looking at, but it appears that there might be seals wandering up and down main street. Thank you for posting that webcam link.

    • You have to feel for them, especially given how long this has been going for.

  37. Looks like Nyiragongos lava lake haves difficult of comming back, only been small spattering holes and strombolian activity, The 2021 magma draining into the rift was perhaps much more serious than 2002. Still the volcanos conduit system to surface remains open

  39. Monday
    13.12.2021 16:08:45 63.899 -19.668 5.1 km 3.5 90.15 2.3 km SSW of Vatnafjöll
    Monday
    13.12.2021 16:07:34 63.898 -19.668 5.3 km 3.2 90.15 2.4 km SSW of Vatnafjöll
    Monday
    13.12.2021 16:04:29 63.899 -19.665 5.6 km 2.9 90.11 2.3 km SSW of Vatnafjöll

    • 100% confirmed now…

      Monday
      13.12.2021 16:08:45 63.900 -19.657 6.1 km 3.5 99.0 2.1 km S of Vatnafjöll
      Monday
      13.12.2021 16:07:34 63.899 -19.658 6.0 km 3.2 99.0 2.2 km SSW of Vatnafjöll

      Monday
      13.12.2021 16:04:29 63.899 -19.656 5.9 km 3.0 99.0 2.2 km S of Vatnafjöll

    • Tectonic?

      From IMO: “Today between 16:04 and 16:11 six earthquakes where detected in Natnafjöllum. The largest was M3.5 and one 3.2 and one 3.0. The largest earthquake was felt in Fljótshlíð. No volcanic tremor has been detected.”

      Source: https://en.vedur.is/#tab=quakes

  43. INGV have turned mildly naughty in their volcanic bulletins….

    “A small erotic mouth has opened in the bottom of the bow” Farcbook-translation.

    In reality a small flank eruption has started at the bottom of the Valle del Bove.
    We will see where this leads to.

    https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/catania

  45. Wonder what effect that is that La Palma volcanoes tend to go crazy immediately before they are erased??

    • That seems much less than other estimates have been, going up over 0.3 km3.

  48. I am tired of it but I am going to bash Phivolcs one more time. Looking at the interferograms, it shows that the Oct deflation as reversed back to inflation with more seismic activity. I have no idea what’s going to happen with Taal and that’s starting to get on my nerves. What caused the subsidence? Don’t know. What’s causing the inflation now and what was causing the inflation before? Don’t know.
    Can we just get some insightful information on extremely dangerous volcano? So guys what do you think can cause large area inflation, followed by large area deflation, then back to inflation? Because I have an idea but It could be stretch.

    • Gas accumulation, followed by degassing followed by renewed gas accumulation may do it. What do the gas emission figures show?

      Magma movement may also do it.

      I am sure Phivolcs know Taal’s potential. The volcano is on alert level II (increased unrest) and there are exclusion zones.

    • Dear Tallis!

      It is all hidden in the words “volcanic fluids”.
      Large caldera volcanoes are famous for their ability to do major landscape architecture without even erupting.

      This all boils down to the movement of volcanic fluids. Volcanic fluids is a term used when you are not 100 percent sure if it is water, or if it is magma that is moving about. Most often in large calderas with lakes it is a combination of both, but water is generally faster at sloshing about.

      You typically find the water in deep aquifers that can be very extensive and large, as water goes in and out of these, or generally expand due to heat, the can cause meters of uplift in a day without any eruption happening.

      For Taal it is likely that the longterm stable trend is magmatic intrusion, we also see this evidenced in gas readings and increased phreatic activity.
      But, the short term spouts are more likely to be water. Most likely water was first stable (and we saw magmatic inflation), then it partially moved out (and we saw deflation due to the faster movement rate of water), and as the water stopped flowing out we see return of the steady magmatic inflation (that was ongoing even during the sloshing away of water phase).

      I hope this makes things a tad clearer for you.

      Currently I do think we are in a lull period prior to the larger eruption that is most likely coming in the future.

      • I hadn’t thought about that, my idea was that the the lower and mid crustal reservoirs were the cause for large background inflation with variation of pressure within the shallow and hydrothermal chambers were responsible for the deflation. Your solution does seem more likely in my eyes but my frustration lies with the fact that no matter how hard we speculate. Phivolcs isn’t going to give any specifics that would clear the air, for all our speculation, we don’t really know whats going on

    • The volcano is still alive she is still singing with sounds like the sound of a jet engine flying over her,

      ”The roar created by an erupting volcano is the result of turbulence and friction created by hot gases accelerating upward through conduits and finally escaping through the volcanic vent at the surface. These hot gases contain magma fragments, ash and other particles that travel violently through the inner walls of the vent conduits. Scientists have measured the low frequency (<20Hz) infrasonic signals created by these gas jets and when sped up to the range of human hearing, these signals sound remarkably like the frequency distribution of sound coming from a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. “The science of jet noise is very well understood. If we can understand how this works for volcanoes, we may be able to infer properties of eruption columns,” says Robin Matoza a scientist studying infrasound of volcanoes from University of California San Diego.''

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