Today's edition of Eldfjallavakt is going to be a bit different. We're still going to be covering all of the latest news and analysis on the volcano, no change there. But first, an interview with "the most dangerous woman in Iceland with a sword", manyfold Icelandic fencing champion Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir. We'll be asking her what she thinks of the eruption on Holuhraun and the prospects of an eruption in Bárðarbunga.
Huh? Okay, that's not exactly the reason why I interviewed her... it just so happened that she's a geophysicist doing her doctoral research on Bárðarbunga and the eruption on Holuhraun, and has been involved in the investigation to the extent that one of the leading candidates for naming the new flow is Þorbjargarhraun.
Plus: ash-resistant research planes, concerned Kópaskeringar, the possibility of an upcoming end on the Holuhraun eruption, and why that wouldn't be a good thing. Join us below the fold!
First off, as promised, my interview with Þorbjörg, filmed two days ago. I foolishly choose Harpa as the location, as it's usually quiet in the mornings... only to find out that there was a major
conference going on there at the time. So my apologies for the background noise. There are two versions to pick from. The long version is about 35 minutes (all that's clipped is noise, "ums", and the like), while the short version, clipped down to key aspects, is about 13 minutes. First the short version:
... then the long version.
* Her involvement in investigating this eruption was purely coincidental; her initial work had been expected to be on Grímsvötn and she was there servicing the seismic network when the activity broke out. And even though her job isn't involved with materials science, since her team were the only ones available when the first eruption broke out, they took the samples and dispatched them back to Reykjavík via the police.
* It's unknown what was going on under Kistufell in the beginning, but a good possibility is existing tension reacting to the intrusion of the dike that moved to to the southeast.
* It is unknown why the dike broke free to the southeast.
* It's not currently believed that the dike has connected with the Grímsvötn system, but it's really an unknown, these systems may be more interconnected than previously believed.
* She doesn't see there being a practical difference between a magma chamber and a deep magma reservoir, just different depths of the same phenomenon. The only real difference is that we can't really see well what's below 10 kilometers.
* Despite the low magnesium content of the magma which suggests that the magma has been sitting around for some time at a "shallower" (to loosely use the term) depth, it does not mean that deep influxes of magma do not play a major part, as they could be refilling magma chambers as those chambers flow out.
* She believes there's no evidence of a shallower chamber in Bárðarbunga unlike in most Icelandic volcanoes - whatever magma chamber or chambers drive the system are clearly deep. She says it's unknown whether the dropping plug over the magma chamber represents it displacing magma that has flowed out into the dike or some other phenomenon.
* She believes that the reduction of earthquake activity in the dike and the stopping of its propagation, while good, does not rule out potential volcanic activity in Askja.
* She says that Herðubreiðartögl is an active rifting area under tension but there is no magma there.
* One theory for what happened to the meltwater from the small subglacial eruptions is that, since the ground is rifting apart, there's more pore space, and thus potentially the meltwater became groundwater.
* She thinks it's too soon to speculate on whether a subglacial lake could form in Bárðarbunga
* She found it likely that the Jökulsár would be dammed up, forming a lake and possibly breaking through further to the east.
* She had no familiarity with specifics on the gases.
* "It could stop tomorrow, it could also continue for a year". She then mentioned that the Krafla Fires went on for 10 years, but this is already bigger than the largest Krafla fire.
* She said that there has been some limited tephra, but not much. She thinks that some of the reported falls further away could be sand and dust being sucked up by the high winds.
* Tourist planes should be fine so long as they stay upwind, but it's important that they not get too close to the plume.
* It is believed that there has not been any pseudocrater formation.
* GOOOOOOOONGGGGGG!!!!!
* So little is known about the total size of the magma chamber in Bárðarbunga that one can't even comment in general, apart from "Really big".
* She interprets the rate of strong quakes in caldera as "steady", not accelerating.
* We do not know whether the catastrophic scale floods are still possible. It's possible that they're not possible any more due to differences in the ice sheet today.
* The dams have been built to handle sudden water influxes, but she doesn't know what size jökulhlaup they're able to withstand.
* The scale and consequences of a Bárðarbunga eruption are hard to even speculate on because they could be across such a wide possible range.
Not only did she graciously provide us with an interview, but also photos that she took during her time there, which I'll include at the bottom of the article.
Moving on to new-news!
Bárðarbunga keeps going down in fits and starts: just one powerful quake alone is believed to have caused a drop of nearly half a meter. Again, this is unexplored territory; the last time a major subsidence event occurred in Iceland, the forming of Askja's caldera in association with her catastrophic 1875 eruption, was little studied until after the event concluded.
The plume from the eruption on Holuhraun is today aiming at the small town of Kópaskeri... but due to a shortage of gas meters, there's none in the area and people don't know how high the concentrations are getting or at what time. The Mist has cloaked the town, and apparently containing particulate matter that's precipitating out on cars, but people don't know whether levels of gas and particulate are such that they should be shutting themselves in their homes or not. Some people felt sick from it; others didn't.
I discovered the other day that Channel 30 on TV here is the All-Bárðarbunga channel - just Míla 1 live feeds. ;)
We covered the other day that the volcano is creating its own windstorms. But rain? The answer appears to be yes; the steam exhausted directly from the lava, plus the steam from the boiling river water, appears to be condensing into rainstorms in the area. Concerns have been expressed that the water could be poisonous, but there is no evidence to back this at this point in time.
Visible activity on Holuhraun has again dropped, but influx and spreading keeps continuing. This is not a good thing. According to researchers, if outflux at Holuhraun stops without a corresponding stop in input and spreading, it's just going to open up somewhere else, whether that be under Dyngjujökull, in the Askja system, or in Bárðarbunga. As Holuhraun is pretty much the best spot the eruption could be positioned, we do not want this to happen.
Should an ash eruption occur, Icelandair now has an ace up their sleeves:
This Golden Eagle 16 has engines designed to withstand volcanic ash, and can reach the same altitudes as the airline's jets. Consequently, Icelandair can take the ash forecasts and use this airplane to probe the more marginal areas to see where other aircraft may fly. The plane contains a variety of monitoring equipment, both for ash and a variety of volcanic gases.
Holuhraun's lava front continues to trudge towards Vaðalda, but only slowly, as the flows widen more than lengthening.
(Image credit: Háskóli Íslands)
Picture time! First, some random (older) selections from Þorbjörg:
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
(Credit: Þorbjörg Ágústsdóttir)
And some others from various sources.
(Credit: Morgunblaðið)
(Credit: Elísabet Pálmadóttir)
(Credit: Elísabet Pálmadóttir)
(Credit: Elísabet Pálmadóttir)
(Credit: Elísabet Pálmadóttir)
(Sorry for the delay in posting tonight, I fell asleep while the videos were encoding / uploading! If at the time you're reading this the videos don't show up, Youtube might be not yet done processing them - just check back later)
[b]Update, 2:00[/b]: Too tired again to finish next article; I had lots of delays today related to a friend who just got out of surgery, and I spent too long nerding out earlier running heat transfer on my house design to settle a dispute between me and my concrete guy. It's going to need to wait a day again. :(