Sæl og blessuð. Sorry for the delay! My new hard drive is up and restored, replacing the old one that crashed; I simply missed a bit of Míla recording time.
Black. Those tuning into Míla right now, that's all you'll see; the cloud of Mist and snow is quite effective at shutting out the view. But those who've caught the night glow when it's shown in the past several days have noticed a lack of a lava river in the direction of the camera as we saw many times in the recent past.
That's no illusion; once again, the flow has changed its path. But to where, and where it's going? What's all that shaking going on? And do we get another neat video today?
Join us below the fold ;)
Here in Reykjavík, most people I talk to feel like they're starting to come down with something - myself included.
(Credit: Mbl / Golli)
(Credit: Mbl / Golli)
Nobody is getting anything like Mývatn's 5800 µg/m³ SO2, but rather there's now a new norm in this new period of static winds wherein the pollution spreads and everyone breaths in low to moderate levels for weeks on end.
It's not just in Reykjavík. It's in Ísafjörður. It's in Þórshöfn. People in the north are holding meetings about it. It's bloody everywhere.
Blue is the "In" color these days. At least I finished painting my crate, except for a bit of touchup, accent colors, magical symbols and the like. That'll keep the Mist off the steel (the paint, not the magical symbols ;) )
I've been thinking about making a picture to poke fun at the situation, because it's good to keep a positive attitude... but I can't decide on the catchphrase. "Sulphuric Acid: It's What's In Your Lungs!"? "Sulphuric Acid: Not Just For Batteries Any More!"? "Stop Complaining And Breathe Your Sulfuric Acid"? Hmm, need to think about that one.
Of course, the source of this is the ceaseless eruption on Holuhraun, continuing its massive outpouring of lava and gas. But what is happening to that lava right now? Some of you may have noticed, when the lava has made itself briefly visible on Míla in the past several days, that rather than a lava river to the left side of the screen, there's been a lot of distant glow and a line on the right:
Let's contextualize that:
(Credit: Jarðvísindastofnun)
This is an IR composite image with an overlay of the old boundaries, taken today around noon. The heat signature is of course not precise, but it makes clear that most of the flow is occurring near the vents - both expanding a new route on the south near the vents, and also a new route to the north near the lava-overflowed road.
How is it that these older flows are so effective at diverting the lava, even given that this eruption is occurring on a sloped plains? Simple. It looks like some thin layer on satellite pictures, but the reality is, it's building a freaking wall:
(Credit: National Geographic)
This is anything but a thin layer. It takes a lot to redirect a lava flow with the flow rate of a sizeable river, but that'll do the trick! And it'll keep doing the trick until it's wrapped far enough around the crater that the easiest route will once again be over the earlier flows.
Remember the billionare investment banker / fashion mogul who somehow got a pilot to land her at the eruption site? A criminal investigation has been opened. The attitude toward people who sneak in keeps hardening, which I suppose is a natural progression, if only for reasons that people who want to see the eruption but can't because of the closures would be very annoyed if others got away with getting in.
So remember that dead subsidence meter in the caldera? He's back online:
There's now an official estimate for the magnitude of the subsidence: 750 million cubic meters. This roughly corresponds to magnitude of the lava erupted.
The subsidence, of course, corresponds with earthquakes - both quakes of all sizes in the caldera and smaller earthquakes elsewhere due to the stress field of the magma. Quakes were of an incredible intensity during dike expansion, but dropped way down. However, of late they have increased in frequency:
Now, it should be noted that small quakes disappear from the meters whenever weather is bad. But this trend is a real phenomenon and not just a side effect of weather changes.
More on the quakes at another time. For now, it's time for a video - this time from none other than National Geographic. Enjoy!
Update, 23:00: No update tonight, but I'll have a good one tomorrow. Also, I'm an idiot. (more on that later ;) )