Iceland Volcano Updates | The Svartsengi system doesn't seem to be finished! 

As a past earth science teacher, I suggest people are forgetting what a rift zone is. All the analysis is about vertical rise. But the essence of rift zones is sideways splitting. The plates are pulling apart continuously. A few cm per year adds up to a lot over 800 years.-That's what opens the vertical dikes. But the 10 km of rocks above act as a valve, breaking open in jerks, maybe 800 years between major splits. The E/W trends will show that, but I never see analysis of E/W trends.

By the time this geological chapter ends, we'll all be volcano experts! Thank you for the update.

Iceland has the most amazing civil engineers and heavy equipment operators! 🥳🤩🥳

Another outstanding video! A little over 5 min....all the pertinent data with great graphics to compare uplift amounts and trends to the last eruption AND all previous eruptions. Best bang for the (time) buck!

Thank you for another awesome update and footage, I must say they have been doing such great and wonderful hard toiling work making lava barriers !

Maybe the inflow has increased a little bit, those magma systems use to be more chaotic than cyclic and predictable. Thanks for updating and my best wishies for all icelandic people.

Thank you for your excellent updates. The reason why the uplift was slower was because it was uplifting a larger area. Now that is filled up it appears the lava chamber is now filling up only and as you project an eruption should occur in the time frame that you mentioned

Thank you for your update, love them ❤️

Why should nature do what WE think it should do? Thanks for the excellent update!

Thanks from Australia 🤗🇦🇺🦘

Thank you for this update and confirming my thoughts this volcanic unrest is sure testing the volcanologists and keeps throwing curved balls to keep them on their toes

Like your videos and explanations and your view on what’s going on ☺️

Always looking out for your updates. Thank you! 😊

That extended graph clearly shows the continuing trend. Thank you for sharing the data.

Thank you for the update. I think it's very hard to predict the end of the active phase. It's reasonable to expect eruptions to happen as long as there is inflow of magma. The graph of the uplift looks a bit unstable to me and therefore more unpredictable.

Thank you again ( Mr Uniq 😊). Really appreciate your videos and hard work. 🇦🇺🇦🇺

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you, I look forward to your updates

Thank you

Intgeresting information and I loved seeing the topography of the remnants of the fissures.

Rather than rifts and voids, I believe there's very large sub surface plates being uplifted by magma between them.

With current GPS data, it is showing that there is in fact, increased inflation rate, as current trend is showing around 0.8cm per day (that's roughly around 700,000 to 800,000 cubic meters per day). So it would take three to seven weeks for she to refill the storage completely and be ready for another run/eruption episode. Even IMO and Norwegian agency agree with that.

I see so much new landmass. I was wondering how do they correct for the New lava flows over the land to determine the uplift rate? But the amount of uplift is a good amount to say the least.

My theory, and I am not a trained geologist by any means, is that the emission rate during the early stages of the last eruption drained the chamber so much that a longer period of refilling was required before uplift could recommence. It is also possible that a period of lower intrusion happened which effectively killed the outflow just in time to save the power plant!

Thanks for the update. The Svartsengi magma chamber is still keeping us guessing. I don’t think the overlying pressure changes can explain how the uplift rate can be higher without either an increased inflow or decreased outflow. Magma at the 5-7 km depth is not going to have gas bubbles to cause a volume increase for the same mass of magma. The gas bubbles start forming much closer to the surface, probably less than 1 km depth.

Thanks so much for yet another informative and well-illustrated update! Question, however: has the uplift been only north of Grindavik, or has the harbour and its associated infrastructure been adversely impacted? Constant uplift beneath the town would be expected to eventually render the harbor too shallow to be safe for vessels, unless the waters are already much deeper than needed for safe anchorage.

Hi Hlidarmenn! In my opinion the eruptions will stop if Eldey comes to a rest. There was an 3. Something earthquake some days before and this opens up, in my opinion, the pass for the magma again. It’s always fun to see your videos. Thanks for that. Let’s hope it just comes up and cool down and finally shut down the pass ways for the magma.

As a amateur volcanologist, I can see similarities between and during eruptions. Trying to see the eruptions on Reykjaness penninsula in the broader way, I expect major surprises. There is talk about a big lower and a small upper magmachamber. Big fills small. The small magma chamber is beneath Svartsengi. But I don't know where the big magmachamber is and how big it is. I doubt that anybody knows where the big magmachamber is. I myself believe this big magma chamber is responsible for the formation of Iceland and it may feed most of the volcanic systems on Iceland. Just as in the case of Svartsengi, we have periods of unrest in almost all the volcanic systems that are on the Hreppar microplate. I believe that the big magma chamber is almost as big as the Hreppar microplate. I suspect that this magma chamber was formed by an impact of a comet or asteroid in the past. It must have landed close to the Midatlantic ridge and must have landed at an angle. On the seafloor there are holes in the seafloor that resemble the cenotes in the area where the Chicxulubkrater formed 66 million years ago. It may even be a minor impact crater of that event. It is just an idea. If it is true, the big magma chamber under Iceland may be the revolving in a cycle of some 800 years. The midatlantic ridge may be causing the revolving motion and filling of the big magma chamber. In the Pacific we see similar areas that caused volcanism in areas of comet impact. I expect volcanic activity from west Iceland in the direction of east Iceland. Iceland may see major volcanoes erupt in sequence. Icelandic vulcanologist are good in predicting single vulcanic events. But they are bad at seeing the elephant that is in the room. Didn't you notice that lots of volcanoes are slowly preparing to erupt? Katla, Hekla, Askja, Bardarbunga, Oreifajokull and Grimsvotn, to name a few? Icelandic volcanologists are focussed on Reykjaness mouse volcanoes, while the elephant volcanoes are forgotten.

I guess the Reykjanes Peninsular exists because of this kind of event - and you don't get a peninsular from just a few months-worth of eruptions. This could go on for many years.

Thank you once again for an informative and thoughtful report on the current state. I am guessing 30 days or more. But it’s purely a guess based on the unexpectedly long time between the past two eruptions. If it takes more magma volume to produce an eruption again this time, i would expect a longer period between eruptive events. And there is always the unknown remaining volume that is in the dike, but was not erupted last time. We’ll have to wait and see.

I agree with the pressurezation theory!

A simple look around the area tells us that much bigger eruptions have occurred. These little eruptions we are seeing right now may be just the start. The "craters" in this crater row are a different size class than the tiny ones being left by the current events.

I enjoyed your video on the current state of this current eruption cycle.......I think this eruption event is far from over....that is just my opinion....

The hole is bigger takes longer to fill? It's coming again the earth is alive! Just thinking how fortunate we are to see this process!

Thanks for sharing. I watched an interview with volcanologist Thorvaldur on youtube channel Iceland Review but that was probably recorded before the increase in land uplift. I don't know what is going to happen but I do guess a new eruption end of this month could happen...

thx for the video Hliðarmenn, I have another theory so the influx of magma didnt change its nearly the same since the start in october last year, but with the march eruption something changes in the system that the influx got into the chamber and the dike, it was at around 4mm/day eruption amount was around 34.000.000m³. we know that till the may eruption with official numbers from the IMO around 21 Million m³ accumulated in the magma chamber eruption amount was around 42 Million m³. But after this Eruption ended i think that connection went off and the influx is flowing all into the chamber and we see the 8mm uplift in the last days. To the GPS from today it seems it changes a little but lets see and wait here the numbers i calculated with the data from the SENG GPS 8h 0:00-8:00 30.06.2024 (m³ calculation based on around 95km² uplift area from the last uplift process till the may eruption> 22cm uplift 21 Million accumulated > 95km² area) Overall Uplift process: 9,5cm in 25 days > 0,38cm/day > 361.000m³/day > around 9 Million m³ accumulated 6,5cm in 10 days > 0,65m/day > 617.500m³/day > around 6,175 Million m³ accumulated in the last 10 days 4cm in 5 days > 0,8cm/day > 760.000m³/Day > around 3,8 Million m³ accumulated in the last 5 days

Seems to me,lava is pushing up on the peninsular and finding less resistance to a layer at four KM depth to push up an area to the west of the crater, rather than finding a path to the surface at the crater. Am i stating the obvious? We are all watching the uplift and quake charts in suspense.

Although I appreciate expert opinions, predictions are really just probability outcomes and surprises happen. Expect the worst and hope for the best.

It's very hard to avoid viewing the ground inflation as anything other than an expression of subsurface volume.

Another possibility is that the magma chamber contains more crystalised magma which reduces the space available for magma flowing into the the chamber so producing more pressure from the influx and hence greater uplift. It will difficult to prove though.

Wow! So the conclusion might be that there are too many variable factors to be able to determine a prediction - it’s just how we interpret them before and after an eruption that can give us an explanation? On the other hand, knowledge from last eruptions isn’t necessarily applicable for the next?

Do you think another fissure could erupt in Grindavik? This eruption ended with a EQ swarm at Grimsey. Is there a connection between the two? I've read that one of the Northern Large Volcanoes was clogged and started the flow to south.

So, middle to end of July? We'll see.

I had feeling that I need couple more hours before I will comment this. And I was right, uplift stopped. I don´t feel that Grindavik is in danger. I belive what mr. Thordarsson said.

Is it possible for the increased uplift rate to be explained by the below reservoir plumbing being slowly being melted and widened with sufficient pressure/heat/magma to increase rate of the enlarged sub-reservoir channel? Surely its a dynamic plumbing network?

Some researchers are suggesting this will go on for possibly a few decades. Wouldn't surprise me given the trends in solar activity which causes volcanism and quakes.

Increase could be caused by a partial collapse of the roof of the magma chamber. This in turn caused by higher magma level in the chamber due to pressure from below. Quake records should confirm. Look for the quakes closest to the surface.

Why are there big vertical breaks in the Graphs, this makes no sense to me.

Best guess according to known data is its going to last at least a few hundred years. Assuming its going to suddenly stop is foolish. The only unknown part is whether the activity continues to focus on the area close to grindavik or migrates around the whole penninsula or maybe even a combination of those 2 possibilities. Instead of throwing out wild guess's though, the best thing they could do is install alot more sensors and try and get a higher resolution picture of whats going on underground so they can actually make reasnable predictions based on actual data instead of guessing about things and wondering why their predictions keep failing.

Things seem to look bad for the power plant. If a new lava flow goes in that direction, it will just go right over the first berm without stopping.

I think another small fissure will happen , probably at same place?

I don't think it has decreased, not really. I probably mentioned this in another video, but between May 24 and May 29 the volume in the magma chamber increased by about 2 million cubic meters. That seems like an increase in inflow rate since before it was somewhat low, even after the end of the March 16 eruption and the start of the May 29 eruption. It's possible that the inflow rate either stayed the same, or as I'm thinking, increased slightly. Plus, I'm also thinking that with several uplift cycles, earthquake swarms, eruptions and drop in uplift, that the rock has been so stretched and cracked that it takes time for it to respond to the increased pressure in the magma chamber.

I am going to guess August 2nd.

chamber might have enlarged from the last 1 may need more till it erupts again..... just have to wait and see lol

Looks like a bradyseismic cycle.

Comment......

What is the meaning of the word "hlidarmenn"?

The eruption will not end until you sacrifice Bjork to the volcano Gods!

Iceland news published a theory that this volcano will go to sleep for 800 years. This is after the news had published a theory the volcano would completely stop, and move to a "safer" place to erupt. What's next?? Spock will rope down from a space ship and drop magic ice cubes in the volcano?

Let the lava flow! Hope it doesn’t wipe out infrastructure