Earthquake swarm in Iceland raises threat level on Bárðarbunga volcano

Waiting for the NYT article to somehow connect this to climate change.

This volcano has a long history of a lot of intrusions without eruptions though. Hopefully this won’t be a big one, it is huge and capable of a lot of damage.
Global Volcanism Program | Bárdarbunga
http://www.volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=373030

Well they will get sufficient warning. But if the plume goes up high with lots of dust, it will cool the planet a bit. I agree they’ll blame the climate. Not geology.

Our planet is always moving tectonic plates, or land falls. Shows it is still alive, unlike Mars.The one to watch is Vesuvius or Mt.Ararat. I don’t know much about Ararat, other than it did erupt and buried a bronze age village, but Vesuvius has people worried, as a bad earthquake proceeded the 79 AD eruption. Same with Thera (Santorini) These little shaking swarm may not be followed by an eruption, but – time will tell.

I was just looking at the harmonic tremor in the graphs. The tremor has been ongoing for a few days but it is constantly increasing in magnitude. It appears to be building. No release is apparent as of yet. interesting… one to watch.. historically a VEI 2 on average.

Strange, just a week ago I’ve been driving along that long and windy, often washed away and repaired stretch of the Icelandic Ring Road from Höfn to Vik i Myrdal, right under Vatnajökull’s nose. It’s mostly a gravelly and sandy wasteland, barely covered with moss in places, with only a few sheep farms here and there, close under basalt cliffs. Hopefully, farmers will get an early warning before Bárðarbunga erupts — but they surely will have to rebuild that stretch of the road again.

Ahhh, so THIS is the cause of the pause…..
Cos I’m sure it will be….

Its like November at the moment in the UK. 12 Degrees. Cold grey and raining.
If we have a serious European eruption… i dread to think how cold it could get…..

“1477 Feb (?) Unknown Confirmed 6 Historical Observations Veidivötn (Veidivatnahraun)”
Great… I’m going fishing there next week for 3 days

Russ Steele says:
August 16, 2014 at 9:21 pm
Reblogged this on The Next Grand Minimum and commented:
This could bring more cooling if it is big eruption with large dust/particle cloud. Stay Tuned.
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The trouble is that if there is cooling and if there is an eruption, this will keep AGW alive. The eruption will be used to explain the cooling, and hence warmist will argue that it masked the upward forcing of CO2 and the temperature rise that would have occured but for the volcano eruption.
Personally, I do not wish to see any eruptions over the next 10 years, so as not to cloud the issue (sorry for the pun).
Lets hope that we may keep volacnos out of the equation, so that we can get a better take on what observational data says about climate sensitivity to CO2. We need the ‘pause’ to continue, or better still for some cooling to occur which canot be explained within existing AGW mantra, to bring cAGW to an end.
Whilst I am firmly convinced that warmer is better, and whilst I would not ordinarily welcome the pain that cooling will bring, I would like to see some cooling; a little pain now may prevent much more pain later.

Such volcanic earthquake swarms indicate magma movement. Whether such movement will be followed by an eruption is anyone’s guess. But be ready for one accompanied by massive flash floods as the eruption melts ice.
Vesuvius is also one to watch as an eruption is overdue and over 5million people live very close. The Italians say they ”have a plan” BUT???

Looking at the Table view they’re mostly low quality tremors:
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/vatnajokull/#view=table
Hard to tell whether it’s ice and water moving or magma…

Big trouble for flying in Europe again?

Bjarki says:
August 17, 2014 at 2:31 am
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I am hearing that the fishing off of Bermuda is great this year. It may not be to late to change flights.

The largest lava flow on Earth during the past 8,500 years came from this same caldera fissure complex and covered 950 square kilometers of central Iceland. This huge eruption coincided in time with the largest drop in global temperature with in the past 10,000 years which took 250 yrs to rise fully again.

RACookPE1978 says:
So, a “sub-aerial eruption” (below aviation altitudes apparently) creates a worse plume than an aerial eruption (which would be at aviation altitudes obviously). Odd.
No, “sub-aerial” means “in the open air”. The opposite is not “aerial” but “sub-glacial”, i. e. under a glacier, which indeed does not produce much of a plume, if any, though the sudden melting of the ice can cause a “jökulhlaup” (glacier-run), i. e. a large flood.

I know of 2 triggers of explosive volcanic activity associated with grand minimums and I think I may have figured out a third. The first is the incremental action of the increased level of cosmic rays reaching Earth’s atmosphere that generate muons when they strike atmospheric molecules. Refer “Explosive volcanic eruptions triggered by cosmic rays – volcano as a bubble chamber”. It is paywalled. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X10001966
There is a good explanation of the changes in stress on tectonic plates in the comments by Geo and subsequent in http://iceagenow.info/2014/05/volcanic-eruptions-coincide-sunspot-activity/
It relates to the incremental stresses on tectonic weaknesses caused by reduced solar activity and the associated changes in jet stream activity.
Finally, and this is only my view, but the gravitational forces that cause 2 grandfather clocks in the same room to eventually harmonize their rhythms seem to incrementally add to stresses on tectonic weaknesses. So when the gas giant planets were all close to alignment in the early part of this century each time Earth passed across this alignment (twice a year) it copped a little of these extra gravitational harmonics (with the help of the moon). As a result since 2003 there have been 20 great (Cat 8+) earthquakes yet the previous 20 occurred from 1949 to 2002.
There is also a little remembered paper written by Richard B Stothers of NASA in 1989 entitled “Volcanic Eruptions and solar activity”. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/st07500u.html.
I suspect that the key to understanding why little ice-ages can have such an influence on mankind is not because of the direct effects of the change in TSI but the indirect effects caused by the changes in the jet streams and the increased tectonic activity.

Pamela Gray says:
August 11, 2014 at 4:17 pm
“(trimmed) … These ash plumes are dense locally, regionally for the bigger ones, and their longer lasting stratospheric veils are implicated as a direct cause in epic global cooling events. (trimmed) The Pacific Equatorial band is a very large body of water absorbing heat energy to a depth of 300 or more meters. In our thought experiment, a 20% reduction in the watts it absorbs is no small thing. …”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/06/recent-paper-finds-recent-solar-grand-maximum-was-a-rare-or-even-unique-event-in-3000-years/
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Pamela, pardon my out of context re-posting of your comment from a few days back. You take interest so I have a question and point to make to you and others which routinely gets overlooked.
You (and basically most others) rightly acknowledge the undeniable role of prosaic volcanic eruptive cycle implications in multi-year cooling. No problem with that. You (and others) also freely recognize the role of the oceans in modulating multi-year and multi-decadal weather patterns. Note that I avoid all use of the word ‘climate’, as it’s use is almost but not quite irrelevant and inappropriate in under 500 year contexts, whereas climate and geologically significant scales of change are joined at the hip and completely inseparable, i.e. unitary.
What’s automatically and breezily overlooked is that oceanic geodynamic energy release and the resulting topographic isostatic equilibrium elevation and volcanism levels are at a minimum twice as active within the ocean basins, as they are above the waves.
We also do not know what scale of activity constitutes a major submarine volcanic eruptive event. They may be (and most probably are) much larger events and more regular, due to the very thin crust, and close and elevated mantle-asthenosphere and isotherms, due to being sited above an epic global scale elongated hot spots and globe-encompassing volcanic extrusive mounds about a thousand kilometers across. Not to mention the thousands of large individual volcanic sea mounts further away from the volcanic ridge mounds, many of which dwarf the largest volcanoes on land by around an order of magnitude.
If we were to observe an orbiting space video of earth, sans all of its watery clothing, we would be darned impressed by what we see before us. Suddenly many thing would begin to make a whole lot of sense. We would no longer think Valles Marineris was the most impressive rift feature in the solar system. It would instead be totally obvious to us that Earth’s mid-ocean ridge volcanic spreading network is vastly and shockingly more impressive. And not only that, it is volcanically active for its entire length. If there were no water covering it we would see semi-continuous extrusions and volcanic outgassing events on a fairly shocking scale.
Alas, its all covered over with very deep water so we’re aware of maybe >0.1% of its activity, and perceptually ~99% of scientists and >99.999% of climate scientists are apparently completely oblivious to its existence. The see it on oceanic bathymetry and maps but the epic active volcanic reality of it doesn’t pass the thought filter barrage to register as a, “Hey, maybe major episodic regional submarine volcanic eruptions, like those we occasionally see on land, are significant to ocean circulation and global out-gassing and weather? Could they act as be a trip-wire for climate change?”.
We don’t know.
Because even a blindman or a child can see the potential exists and it’s geographically extensive. The mid-ocean ridge volcanic network’s combined length is about 60,000 km, while the much focused-on trenches and their landward side continental and back-arc volcanic complex which we actually see eruption from, have a total length of a bit less than 30,000 km. While ~7 km thick oceanic crust covers ~65% of Earth’s surface (only ~20% as thick as continental crust) and is festooned with enormous volcanic sea mounts that make any volcano above the waves look pitiful and tiny. These did not get that big via small tentative eruptions nor by occasional shrinking-violet eruptions. It may turn out that many if not most punctuated global extinctions were caused via submarine volcanism.
But shock of shocks the oldest oceanic crust is a mere ~205 million years old (NE of Sakhalin Island), and over 60% of the rest of the oceanic crust is less than 100 million years old. Which means almost all of the oceanic volcanism which produced this spectacular global MOR ridge complex and the giant sea mount volcano chains, is geologically very recent activity. It’s not old, it is not extinct, it is not winding down. It’s geologically very new and periodic eruptions are large episodes that overprint lower-level quasi-continuous extrusion, going on all of the time.
But … alas, all covered over … never see it … what is it? … nope, never heard of it … even those aware of it have little to no time-series systematic observations of it … so how do we address it? … how do we include it? … well, we don’t! … it doesn’t even enter our minds … its absence, perpetually unnoticed … “whatchya talkin’ ’bout Willis?!!”.
It’s the ultimate weather-cycle blind-spot, as opposed to a weather-cycle Sun-spot. But we’re not going to understand the wet-spot until we deal with the blind-spot. Keep that forever in mind each time you ponder ocean weather cycle mechanisms and climate trend and switching mechanisms.
Given you (and many others) recognize the implications for atmospheric circulation and weather cycles above the waves, due to large volcanic events, whence this unrecognized neglect of the almost certainly more significant submarine volcanic activity and its implications for ocean circulation and weather cycle inputs from under the waves, given the active geographical area for such events to occur within is multiple times larger and more active?
This is omitted from the whole discussion of weather cycles and also the longer-term climatic variations, which are joined-at-the-hip with geological processes and time scales.
So why not joined-at-the-hip for ocean and weather cycle scale as well? Whence this blind-spot?
The oceanic crust is nothing more than a fragile ultra-thin cap on a circum-global network of hot rising mantle sheet-plumes. Forget the Pacific ring of fire, this is in every ocean basin’s heart! This is earth’s major thermal contribution to the low density bits of liquid and gas above the solid crust.
Nah, that couldn’t be significant.
Weather cyclicity via ocean cyclicity is not going to be adequately understood and described without explicit detailed time-series monitoring reference to geodynamic cyclicity, which actively created and grew and maintains the oceanic terrain which completely dominates the planet’s surface and its weather systems.
It’s very heartening of course that the role of solar variation and cosmic particles are finally being taken into account, but consider this silly scenario; If you put a pot full of warm water on a stove, and set it to low heat, would you then try to explain the observed local water and vapor cycles over time in and around that pot, sans reference to what’s going on immediately under and in direct contact with it? Or only with reference to direct radiative and indirect input mechanisms from the powerful incandescent light bulb above the pot?
I submit that in 100 years when we’ve finally invested in a global deep ocean floor monitoring network we’ll look back at the discussions of weather and climate cycles early this century with a wry smile, a small nasal snort, and an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

Don;t know, guessing a glacier filled caldera can be VEI ~5, occasionally 6, averaging 4.
Despite lovely cool end to summer (3 degrees C. northern England next Friday) this may be relevant. Next 5 days of upper level winds at 250 hPa continually blow from central Iceland to England and North Sea into central Europe then central Russia.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/08/23/0000Z/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=9.42,46.79,537
Hopefully what if anything eventuates isn’t full throated.

Numbers here:
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/vogripa/searchVOGRIPA.cfc?method=detail&id=2338
1477 eruption calculated within Larsen 1984 as VEI = 5.4 with andesitic magma.
Which explains the explosiveness and the tephra.
But how is a mantle originated MOR plume banging out andesite?!!

Alert level raised to orange …
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/18/iceland-volcano-idUSL5N0QO2NV20140818

Rapid magma movement confirmed with rapid ground movements
http://www.jonfr.com/volcano/
GPS sensors and tilt meters indicate area is dilating fast during last few hours.
http://strokkur.raunvis.hi.is/gps/DYNC_rap.png
People in Europe get ready for ash fall, it’ll be overhead within hours of this thing popping.

It is most likely that a possible glacial surge (jökulhlaup) will flow along the river Jökulsá á Fjöllum, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6kuls%C3%A1_%C3%A1_Fj%C3%B6llum

>>New webcam<<
A new webcam has been installed on the glacier looking at Bárðarbunga. The location is at Grímsvötn 30 km away from Bárðarbunga.
See: http://vedur2.mogt.is/grimsfjall/webcam/
(Grímsvötn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%ADmsv%C3%B6tn).

Ed Martin says:
August 18, 2014 at 10:53 am
” (trim) … McGarvie says if this turns into a big honker it can last a long, long time.”
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That may not be as much of a problem as it sounds. The volcano’s past eruption character is for large effusive eruptions which are predominantly large lava-flood outpourings from fissures and sheild volcanoes.
It remains to be seen how much ash fall will accompany it though. The 1477 eruption appears to have had a lot of explosive activity as it had a positively weird andesitic magma which you don’t get in mid-ocean spreading rifts, like this one.
Chalk that up to another instance of observation meeting an inadequate accepted theory, or else a peculiar classification snafu.
Andesite is stiff, it does not flow, it clogs, and it degases and violently explodes. That andesitic material was presumably coming out of the main caldera as it created a regional blanket of tephra over most of Iceland. Tephra is everything from very fine pulverised ash and gravel, to large solid rock ejecta blocks which are blasted outward for many miles by powerful detonations and ash plumes.
If it’s just the fissure complexes spilling lava it may not be too bad, but if the caldera clears its throat and sings, all bets are off for a Summer in 2015.

Volcano Discovery Update are calling it – Eruption Imminent
Bárdarbunga volcano (Iceland): continuing earthquake swarm & inflation, orange alert
Monday Aug 18, 2014 18:43 PM | BY: T
An eruption of the subglacial volcano seems more and more likely to be imminent. Rapid inflation suggests magma intrusion at shallow depth. Orange alert has been declared today by the Iceland Met Office (IMO).
The earthquake swarm continues intense with so far approx. 2000 earthquakes detected, including about 200 of magnitude 2 and higher. A magnitude 4.5 event occurred this morning NE of the volcano at 6 km depth.
The epicenter locations have migrated from their original cluster location east of the volcano to an elongated area to the NE of the volcano. This would likely be the area a new eruption could start.
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/bardarbunga/news/46852/Brdarbunga-volcano-Iceland-continuing-earthquake-swarm-inflation-orange-alert.html
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The seismic activity chart tells the story it’s arced up again after a slight back off. About 70 hours of harmonic tremor so far. The longer it takes to pop the bigger it’s going to be.
http://volcanodiscovery.com/bardabunga-earthquakes.html

Thank you for all the info and links, you’re certainly not unmentionable anymore. 😉

Emerging pattern is disturbing
Icelandic updates from Vísir – Fréttir – in English
http://www.visir.is/section/FRETTIR07
“… most events are now located between Bardarbunga and Kverkfjoll. … There is full reason to expect an eruption.”​
Kverkfjoll is a second major volcanic complex and the past major eruptions were 7,000 to 9,000 years ago and dormant since. Most of the recent earthquake activity (>2,800) is along a 20 km long fissure directly between these two icesheet covered calderas, particularly their eastern sides. The most recent hours of activity are concentrated close to or under Kverkfjoll. The largest quake in Iceland for the past 18 years, of mag = 4.5, occurred under Kverkfjoll a few hours ago, at 6 km depth.
http://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/kickem-gumbo-ntv-riddle-9/
http://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/goddali-kverkfjoll-skafta-west-cauldron-iliwerung/
A second major fissure complex associated quake concentration is occurring on a parallel fissure complex around 30 km to the WSW of the two main volcano centers, indicating multiple centers of magma rise into the largest volcanic complex in Iceland.
Looking dicey

https://theconversation.com/is-icelands-next-volcanic-eruption-about-to-happen-30642
The Iceland Meteorological Office has increased the risk of an eruption at Bárðarbunga (or Bardarbunga) volcano, after hundreds of earthquakes were reported over the weekend. The risk level has been set to orange, which is the fourth-highest on a five-level scale.
Here we asked Dave McGarvie, a volcanologist at The Open University, to explain what we need to know.
Should we be worried?
We have known for some time that Bárðarbunga was going to do something – we just didn’t know what. Because it is covered in ice, we rely on instruments to reveal its behaviour.
Now it has stirred, it is giving us clues about what it is about to do. The clues from the patterns of earthquakes and earth movements reveal two clusters where magma is moving towards the surface, and if it gets there it will erupt. But whether this will be a gentle or a violent eruption is uncertain at the time of writing.
There is no way to predict when the eruption may happen, but we should get a few hours notice. The good news for air travel is that both clusters are away from the heart of the main volcano which makes it less likely that an eruption will produce the fine ash that causes disruption.
What would the eruption look like?
At the very least, magma will stall in the Earth’s crust and form an intrusion. We may never see any manifestation of this, except on instruments. But if magma does break through to the surface, then how much magma erupts and what is above it will determine the eruption style.
If it is under thick ice – that is more than 400m thick – and not much magma comes up, then a pile of volcanic rock will accumulate at the base of the glacier. This will melt a lot of water (14 times the volume of magma under ideal conditions), and we may see a depression in the ice surface. This will add water to a major river, and cause flooding downstream.
If it is under thick ice and lot of magma erupts along a fissure, then we will see a repeat of the Gjálp eruption of 1996, with erupting magma melting a pathway to the ice surface within hours and forming an eruption plume. Compared to the massive plume of Grímsvötn 2011, this will be a small plume and less problematic for air travel as the particles will not be dispersed widely.
If magma breaks to the surface outside the glacier margin, there are likely to be small but powerful local explosions as the rising magma encounters the water-bearing sediments that occupy the land in front of the glacier margin. Explosion may occur because flashing water to steam involves more than a thousand times expansion in volume. After the water has been used up, or the magma isolated from the water, then a normal fissure eruption would be expected.
I emphasise that the above are what I currently consider the most likely scenarios. The “likeliest” scenario could change at a moment’s notice. That is part of the fun and frustration of anticipating eruptions at poorly-known and remote volcanoes.
What is the worst-case scenario?
That this is the start of a major volcano-tectonic event at Bárðarbunga, which may further develop to the southwest. This is a concern because in the southwest there are fissures that have produced Iceland’s most voluminous lava flows, since the ice melted some 9,000 years ago.
These fissures are up to 100 km long, and far to the southwest they can trigger eruptions at the Torfajökull volcano. Torfajökull happens to have an abundance of sticky magma that can erupt explosively and produce lots of fine ash. The last eruption, in 1477-1480, produced just two lava flows and minor explosions. But the one before, in about 874 AD, produced an explosive eruption plume that was carried over much of Iceland.
Also to the southwest of Bárðarbunga lie the rivers which produce much of Iceland’s hydroelectric energy, and a fissure eruption in this area could cause big problems. Icelanders have long known about this possibility and have specific plans in place should this happen.
I emphasise that we don’t know yet whether this is an isolated event or the start of a more prolonged and larger volcano-tectonic episode. It may be years before we know for certain. But at some time in the future there will be a major fissure eruption to the southwest of Bárðarbunga – we just don’t know when.
Bardarbunga caldera is about 10km wide in diameter. Iceland Geological Survey, CC BY
Could this be another Eyjafjallajökull?
The Eyjafjallajökull eruption caused a lot of disruption to flights in Europe. However, it is important to note that, all things being equal, if an Eyjafjallajökull-like eruption happened tomorrow then there would be far less disruption to air traffic – something less than half the flight cancellations of 2010.
There are two main reasons for this. First is that the old flight rules – avoid all ash – have been relaxed so aircraft can now fly when there is some (but not too much) ash in the sky. Second is that the Met Office revised its model that estimated ash concentrations in the atmosphere, so we now have more certainty about how much ash there is and where it is.
If something unusual were to happen and a substantial amount of magma started rising within the heart of Bárðarbunga, then there could be a large explosive ash-producing eruption. The good news is that we have a better idea of what to expect from such an explosive basalt eruption because we had one in 2011 at Grímsvötn.
To provide context, Grímsvötn was Iceland’s most powerful explosive eruption since Katla 1918, and was about 100 times more powerful than Eyjafjallajökull. Compared to Eyjafjallajökull 2010, Grímsvötn 2011 produced twice as much ash in a tenth of the time.
We were lucky with Grímsvötn 2011, because a combination of wind direction and the new flight rules meant far less disruption to air travel. Over Europe only about 900 out of 90,000 of flights were cancelled in 2011. In comparison, about 94,000 flights were cancelled during Eyjafjallajökull’s 2010 eruption.
Why was Eyjafjallajökull so bad?
Eyjafjallajökull 2010 was a “perfect volcanic storm”. It was unusually long-lived, about 39 days, whereas most explosive eruptions in Iceland last just a few days to a week. It produced an unusually high proportion of the type of fine ash that is most easily transported long distances. Dry weather meant that the ash was not “washed” out of the atmosphere, and prevailing winds carried the ash almost directly to the UK and western Europe. We had the old “ash in the sky so you don’t fly” flight rules which grounded everything. Finally, the old Met Office model slightly overestimated the concentration of ash in the sky.
No knowledgeable volcanologist worth their salt would ever suggest basing western Europe’s ash cloud mitigation plans on a repeat of Eyjafjallajökull 2010, because it is very unlikely. A short-lived but powerful injection of ash into the atmosphere like Grímsvötn 2011 is more typical.

Yeah, that’s good ‘n all, but what if its Kverkfjöll? … huh? … we’re in some pretty sh8t now! … I hope they’re working on a plan-B.
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Apparently both of the caldera’s dimensions are ~8 km by ~4 km and kidney-shaped, presumably elongated along the fissure’s trend line. At least one of them is 700m deep so it’s not brimming with fresh magma so Bardarbunga is probably less of a protracted eruptive threat.
It’s the many years of volcanic quakes under them that gives me pause. The magma chambers may not be full but it does not mean a deep column of material is not stacked up ready to ascend over months or years once it’s decorked.

Just to clarify the relative potential of a major fissure eruption, have a read, these can be even more dangerous over all, not merely affecting distant aviation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki
The system erupted over an eight-month period between 1783 and 1784 from the Laki fissure and the adjoining Grímsvötn volcano, pouring out an estimated 14 km3 (3.4 cu mi) of basalt lava and clouds of poisonous hydrofluoric acid and sulfur dioxide compounds that killed over 50% of Iceland’s livestock population, leading to a famine that killed approximately 25% of the island’s human population. … The Laki eruption and its aftermath caused a drop in global temperatures, as sulfur dioxide was spewed into the Northern Hemisphere. This caused crop failures in Europe and may have caused droughts in India. The eruption has been estimated to have killed over six million people globally, making the eruption the deadliest in historical times.
Major fissure eruptions are not to be trifled with or ignored just because there may be less high altitude ash. (note the surface level hot then cold conditions that resulted)

Bárdarbunga volcano (Iceland) activity update
Wednesday Aug 20, 2014 09:17 AM | BY: T
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/bardarbunga/news/46925/Brdarbunga-volcano-Iceland-activity-update.html
Volcano Cafe – Bárðarbunga update
http://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/bardarbunga-update/
The last link discusses observed GPS geodetic trends and its crustal relative movement responses. Looks to me the NE end of the fissure must be opening fastest, which happens to be where the last two days of earthquakes were concentrated.
Interesting that Grímsvötn is showing the highest uplift of all of the stations. Some people are sure its not physically connected to Bardarbunga. If not then its filling with a separate injection of magma then? Because its thirty kilometers ESE of the fissure that is inflating.
I read documents yesterday that asserted Kverkfjöll is clearly connected to Grímsvötn via a fissure complex and share the same extrusive signatures. And we can plainly see that Kverkfjöll and Bardarbunga are connected. Frankly I think all of these volcanoes under icesheet are connected. The icesheet itself only exists because of similar deposition, thermal isostasy and magmatic intrusions in the large area.
But why is Grímsvötn and the surrounding ice sheet being pushed upward the most, when the intrusion is so far away?
I suspect it’s crustal rotation or else a buckling response to horizontal displacement as magma forces the fissure apart. i.e. both volcanic and tectonic because dyke emplacement will see to it that the gap does not close again. Hence the ground is not rising elsewhere as much.
If that’s right, and it seems to be, there’s a lot of magma doing that and over a large surface area its pushing on.

The earlier official update I posted is still stuck in moderation land, why I don’t know, seems like every second post goes to moderation, so maybe this one goes through:
Updated summary from Bárðarbunga
A summary of seismic activity, written Tuesday evening 19th August 2014 at 20:00
http://en.vedur.is/about-imo/news/nr/2945
[All should be clear now. .mod]

The seismicity a few hours back was higher than at any earlier period in the current sequence, but now back down to large numbers of low amplitude shocks.
Tremor has lasted ~110 hours.
http://volcanodiscovery.com/bardabunga-earthquakes.html

From the quotes below it sound like they’re crossing their fingers and toes that this thing stays underground and does not get any bigger. the longer the tremor goes on like this the worse its going to be if it pops under 2,000 ft of water ice.
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Magma flowing into Bárðarbunga caldera with great force – 20th August 2014
http://www.visir.is/magma-flowing-into-bardarbunga-caldera-with-great-force/article/2014140829931
Kristín Vogfjörð, seismologist and research director at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, says that the activity is very powerful. “This just keeps going on. This is many times more powerful than what’s been going on in recent years.” Kristín says that a large volume of magma is flowing under the caldera, heading northeast towards the Kverkfjöll mountain range. The magma is staying at a depth of 5-10 kilometers – there are no signs of it moving any closer to the surface. If asked if an eruption is due to happen in the next few days, Kristín responds: “Not necessarily. There’s nothing suggesting that it’s about to. But due to the size and scale of the activity there’s full reason to be vigilant and prepare for an eruption.”
Magma surge towards the surface would be very powerful – 20th August 2014
http://www.visir.is/magma-surge-towards-the-surface-would-be-very-powerful/article/2014140829927
Kristín Vogfjörð, research director at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, says that the current seismic activity at Bárðarbunga is many times more powerful than any on record for the site. “It’s very powerful,” she says. For comparison she notes that thousands of quakes have been measured at Bárðarbunga in the past week, but in the Gjálpar eruption in 1996 they were only a few hundred. … “While this is going on, it may never reach the surface. But we still need to keep an eye on it because the volume of magma is incredible,” she adds. …”There is no indication that it’s moving further up than that. But if it were to happen, it would happen very quickly,” Kristín states.
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I can’t watch …

Unmentionable, yes, volcanoes are huge pressure cookers, like the 79 AD Mt.Vesuvius. No one thought it was a volcano even though they knew what volcanoes were. The pressure that built up and in the end the worst happened, a hot pyroclastic flow. The walls of the volcano, like St.Helens collapsed.eventually.

Lots of very recent consistent small shallow ‘quakes’, over a large area, some high quality/confidence:
14.5 km SE of Kistufelli Mag=1.3 5 minutes ago depth 2km Quality 90.01%
15.4 km ESE of Kistufelli Mag=1.5 6 minutes ago depth 1.4km Quality 90.03%
13.7 km NW of Kverkfjöllum mag=1.4 18 minutes ago depth 1.1km Quality 60.82%
5.5 km NE of Bárðarbungu Mag=1 15 minutes ago depth 1.1km Quality 90.06%
13,7 km NW of Kverkfjöllum Mag=1.4 20 minutes ago depth 1.1km Quality 60.82%
5.5 km NE of Bárðarbungu Mag=1 21 minutes ago depth 1.1km Quality 90.06%
2.8 km E of Bárðarbungu Mag=0.7 21 minutes ago depth 1.3km Quality 44%
18.9 km NNW of Kverkfjöllum Mag=0.4 25 minutes ago depth 1.1km Quality 36.79%
This is different