Volcano erupts near Eyjafjallajoekull in south Iceland
An Icelandic volcano, dormant for 200 years, has erupted, ripping a 1km-long fissure in a field of ice.
The volcano near Eyjafjallajoekull glacier began to erupt just after midnight, sending lava a hundred metres high.
Icelandic airspace has been closed, flights diverted and roads closed. The eruption was about 120km (75 miles) east of the capital, Reykjavik.
What volcanic scientists fear is the fact that this eruption could trigger an eruption of Katla, one of the most dangerous volcanic systems in the world.
Eruptive events in Eyjafjallajökull are often followed by a Katla eruption. The Laki craters and the Eldgjá are part of the same volcanic system. Insta-melt could occur:
At the peak of the 1755 Katla eruption the flood discharge has been estimated between 200,000–400,000 m³/s; for comparison the combined average discharge of the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, and Yangtze rivers is about 290,000 m³/s.
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katla
Video of the eruption:
Volcano Eruption in Eyjafjallajökull Iceland 20 Mars 2010.
The volcano near the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier began to erupt shortly after midnight, leading to road closures in the area.
No one was in immediate danger, but 500 people were being moved from the area.
It is almost 200 years since a volcano near Eyjafjallajokull, 120km (75 miles) east of Reykjavik, last erupted. The last volcanic eruption in the area occurred in 1821.
Taken from C-FQWY / TF-SIF DHC-8-314Q Dash 8
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Curiousgeorge (11:46:47) :
Guys, if you dont know anything about geology, please don’t speculate. This is what gives ammo to websites like RC against WUWT. The last thing we need to be doing is spreading dis-information out in cyber-space.
Iceland was formed by dominantly basaltic volcanism associated with extension at the plate boundary. This is what is expected at divergent plate boundaries. Iceland is not “holding back” the divergent plate boundaries causing “terrific strain” (which by the way is also wrong – it would be “terrific stress” – strain is deformation, stress is a force) – it is formed as a result of the boundary. The volcanism will continue as the plates spread & will “fill in the gaps” caused by the extension – so no reason to believe Iceland will split in 2. Here’s a good graphical image showing you how as the plates spread, new crust is formed, with the youngest crust at the spreading center & getting progressively older away from the center.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_seafloor_crust_age_1996.gif
All we are seeing in Iceland is “new crust”. No reason to believe this wont continue. No reason to believe Iceland will be split in 2. No reason to believe it is creating some sore of lock on the plate boundary.
FYI – Situations where you will see crust broken into 2 parts happens as new rift zones open up in continental crust & new oceanic crust is formed in between – such as what is going on in East Africa present day, or when North Am / South Am rifted away from Africa / Europe starting in the Triassic – but this is a completely different situation than we are seeing in Iceland.
John Phillips (12:06:48) said:
Hmmm, so the recent Icelandic banking collapse/financial meltdown precipitated the earthquakes … 🙂
James F. Evans, subduction zones are perfectly known by their seismicity, volcanism, tomography, rates of plate convergence measurements etc… inform yourself instead of spreading utter bS.
Rupert (11:41:24) :
@ur momisugly Wilson Flood
Interesting that the “let them eat cake” exhortation (which actually predates Marie Antoinette) is a useful piece of advice for the starving sans culottes.
The actual phrase was “let them eat brioche” and brioche requires less wheat to make than bread and thus allows limited supplies of corn to go further.
Another apologist for the French aristocracy!
Sure, take a gratuitous shot at Robespierre. Don’t you ever give up? Louis XVI is dead. Get over it.
Sonicfrog (11:37:54) :
“We” (being geologists) know a lot more than you think. Given the physics of the forces involved, mass balance considerations, modern GPS measurements (which can track current plate movements), and the geologic record of plate motions, there is no data to support the idea that the plates might suddenly “accelerate”.
Again, please stop idle speculation unless you have some good reason to post a hypothesis – or at least post it as a question, like “Does anyone know if there is data to support sudden & rapid acceleration of plate movements?” Your idea reads like some CO2 alarmist on RC. Sorry to be harsh, but live by the sword, die by the sword. The sword we live by on WUWT is the sword of good science, not alarmism.
P oleward A ccumulating L ava E vents always begin after the winter solstice and follow longitudinal lapping directions toward the new latitudinal summer (oops)
Dear Anu,
When you write
“Similarly, the periodic forcings of the tiny Sun variations in TSI have no longterm effect. Only the inexorable rise of CO2 in the atmosphere have a non-pulse, non-periodic effect on the planets temperature in the 100 to 500 year time frame of interest.” you are being patently ridiculous.
The most important earth bound conditions affecting temperatures are the heights of atmospheric layers. The taller atmospheric layers are then the smaller the rate that radiation is released into space. Contrarily, the shorter that the atmospheric layers are then the higher the rate that radiation is released into space. This is as fundament to accounting for why Lindzen and Choi obtained their results as higher latitude volcanic activity -induced by a Heavier Sun- is to increasing the density of the magnetosphere and thus the increasing radiative releases mark by the higher stratospheric temperatures recorded by Chrisy and Spencer.
As a matter of the simple fact of physics, the warmer temperatures are on earth then the higher the concentration of particular atmospheric gases can be. These physical processes also explain why their is a feedback lag of 800 years between the onset of cold and a fall of in CO2. While oceans are cooling they are still releasing water vapor and this slows the filtering of CO2. (the vikings were chased from Greenland ~ 700 years ago….During the 20th century we clogged our oceans with junk that trawlers can clean up and this detritus is interfering with the absorption of CO2 by the Oceans)
It will surprise the CO2 is AGW community to know that during tall atmospheric conditions (true global warming) CO2 is much less likely to be found near the top…It is just too heavy.
Niels Bohr….CO2 is not a black body…entropy will change the radiation and it will be released and directed in all directions by atmospheric currents and subjected to Earth’s Radiative Budget.
Bad science will kill billions if truth continues to be suppressed.
“Richard Sharpe (12:24:14) :
Hmmm, so the recent Icelandic banking collapse/financial meltdown precipitated the earthquakes … :-)”
Richard, it is the recent voters rejection of the anglo-european financial deal that may have activated the volcanoe. Never pass on an opportunity to spew guilt on people… LOL
Anu (11:59:14),
Ron from Texas is right. CO2 has very little to do with global warming or cooling. Whatever small effect it may have is unproven, and even if eventually proven, the fact is that whatever small effect CO2 might have is so insignificant that it can be disregarded.
We know this because as CO2 has risen by a full one-third, the planet’s temperature has not risen even one degree, and it is arguable whether CO2 has much to do with that mild increase, or whether that slight warming is due to the planet’s natural rebound from the Little Ice Age. Further, for extended periods the planet has cooled even as the very minor trace gas CO2 steadily rises. The wild-eyed pointing to the presumed effects of beneficial CO2 have been debunked repeatedly: polar ice cover is well within normal historical parameters. And global precipitation is entirely normal. And the sea level is not rising any faster than normal. And the deep ocean is not heating up, etc., etc.
In fact, none of the alarming runaway global warming predictions have occurred. As Dr Trenberth admits, it is a travesty that their predicted events are not happening. In any other branch of the hard sciences, such repeated failures would completely discredit a conjecture like CO2=CAGW.
But money — and the prospect of ever more funding — keeps the AGW conjecture alive. The problem is that the money diverted into the repeatedly debunked global warming scare is starving deserving sciences of needed funding.
Instead of using the public’s tax money for worthwhile science, it is wasted on self-serving empires of AGW shills in order to perpetuate their jobs, to ratchet up their compensation, to generate endless grants, and to buy new toys like supercomputers, whose models can not accurately predict the climate. In return, we get silliness like the statement from your link:
It must be fun for these climate scientists to divvy up $2 billion a year, and emit fantastic statements like that. They don’t mention that the models are programmed by people with a preconceived AGW conclusion. The fact that models are almost always wrong means the garbage going in is wrong.
And what does the average taxpayer get for their money? They get models that can’t accurately predict, a rent-seeking clique of back scratching scientists who conspire to keep skeptical scientists marginalized, and who travel to exotic locales on all expense paid junkets to promote scary scenarios that the planet itself is falsifying.
That is not what the public wants or needs. The public is paying for science, but getting a pseudo-science agenda instead. And that’s the scam.
James F. Evans (11:57:22) :
“On the other hand, so-called “subduction” zones are anything but easy to recognize, nowhere close to 40,000 miles have been identified, and a number of scientists question their existence, altogether.”
What ????
Please site a source where geologists question the presence of subduction zones.
Hard to identify? I think not.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadati-Benioff_zone
All you have to do is monitor the seismic activity of any subduction zone & you will see it “imaged” based on the focal positions of earthquakes. See :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kuril_Benioff_zone.JPG
And yes, we can tell the direction each plate is sliding relative to each other based on focal mechanism analysis of first motions. See:
http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/beachball.html
… am I sounding like a broken record? Don’t post ideas if you have no idea what you are talking about – or least post it as a question for those who may know the answer.
… I think I have some idea how Leif feels when the blog gets on solar topics.
If it’s “up there” and I didn’t see it, mea culpa, but does anyone with a background in geology have a good link to actual, ongoing, volcanic/seismic data for this area of Iceland? Like the USGS site for ‘Redoubt’ a short while ago.
Antonio San (12:32:53) :
Antonio San (12:08:41) :
Thank you for your unsolicited help in controling the geologic BS !
I’m not buying all this mumbo jumbo from people who claim they know what they are talking about. I’ve examined the historic record and it is clear that the only mechanism for controlling volcanoes is virgin tossing. Yet I have not seen one of you mention it. Are you trying to rewrite history? Make the Medieval Virgin Tossing Period disappear?
Seriously, thanks for the explanations, very informative.
rbateman. re volcanic an solar minima: i thought so and earthquakes as well?
Now, hold on a minute. In the first place new crust at the spreading ridges has to vanish back into the mantle somewhere or the Earth is growing larger by the day. Second, subduction zones are anything but subtle–have a look at island archipelagos, acuate deep trenches, and the earthquakes associated with them. I don’t know of any geophysicist who doubts the existance of subduction zones.
High latitude stratovolcanoes are believed to affect the Arctic Oscillation. Iceland volcanoes are shield volcanoes related to ocean plate spreading – stratovolcanoes are related to the subduction of oceanic plates beneath continental plate margins.
The type of melt generated by he two are very different. Stratovolcanoes melts are rich in silica and H2O, which subducts with oceanic plate and allows the melt to be more silica rich and more viscous. All this leads to much more explosive events as the viscous magma plugs up the vents and the H2O causes the magma to explode when the magma breaches these blockages – thus allowing ash and gas to to rise into the stratosphere, where it can affect climate.
Basaltic magmas, like those of icelandic volcanoes have low H2O content and are less viscous. As the accompanying photo shows the magma forms beautiful fountains rising hundreds of feet (not 10’s of thousands), and while it might have local impacts on atmospheric gas content, it does not generally have any far reaching hemispheric or global climate impacts.
If the shield caldera were to collapse, there could be some explosive consequences, but that would depend on how much water enters the magma chamber and how extensive such a collapse would be.
In other words, sit back, watch the show and enjoy your pop corn.
Ric Werme (11:28:46) :
ammonyte (10:15:37) :
Volcanic eruptions at high latitudes have a large cooling effect on climate (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011222.shtml)
Your reference is only an abstract and says nothing of the sort. It makes no mention of the model output due just to high latitude eruptions. The only reference to climate is due to tropical volcanoes. The most important long-term impact is the cooling of the high-latitude NH produced by multiple tropical eruptions, suggesting that positive feedbacks associated with ice and snow cover could lead to long-term climate cooling in the Arctic.
_________________________________________
I too am only looking at the abstract, but I think the key word is “explosive.” This adjective typically describes eruptions of felsic volcanoes above subduction zones, and cooling is an intuitively reasonable result of the ash the eruption throws high into the atmosphere.
Mafic volcanoes at spreading ridges (Iceland) and hotspots (Hawaii) may erupt spectacularly, but with relatively little ash. Oceanic warming, rather than global cooling, seems to be the result of the heat flow. An outstanding example might have occurred at the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, when a spike in ocean temperature may have resulted from massive eruption in the area of present-day Iceland.
HereticFringe (10:26:37) :
WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!
(well, eventually, when we get old, sick, or have a very bad accident, but don’t let that stop the doomsayers from saying it…)
rbateman (10:27:36) :
Volcanic activity has an increased frequency of occurance & intensity in times of Solar Minimum.
~
OMG, Heretic-Fringe, hey great name btw.
rbateman, then why can’t we see the lag time? Hasn’t there been enough of these extended max. solar periods with their corresponding extended min. solar periods, to start ah..seeing lag times, in modern times?
Is this now the question and answer period?
Having a hard time putting this question together.
When it comes to the sun, we have it broken down into largescale sturctures, magnetic butterfly diagrams, movements towards and away from the equator, rotational, etc..
When it comes to Earth do we similarily, plot movements of seismic activity? Yes, I know seismic monitors in real time. Numbers all over the place. Ring of Fire, subductions zones, fastest plate, etc. I know but.
Is there movement towards or away from the poles.?
Chaiten is still rumbling away also;
http://geology.com/volcanoes/chaiten/
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february272010/chile_ez.php
Anu (11:59:14) : “Only the inexorable rise of CO2 in the atmosphere have a non-pulse, non-periodic effect on the planets temperature in the 100 to 500 year time frame of interest.” ………………..
…….Ah, Yes, that inexorable, devastating rise of 3 molecules in 10 Thousand …..to 4 whole molecules in 10 Thousand… shocking! Devastating. I’m melting already. We must obliterate all trace of Capitalism, implement Socialism, divide up US wealth among world nations, and everyone will bike to their new job dragging a plow at the (local) organic farm. Once we repent our climate sins with a vow of poverty, will the mother ship swoop in from its hiding place behind the moon?
Kevin Kilty (13:35:19) :
Now, hold on a minute. In the first place new crust at the spreading ridges has to vanish back into the mantle somewhere or the Earth is growing larger by the day.
You know I think that might be what he was talking about. There’s a… I hesitate to call it a theory or even a hypothesis, but a belief that the earth has actually grown from something smaller to something bigger. I saw a few youtube videos about it a while back, which claimed that mountains are like giant wrinkles and stretchmarks. They never get around to explaining where the extra mass comes from…
kadaka (11:43:41) :
“Iceland?
Lots of little seismic events, see “last 48 hours” list, nothing all that big.”
Icelandic Richter 2.5 earthquakes don’t show up on the USGS earthquake site.
For anyone wanting to watch earthquakes in Iceland ‘live’ see their great met office site at: http://en.vedur.is/
Click on the earthquake map.
For those interested the largest quake in the swarm was only a 3.1, and that was a week ago. We’d all been looking for a 4 or a 5 as a kickoff, but all that seemed to happen is a gentle cracking as the small quakes registered shallower and shallower. I’m no vulcanologist but I hazard a guess that it is the fluidity of the magma which is the reason.
Subduction zones – here is one example http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3277943g-maps.html . The dots represent earthquakes and depth. They represent the subduction zone of the Pacific Plate subducting under New Zealand. Why, yes, I am a geologist.
Just to add to Jeff L’s comments, people should realise that there are a whole range of different volcanoes and types of eruption around the world with the primary difference between them being the type of rock that is being extruded.
Put very loosely:
Mid Ocean Ridge eruptions tend to be of Basic rock types derived from the mantle which lack large amounts of silcate type minerals – primarily quartz and feldspars.
Continental eruptions such as those along the subduction zones of the Pacific rim or places like the mediterranean tend to tend to be of Acidic rock types derived from the melting of continental crust. These are much higher in silicate minerals.
The effect of the prescence and absence of silicate minerals is primarily seen in the viscosty of the magma.
A basic mineralogy produces a relatively low vicosity magma which is more likely to flow – hence the spectacular lava flows seen in Hawaii and Iceland. This tends to predicate against explosive eruptions.
An acidic mineralogy produces a relatively high viscosity magma. This allows for the build up of pressure within the upper magma chamber rather than allowing it to be released. The primary cause of this is the inability of volcanic gases to escape from the silicate magmas. Pressure continues to build until there is a failure of the overlying rock whch results in an explosive release of the gases, magma and associated semi molten rock. This is the effect seen at Vesuvius and Mt St Helens.
So although it is possible to have explosive events in basic vocanic regimes, it is generally fairly unlikely.
Ice is melting! This must have an impact on climate!
Ecotretas
I visited iceland last summer, and walked in the evacuated Thorsmork area.
So far luckily only a 500 m long fissure vent, not covered by permanent ice, erupted on the saddle pass halfway between Eyjafjalla and Katla volcanoes .
Judging from the observed seismicity the volcanic activity is on the Eyjafjalla volcano and not Katla, the Eyjafallajoekull icecap is smaller, but still hazardous if the main volcano erupts.
http://www.vkblog.nl/bericht/272638/Hoera%2C_IJsland_warmt_op