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4 days ago · Lava Centre - Live Earthquake and Volcano Monitoring in Iceland. Advanced National Seismic System. Update: Location. Magnitude. Depth. Date/Time. We provide Iceland Map with detailed information of last earthquakes and volcano eruptions in last 48 hours. Visit us to get live volcano information.
Iceland Meteorological office - Earthquakes Iceland. Still ongoing magma accumulation beneath Svartsengi. Increased probabilities of a new dike propagation and another volcanic eruption in the coming days.
- Overview
- Iceland’s volcanic geology
- A fiery new beginning
The country’s volcanic peninsula has been dormant for centuries. But experts say the tectonic shifts behind the recent eruptions and earthquakes are a long time coming.
Photographed on July 11, 2023—the Fagradalsfjall Volcano's gas cloud stretches over the Litli-Hrútur mountain and is illuminated at sunset. Smoke from nearby lava-ignited moss fires blow into the valley below.
For centuries, the country’s western volcanic peninsula has been dormant, but a new era of volcanic activity could be on the horizon.
The Fagradalsfjall Volcano, a raised crater of bubbling lava—glowing bright yellow in an expanse of dark gray—is the latest eruption heralding Iceland’s new period of volcanic activity.
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The eruption announced its approach on July 4 of this year, when southwest Iceland was rocked by more than 2,000 earthquakes in just 24 hours. Not long after, seismic activity dropped off as magma rose to shallow depths and ultimately gave way to oozing molten rock on July 10.
The Reykjanes Peninsula lies about 17 miles southwest of Iceland’s capital city Reykjavik. It sits atop the continually spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the North American plate to the west and the Eurasian plate to the east are gradually pulling apart. Superhot, gassy magma, which is less dense than the surrounding rock, can sometimes rise into the shallow crust from buoyancy alone, but all that regional stretching also creates cracks where molten rock can infiltrate.
The peninsula’s subterranean bedlam seems to manifest as periodic busts of volcanism. Historical accounts and studies of ancient volcanic rocks show that times of volcanic repose transition into loud seismic and eruptive awakenings in a cycle that’s transpired several times in the past few millennia.
And in recent years, several sheets of magma ascended toward the surface, indicated by the changing shape of the ground and swarms of earthquakes, says Tobias Dürig, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland. But for some time, these magmatic serpents failed to see sunlight—their escape was stymied either from the loss of their own upward momentum or because the resilient crust didn’t offer an escape hatch.
Nevertheless, as earthquakes began to crescendo in both frequency and strength from late 2019 onwards, scientists suspected that an eruption sometime in the future seemed inevitable. That was confirmed in dramatic fashion on March 19, 2021, when lava began gushing from a 1,650-foot-long fissure in a valley of the Geldingadalur region.
These ferocious fires are gifting scientists with an unparalleled look at the connective tissue between the igneous abyss below and the lava-licked landscape above. Their efforts help improve our understanding of Earth’s viscera, of Iceland’s volcanic cadence, and of this peninsula’s volcanic dangers.
This article was adapted from an article published in 2022. Read more about Iceland’s volcanoes here.
Nov 15, 2023 · A volcano in southwestern Iceland is expected to erupt in the next few days. Diana Roman, a volcanologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, says that the region is considered to be quite ...
Nov 14, 2023 · Iceland’s Volcano Threatens Eruption. An enormous magma intrusion under Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula is causing earthquake swarms and forcing evacuations. By Stephanie Pappas. This photo ...
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Nov 11, 2023 · Volcano eruptions in Iceland have at times had devastating effects. In 2010, the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano spewed so much ash that it grounded flights across parts of Europe for weeks.
A volcano has erupted on the Reykjanes peninsula of south-west Iceland, following weeks of intense quake activity there. The eruption is weakening, forecasters say, with aerial images showing ...
