Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano has been shaking for more than a week. Will it erupt?
Buried beneath hundreds of feet of ice, Iceland's Bardarbunga听volcano has been shaking for more than a week now, but an eruption has yet to occur.
On Saturday (Aug. 23), the Icelandic Meteorological听Office reported that a subglacial eruption had been detected at Bardarbunga. Fearing that lava听听cap and that ash would spew into the sky, officials raised Iceland's aviation alert to red (the highest level), and barred aircraft from flying over the site of the volcano.
But on Sunday (Aug. 24), the听听that its initial interpretations had been incorrect; there was no subglacial blast nor was there an imminent eruption, and the alert was lowered back down to orange. []
While an eruption has yet to occur, there are no signs that the rumbling under the volcano is stopping.
Sunday night, at 8:39 p.m. local time (4:39 p.m. EDT), the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a 5.3-magnitude earthquake 鈥� among the strongest tremors to hit the region since the intense earthquake swarm suddenly started on Aug. 16. On Monday (Aug. 25), the听Icelandic Meteorological Office had detected 700 seismic events since midnight. Another 5.0-magnitude quake听听at 4:19 p.m. local time (12:19 p.m. EDT).
听lies underneath the northwest part of the huge Vatnaj枚kull ice cap. Scientists have detected a long, lava-filled dike in the earth under the Dyngjuj枚kull glacier, one of the glaciers that flows out of Vatnaj枚kull. According to the Met Office's latest update, the fissure is thought to be nearly 22 miles (35 kilometers) long, and may contain about 300 million cubic meters (10.6 billion cubic feet) of magma.
The Met Office outlined the three most likely scenarios that will play out at Bardarbunga听in the coming days. One possibility is that the magma could stop pushing to the surface and the seismic activity will eventually fizzle. Or, the magma could punch through the surface of the crust, starting an eruption, with lava flows and some ash. A third possibility is that the dike could break through the crust and melt a significant part of the glacier,听听along the J枚kuls谩 谩 Fj枚llum, a river that flows into northern Iceland from the ice cap. In anticipation of possible outburst floods, Icelandic officials evacuated tourists from areas downstream of the glacier last week.
Travelers may be eyeing the seismic unrest at Bardarbunga听with anxiety, especially after the ash-spewing听brought air travel to a halt over a large swath of Europe for days. But after the Eyjafjallaj枚kull blast, models of ash plumes have improved, and airline policies have been relaxed to allow planes to fly through limited levels of volcanic ash, rather than enacting sweeping flight bans.
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