Stop the dangerous dihydrogen monoxide!
In my hometown our energy company releases 1200 cubic meters per second, year around, of dihydrogen monoxide. A compound well known to have killed more people than any other industrial agent. At any time the same energy company stores 10 000 000 000 cubic meters of dihydrogen monooxide just a few kilometers outside of my hometown.
This reckless pattern is the same all over the planet. All of our cities is filled with dihydrogen monoxide. And it is an ever growing problem.
I call for an emediate ban of dihydrogen monoxide, an agent known to kill thousands of people at a time!
The insideous molecule of dihydrogen monoxide
Another thing that is not well known with this deadly industrial compound is that it often carries large amounts of proteinbased pollutants. Pollutants that ends up on our plates in large quantities. These nefarious pollutants are known to cause among other things fat induced health problems, and throat bonification.
Of course I call for an emediate end of all proteinbased pollutants in dihydrogen monoxide!
CARL
VolcanoCafé 
Uhm…
Something interesting just happened.
IMO, just updated the quake plot… And with a whopping large revision of the quakes for the last 12 or so hours.
1. A line fracturing folloving the the Veidivötn fissure is clearly visible.
2. A large diffuse quake swarm happened from Bardarbunga up to around Krafla.
Both of these I think are signs of rifting proceses. I do not though like the line of 1.
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/
And something is moving down the line…
Probably nothing really, but I have never seen a line quake like this in one of the fissure swarms of the Dead Zone before. Just the thought makes me shudder.
So glad you point at these. I’m looking at them like they were Salma’s lower cheeks this afternoon and don’t dare let my thoughts go…
That looks so hot!
Does this explain some of the a bit unusual tremor plots for the last hours?
Yes, it does.
To add to this interesting line of earthquakes, look at what is also happening.
A minor tremor in Vatnsfell, which is right in Veidivotn, but so far seems only tectonic.
But no tremor in Skrokkalda, so this seems unrelated to Hamarinn.
Also the tremor is recorded in Snaebýli, east of Katla, which is close to Laki and Edlgjá fissures. But not in Slyssalda, which is north of Katla. Also some tremor seems to have been recorded in Skógar SIL, but I dont think this is related to Katla.
I think this is related to Veidivotn.
This is the first time in 2 years I see some real earthquakes happening at the dead zone between Katla and Vatnajokull.
And despite that tremor seems not to show a magmatic signature, this fracturing could be linked to magma movements in Bardarbunga in the whole extent of its fissure.
But we dont know how this Veidivotn fissure behaves before an eruption. We only know that Laki has some big earthquakes just before its 1783 eruption.
Mmmmmh. Oooooooh. Uuuuuuuuuuh. Aaaaaaaaaaah…
Yes, as far as I know there has pretty much not been any earthquakes there for as long as Lurkings Svenilisti goes back. But on that Lurking has to get back to us.
It is called the Dead Zone for a reason, it never has quakes. And the line is smackbang down Veidivötn.
There was a bit of tremoring on Skrokkalda, but not much compared to Vatnsfell. And not at the exact same times either.
I concur, I think this is really Veidivötn. I hope that one falls asleep fast as hell. But, as we all know, there has not been a real eruption at Bardarbunga for a very long time. It might have been a few minute mini-eruptions, but… those could have been hydrothermal events to. And since there has been nothing to talk about there, it could have a larger one this time around. Hope not, it could get uggly real fast.
Not the physical way, but I love you. 😉
As long as this love brings me suisse chocolate I am happy 🙂
Suggestion / wish.
We have the Wonder what Bob is up page. Could we do the same thing for Iceland / Hekla / Katla? The day it gets hot there I’m sure many, me first, would be super glad to know where the vital links can quickly be found…
A really good idea.
I have the links for all of the interesting spots, I think.
So it should be easy to set up. But… I do not really know how to get a new page. But, most of them are on webcams and gems.
Ok. As said, just a suggestion. As always, Bob is nice, Iceland is DA SHIIIIIT!!! 🙂
Thanks.
You do, you set it up for Burfel BBQ. 🙂
Is ESK weather related or a part of the recent tremors?
That is probably Godabunga acting up again.
It has had a lot of quakes lately.
No I think what is recorded in ESK (Skogar station) is some tremor. Because the weather has been great in SOuth Iceland today: sunny, calm, no wind, and probably no waves too.
But I think ESK just managed to record some of the tremor that happened in Veidivotn. I dont think this is related to Katla, but that is my guess.
I think that ESK picked up tremor from Godabunga. I was a bit unclear on that one 🙂
SNB is probably related to Veidivötn as you say.
Could be…
But could it be that Veidivotn also triggers some activity in Katla?
Its strange to see such tremor happening in these two spots at same time.
I guess Iceland likes this kind of simultaneous events, like when an eruption for Hekla was almost called for, Katla erupted, and Hamarinn too, all within a couple of weeks last July.
I can buy Katla having had a micro eruption, but not Hamarinn. I still think that Hamarinn was just a large hydrothermaly activated Jökulhlaup.
Snaebyli is also having a bit of fun…
It shows as popcorn on the SIL-feed.
Thanks! Please forgive me for being a volcano idiot and asking very stupid question: does anything that happens in the Dead Zone affect any of the surrounding volcanoes?
We know little about the dead zone.
We know that it has the largest lava eruptions recorded on the Earth, happening every few centuries. These are massive fissures erupting record amounts of lava. These fissures are related to 3 or 4 volcanoes: Katla, Grimsvotn, Bardarbunga and probably Torfajokull.
In 1477, Bardarbunga erupted, and there was a long fissure in Veidivotn erupting, including a part of Torfajokull erupting also at the same time, just separated by a small 20km from the Veidivotn craters. This was a large lava eruption.
As far as I know the eruption in Veiðivötn triggered the one in Torfajökull in the late 15th century. I remember having read about a magmatic intrusion (basaltic) from Veiðivötn into the rhyolitic Torfajökull reservoir as the feeders seem to cross. The result was a very colourful ash mixed up from black (the Veiðivötn basalt) and rosé / beige (the Torfajökull rhyolite) which is today used for tephrochronology.
Some information on Veiðivötn http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1703-03= (Global Volcanism Program)
And more (scientific) texts: http://www.earth.sinica.edu.tw/~gzellmer/download/epsl_269_387-397.pdf
Found even a webcam in the region:
Webcam Veidivötn: http://helgi.dk/?page_id=352
Thanks for the Webcam!
I will add it to the blogpost. If it actually works…
Dead Zone is an area containing the Eldgja fissure of Katla, the Laki fissure of Grimsvötn, and the Veidivötn fissure of Bardarbunga.
It is the area of the planet that has released more magma in lavafloods than any other during the last 10 000 years. So, correctly speaking it is the other way around, the 3 major volcanoes I quoted above, affects the Dead Zone.
The Dead Zone is so bad, that even the most volcophiliac of us go, Please Dear Godabunga NO!!!
Yes I agree.
I love to see volcanic eruptions, but not one of these fissures.
They are deadly for Iceland and can be also for a large part of Europe. Ekki gott.
Fanken ekki gott… 😉
I agree, but it’s the reason why I look up the IMO page like obsessed for 3 or 4 years now…
And I have something tonight that will not let me follow closely… Incredible.
If anything would happen, it would likely be like when Laki erupted, a few days of very large scale earthquakes as 100+ kilometers rip open. You will have time to come back and watch the show.
Ah, it not for today’s prime time? 😉
GeoLoco, its also nice to watch a Krafla-size lava eruption.
You don’t need to wish for a Laki-size eruption!
Come to watch Hekla when it erupts. It actually erupts lots of lava, and its not as messy as Laki or Veidivotn (of course Hekla would be very messy for my garden, as I would not be able to eat my garden salads anymore)
Irpsit,
Please, I wish for nothing bad. But geology is my passion, I can’t stay cool as an Iceberg when I see this line in the dead zone. Come living in the alps, I help you find an appartment…
PS Sorry for your garden. Mine could creep too if that really happened….
GeoLoco, I already live in Wien, close to the alps. The Alps are really a nice place to live. I still think returning.
But here of course its also nice the adrenalin of having volcanoes erupting around you. The only thing I haven’t seen yet is a lava fountain, so I hope for a small Hekla eruption.
Strange no?
This is definitively dead zone activity. Because the weather is very calm in south Iceland.
Could be that something happening in Veidivotn also activates Katla fissure?
We see tremor in Veidivotn (Vatnsfell) and Skogar and Snaebyli.
Let us not give the 2012ers the idea of a joint Eldgja and Veidivötn event… 😉
I dont believe in 2012. Honesty.
Disasters like Laki, happen every few centuries, thats the cold harsh reality.
And about 8000 years ago, the lava from Veidivotn flowed some 200km down to southwest all the way to… Selfoss!
The lava field is still visible well in Selfoss. Crazy no?
They are all watching Venus and Jupiter moving closer together (and hitting the moon)!
I know, but we should point out that there has never been a joint eruption of Eldja, Veidivötn and Laki. That is a very very remote thing to happen. It might even be impossible since an eruption on this scale probably lowers the pressure in the other systems.
I didn’t dare, but here we go. That’s one scenario I like a lot. And the 2 last years of seismicity in the Bardarbunga area, Katla’s “delay”… Plus it’s some time ago we had really nice fissuring and biiiig time lava spewed… Let’s not fall in /2012ing, but that makes me bloody hot!
GeoLoco, you do know that a large fissure eruption probably would be the end of Iceland as we know it?
No, I do say that everyone would die, far from it. But the economical and sociological impact would be so large that it would become an exodus of Icelanders having to move, and most likely Iceland would have to forfeit being an independent state out of not being able to take the financial hit… It would also hit northern hemisphere hard with failed crops and the hardest winters on record. This is a large fan, a big shovel, and a horkload of crap.
And yes, I know, it will happen sooner or later. And it makes me sad.
Fully aware of all that. I don’t wish for it, but that’s the kind of answer we sooner or later will get for our forgetting what we are compared to the powers that have built the earth’s surface we live on.
I’m not happy if something like that happens, but I can’t deny it’s exciting in a pervert manner.
Also, not wanting to sound 2012ish, but:
– Iceland has this cycle of volcanic activity, centered around Vatnajokull, about every 130-150 years. Last time, was during the last eruptions in Bardarbunga, Katla and Askja in the late 19th century, early 20th century, so we are approaching a new maximum this century. These peaks in activity often feature large eruptions in Iceland, near Vatnajokull.
But between now and 2050, no one knows when the largest eruptions will occur.
And you’re right Carl. A Laki-style event would be the thing that would make me run away from Iceland. I would get into the plane as soon as a dead zone would start. And I knew Europe would just suck the years after.
Irpsit, do not forget that we have entered both the hotspot cycle, and a cycle of rapid rifting of the EISZ according to IMO. So the next 50 years is sadly rather likely to be interesting times in Iceland. And that sadly makes a rifting fissure eruption in the Dead Zone likely.
Now we’re talking.
This is THE main potential for a big event that can be called realistic in the next 50 years. Volcano wise, I’m not talking of quaking in San Francisco or Istanbul.
And I read you – please don’t tell me it makes your lava blood bubble…
Large rifting can also occur north of Vatnajokull, but I think not as likely, due to recent Askja and Krafla eruptions (I referred to the recent 1875 VEI5 in Askja).
But Bardarbunga and Katla are where a large rifiting is most likely to occur.
We already see this trend, when a big amount of magma was erupted during Grimsvotn last eruption.
On page 11 of this (Icelandic) information text about the Vatnajökull region, there is a geological map including big parts of the Veidivötn and Laki fissure systems. http://www.umhverfisraduneyti.is/media/PDF_skrar/Natturufar_og_natturuminjar_umhverfis_Vatnajokul.pdf
we have some surface activity on the Hierro webcam 🙂
mucho degassing
Two very small boats headed out of the harbor to the left side of the screen.
I think there is a new vent out there.
yes, I said it
at least 2 more close to shore, I think another farther out
somebody send for the guys in white coats?
boats are hightailing it back to the harbor, speedy like!
I hope somebody recorded the last 15 minutes.
I have the funny farm on hold….
No – I had to go out. But there was a light on the sea this evening on the La Restinga Village webcam – which I assume is a boat (too fixed to be anything volcanic). Next time take a screen shot.
I want to saw that I actually caused one of those last earthquakes in south Iceland , lol.
The tiny 0.3 earthquake in Hestfjall, at 14:25, happened as today I was hiking this mountain at around the same time, and we were sliding down the mountain in the snow. Or was it the mountain trying to shake its humans?
I was right in epicenter and did not felt the 0.3 earthquake. But I already felt 1.5 quakes there. I live just a couple of kms from it. (Its also the epicenter of the 2000 large 6.0 quake)
Hekla looks stunning at the moment!
http://eldgos.mila.is/english/hekla/
I find the line of quakes to the north of Mýrdalsjökull to be very interesting. But that’s just me.
No. Not just you. Definitely not. Worth watching…
How are you doing, Tyler? And how is the friend you were so worried about?
She’s doing good so far!
Good! 🙂
Yep!
Rifting Fissure Eruption:
When Katla, Bardarbunga or Grimsvötn has a major and sudden influx of magma from the hotspot, and the fissure swarm of the volcano in question suffers a rifting opening it up. Then what happens is a VEI-6 at the central volcano, and a minimum of 10 cubic kilometers of lava erupts down a minimum of 100km fissure. It is the most destructive type of eruption likely to happen in the northern hemisphere.
They should install more SILS in dead zone…
Amen Godabunga to that.
Yes, but the mos catastrophic eruptions are actually more likely to happen somewhere else. Like Indonesia, New Zealand or the Andes. Icelandic eruptions have never created such a deep volcanic winter like Tambora or Lake Taupo.
I’ve just been reading up on Veidivotn – it looks like a nice tourist place, talking about the fishing and hiking. Then read up on the eruptions: 1477 rings a bell with me as it’s towards the end of Wars of the Roses. The weather for this period is recorded as being very bad in England – in 1483 when the Duke of Buckingham rebelled he got stuck in Salisbury due to the rain and was caught and executed. In 1485 the weather wasn’t much better and Henry Tudor nearly didn’t make it from France to take the throne from Richard III. So it looks like Veidivotn played a part in one of the most dramatic periods of English history! I love it!
Actually Irpsit, the Thjorsahraun is believed to have been rather nasty in it’s weather effects.
The reason why the Indonesian eruptions are so scary is that they are so close to horkloads of people.
Where not Laki and Eldgjá eruptions at more like 30-40 km long fissures – which is also a lot, of course…. 😕
Now ….. I know I said that I was bored last night with the lack of any volcanic activity of any interest. I was obviously tempting fate as it seems to have kicked off in Iceland today. Carl – that line looks very pronounced, following the line of the plate – with the Tjornes fracture zone also active, this looks very interesting.
They are very small EQs though, you’re not expecting anything dramatic are you ? ?
Problem is that neither I, nor anyone else knows. Because there is not recorded precedent to draw back on. The only thing we have is written records from the Laki eruption of large earthquakes being felt ongoing for days before the eruption started. So, I think we would need more than this.
@Jim.
But it was definitely you, who started it – now we know … 😉
A new post being in preparation I sense… 🙂
New post is up.
GeoLoco scores.
You see, when I referred to El Hierro as a fart (even if wet) in the Altlantic, it’s because a large fissure eruption in Iceland, compared to that, would be dying of diarrhea…
Those who like to worry should follow that closely. Probably it’s nothing, just the “preparation” of events in a far future. But if the “worst case” happened here, you could start worrying for the whole northern hemisphere’s economy (and, well, not only the economy).
The importance of the x 0.8 quakes under the Canaries seem to be put is scale now…
Finally …. ❗ 🙂
How the earth was made…
ICELAND.
Oh! My evening viewing!
There is a photo of Laki just in the beginning. Very fitting! Thank you, Carlos. 🙂
I also like this one, I don’t know, if I have linked that in here still.
Though the commentary is in Icelandic, there are great film sequences about Krafla and Grímsvötn eruptions.
Sorry, here comes the link: http://www1.nams.is/jardfraedi/eldfjoll2.php?id=380
But the English film is really very well made, too. 🙂
How the earth was made…ICELAND.
Why the great horking godess do i get a link to Alice Cooper – Poison
Sveni Listi… the compiled one… it s a pain in the ass.
That’s why I use two spreadsheets, Sveni Listi and a working spreadsheet that only has the last two some odd years in it.
But, here are quakes from the last seven days overlaying the historical (well, back to 1995) of sveni listi.
And… the part that I wanted to see.
This is an estimated sequence of the order of the quakes.
It is estimated from the color, to do a better job would require looking at the individual time stamps and plotting them. That info is available if you want to do it.
And a semi-profile view… looking along a bearing of 45° along the likely plane of the fault system/swarm. This allows you to see how the quakes relate to each other spatially.
My GUESS is that material coming up into the Katla system found a weaker and easier path up the swarm system to the NE.
Doesn’t mean anything is gonna happen, but its worth noting.
Thank you Lurking!
Most educating.!
Hi
di hydrogen monoxide processing is my trade….