The centuries-old volcanic fissures opening up in Iceland, oozing out red-hot lava, have had residents of the close by city of Grindavik on edge, and spectators elsewhere transfixed.
Lava flowing from one fissure engulfed a number of properties. The hazard seems to be subsiding, with seismic exercise reducing and hazard warnings downgraded although nonetheless excessive.
However Grindavik remains to be liable to fault actions, lava move, and extra fissures erupting with out warning, as of January 19 when the Icelandic Met Workplace issued its final replace.
New satellite tv for pc imagery from NASA additionally reveals how a lot warmth remains to be leaking out of the fissures close to Grindavik, a faultline that had been quiet for 800 years earlier than this sudden spell of volcanic exercise.
The map under depicts the warmth emanating from the fractured land floor, detected by a thermal infrared sensor aboard NASA’s Landsat 9 satellite tv for pc. Whereas the temperature scale is not particular, it reveals the sheer measurement of the fissures effervescent sizzling with lava.
The map knowledge was collected on 16 January 2024, two days after two fissures opened up frighteningly near Grindavik, on January 14.
Overlaid on a digital elevation mannequin of the realm, you possibly can see the primary January 14 fissure, which grew to just about 900 meters lengthy because it was redirected alongside machine-built limitations, and the second, smaller one which breached the city’s perimeter, are each blistering fountains of lava.
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The lava flows from an earlier eruption in December 2023 are additionally nonetheless red-hot.
What the map does not present, nevertheless, are the below-ground intrusions of magma that flowed towards Grindavik and the flurry of earthquakes that prompted authorities to evacuate the city in January – for the second time in a matter of months. That type of seismic knowledge is collected on the bottom, and remains to be being carefully monitored by geologists.
The fissure eruptions close to Grindavik, in December 2023 and January 2024, are the fourth and fifth alongside the Reykjanes peninsula in lower than three years.
An earlier picture produced final 12 months from knowledge additionally collected from the Landsat 9 satellite tv for pc reveals lava flows that spilled from the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system northeast of Grindavik in March 2021, August 2022, and July 2023, scorching the earth black.
In March 2021, one other of NASA’s satellites, collectively operated with the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), captured the second when Fagradalsfjall first erupted, lighting up the evening.
Earlier than this newest spate of eruptions, the Reykjanes peninsula had lain dormant for 800 years, with the final collection of eruptions lasting just a few a long time, between roughly 1210 and 1240. Grindavik was constructed on prime of these previous, hardened lava flows, so its residents aren’t any strangers to volcanic exercise.
Iceland is without doubt one of the most volcanically lively locations on Earth, perched atop a mid-ocean ridge that’s slowly separating and a mantle plume billowing up from under.
As Jaime Toro, a geologist at West Virginia College, lately defined, the island is sliced in two by the tectonic plate boundary between the North American and Eurasian plates, a continental faultline that bypasses Iceland’s capital of Reykjavik and runs straight via the Reykjanes peninsula, the place Grindavik sits near its tip.
Hopefully, the simmering volcanic exercise beneath the Reykjanes peninsula has settled for now. The Icelandic Met Workplace posts its updates right here.
