A new volcanic eruption began in Iceland earlier today, and early indications suggest that it may
be one of the largest recent eruptions on the peninsula so far. What you are looking at is
the scene filmed today of a paved road just north of Iceland's town of Grindavik being covered by
a fresh lava flow. However, despite the proximity and speed of this more than 1,000 degrees Celsius
lava to the town of Grindavik, its structures are for now safe as the lava barriers are so
far doing their job quite well, redirecting lava away from or around the town. Here is
where I have geolocated the new lava flows to so far, indicating that molten rock has rapidly
covered an area of 2.23 square kilometers. This eruption began at 12:46 pm local time in
Iceland on May 29th of 2024, when a fissure unzipped about 3400 meters east of the Blue
Lagoon. Within 10 minutes, this fissure had expanded to a kilometer in length,
expanding both towards the northeast and the southwest. Soon, this fissure cut right through
the main spatter cone which had formed during the most recent prior eruption which lasted for
54 days between March 16th and May 9th of 2024. This provided spectacular scenes such as this,
with lava fountains shooting up to a height of 113 meters or 371 feet.
As the fissure further expanded, it eventually reached a length of 3.4 kilometers or 2.11 miles,
rapidly sending lava flows towards the south since this represented a downslope region. I
estimate that lava effusion peaked at a rate of around 1100 cubic meters per second, with
the current eruptive rate already decreasing. This is not all that unexpected considering
that each one of the prior 7 Reykjanes peninsula eruptions since 2021 started with their strongest
lava effusion which then slowly but surely decreased over time until an eruption ended.
While a plume of gasses is rising several kilometers into the atmosphere, I would not
call the Reykjanes volcano's current eruption as explosive. Part of the reason we are seeing dark
gray plumes that might be incorrectly interpreted of ash is that this represents oil products which
paved roads are comprised of melting and then boiling as lava passes over them. However,
the southernmost part of the fissure has actually produced intermittent weak ash plumes,
likely due to th interaction of magma with groundwater in that sector. Part
of the reason the current lava flow seems to have such a high speed when compared to prior
recent eruptions is that a section of fissure ran through the edge of the Hagafell hill,
causing lava once erupted to be accelerated by the force of gravity.
This lava flow is likely to continue further along towards the southwest, but whether or not it will
reach the ocean in that sector is still an open question. If lava does however reach the ocean,
then production of hydrochloric acid and explosive reactions with the seawater will occur,
meaning in my opinion that at least a 3 kilometer exclusion zone would be needed around any point
where this is occurring. Lava could also eventually divert towards the southeast
as during the last eruption while the northernmost section of erupting fissure could feed a lava flow
north of the Svartsengi Geothermal Power Plant. Thankfully, no one other than the construction
workers and engineers stabilizing and expanding the dirt lava barriers are still in Grindavik,
as the town was evacuated a full 106 minutes before the eruption commenced. A strong
earthquake swarm indicating the movement of magma had begun at 10:24 am, thus causing
Grindavik to be evacuated around 11:00 am. It thus only took 2 hours and 22 minutes from the
onset of activity for an eruption to commence. It is unclear how long the current eruption
will last, but you should expect to see eruptive activity drop by at least 75%
in the next 24 hours. However, at least 20 million cubic meters of magma is available,
meaning that at least around this total should end up erupting. As a final note,
I would like to thank my new patron James Madison Bevis for supporting this YouTube channel!