Over the last seven years , seismic activeness atBárðarbunga , the secondly highest mountain in Iceland , has been gradually increasing . On August 16 , a cloud of small earthquakes signaled the movement of molten John Rock underground , Nature report , and visitors were blocked from the area . Less than two week later on August 28 , researchers flying over Vatnajökull — Europe ’s large ice cap — spotted several depressions up to 15 beat bass in the side of the vent , BBC reports . Called cauldron , they ’re the resultant role of melt occur at the base of the ice .
Finally , just after midnight local time on August 29 , a chap near Bárðarbunga erupted , send gases and steam from little lava fountains into the strain above the glacial chicken feed northerly of the caldera in the volcano ’s crown .
The eruption occur on an old volcanic fissure on the Holuhraun lava athletic field , about five klick north of the Dyngjujökull ice allowance , according to ajoint reportfrom the University of Iceland and theIcelandic Met Office , which oversees volcano in the country . The participating fissure was about 600 meters long .
Seismic data and images from awebcam called Mila , settle northeast of the site , show that the eruption peaked about 40 minute in . It ended about four hours later . No volcanic ash was observe , and no plumage was detected by radar . The terror to aviation has since beenreduced to computer code orange . To the right is a 1973 planet epitome of the Vatnajökull ice cap from NASA , with Bárðarbunga at its northwestern edge ( top left ) .
After the swarm of little temblor , 0.4 cubic kilometers of magma formed a sheet of pertly cooled rock ( an intrusion called a dike ) that stretched for 45 kilometer northerly of Bárðarbunga , Nature describe . The dike interacted with cracks leading toward a volcano called Askja 20 kilometers by . If the dyke had managed to make it all the agency to Askja , the stress and supply of new magma could have caused it to erupt .
moreover , the gauze-like volume of magma involved suggest that it ’s occur from the Earth ’s mantle . The reference is likely century of kilometers below the surface of the impertinence , saysBritish Geological Survey ’s Evgenia Ilyinskaya , and not the shallow magma sleeping room beneath the vent .
Checkherefor update from the Icelandic Met Office .
Images : Icelandic Coast Guard ( top ) & NASA ( middle ) via Icelandic Met Office
