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I see there is a discussion about the water. The cooling water is currently pumped from the power plant, so that has a salinity of 2/3 of sea water. The ground water at the Reykjanes peninsula is a mixture of sea water and rain water since the whole area is full of fractures leading out to the ocean. The government has invested in larger pumps that currently are being be shipped to Iceland so that they can pump large volumes of seawater to cool lava in future eruptions.
The source of water is a mixed issue, since it is a combination of the pumping ease of the water from the source combined with the actual temp of the source water, and hence its thermal efficiency at cooling. Pump plant water might be at 30 degrees C, but if you can get twice as much there as 5 degree harbor water, then it is the preferred choice. My choice now would be to create the highest stiffest wall that they can at the original northern berm. Lava shifted away is good lava. Fill up that big empty area to the north. Might be time to think about lowering the height of sillingacantspellit as a source of berm material.
I heard it said yesterday that the water was being sprayed in the hope of directing the flow, rather than any attempt to stop it or slow it, makes sense I guess.
Thank you Shawn for the date. The information you give is always very interesting. Appreciate everything that you are doing. Glad to hear you had fun with the RUclips people and the excursion you all went on. Looking forward to your next update. Have a wonderful week and river cruise.
I find the IMO has much better detailed updates now than they did back in the beginning, when it was very difficult to get any real information. Thank you for always filling in the blanks! 👍
Thank you, Shawn, for another clear and informative update on the situation in Iceland, much appreciated as always. No need to apologize: you added a correction to your June 19th video actually, so everything is fine, really :) Good thing that the Icelandic authorities are considering building another geothermal powerplant elsewhere on the peninsula, either as a backup or replacing Svartsengi's. As you said, all these mitigation measures are only buying them time... Again, kudos to all the workers, firefighters and Icelandic people who are doing a truly amazing job! I just love their spirit and admire their courage. "Chapeau bas !" as we say in French :) And of course, thanks to Bruce G and to Amanda Jo for helping you out.
I read on X that 9500 liters per minute were being applied recently (these last few days.) I also found basalt's specific heat is on the order of 1 Joule/gram-Kelvin (water is about 4.184 Joule/gram-Kelvin.) But the density of basalt is around 3 g/cc vs water's 1 g/cc. The enthapy of evaporation of water (100 C liquid to 100 C steam) is 2257 Joule/gram. The enthalpy of crystalization of basalt has varying figures, but I took the figure of 400 Joule/gram from some tables I looked over. Assuming the basalt requires 200 K to crystalize and assuming the water starts at room temps (not too important, though), then "(9500 liters/minute)*(1000 g/liter)*(2.5e6 joules/kg)/((400e3+200e3) joules/kg)/(3g/cc)" works out to about 0.2 m^3/s of lava being solidified. That's not much compared to the minimum effusion rate of 3 m^3/s. But it seems worthwhile when compared to the leakage of lava across the berms near Svartsengi, recently. Shawn, could you check my calcs? I'm basically familiar with these undergrad calcs. But I certainly may have missed something important. And thanks for the report!!!
Thank you for your remarks about the "stopping" of lava. I still see the images of the center of Todoque at the start of the eruption where they tried to divert the lava with some huge concrete blocks. Eventually that square was covered by 30 meters of lava... So much for the puny human efforts...
Much appreciation for you spotlighting Iceland's response to this situation. It is indeed impressive and your balanced approach to how you cover this clearly delineating facts from observations and opinions makes a difference! Thank you,
@@donaldkasper8346 you might not see everything in use but more importantly, do not forget the size of the nation Iceland in terms of population. They have barely 385.000 inhabitants, 140.000 living in Reykjavík itself, about 250.000 in the region. That leaves 135.000 for the rest of Iceland. So considering this, 2 dozers of that size, geared for this kind of work could well be a national response. Just look at a random town with 400k people and see which capabilities they have. The Icelandic response is impressive.
@@AronSquander Then the PM calls up Biden, asks for the loan of 20 D-9s for the summer and build a 200 ft berm. I cannot see how we could not spare the loan.
The subsurface under the power plant is more dense yet pliable while the subsurface to the east is less dense and brittle subject to cracking and fracturing creating a path for the magma. That was my understanding anyhow.
Given the height of the existing berms around the power plant complex; wonder what the next steps will be to protect the area? Quite an engineering project if there is another upcoming eruption. PS - Wonder if it’s feasible to build a berm across the arm of the lava flow like the new roadway and direct the next lava flow in another direction?
It's good that there might be an alternative location for a power plant even though it might take awhile to build a new one. Learning about the underlying geology interests me too. May you and your wife have a great time on the cruise!
Good update. Appreciate all you do. Interesting news about the exploration for a new geo-thermal plant. Thanks to Amada Jo too for supplying you with the news stories.
Looking forward to seeing some updates from your cruise. You will love it...I did that a few years ago, and I am sure you can a new perspective to some of the treasures there!
Always appreciate the update. Thank you for your time and knowledge. It is amazing to see the monumental effort being put in by the workers to save the infrastructures. They should publicly recognize all of the individuals by name if they havent already. Hope they win the battle against mother nature in the long run for all their efforts. Thanks again!
Oh, I hope your cruise is wonderful. I took a Rhine cruise from Amsterdam to Basel back in the 90s (when it was rather less popular than it is now), and it was both relaxing and amazingly beautiful. One of my best vacations, ever.
Shawn ,thanks for the frequent updates. Enjoy your Rhine cruise. And for your information, the Laacher See volcano is quite close to Koblenz. Might be a cool side step if you pass there.
Hi Shawn I wish you and vife a nice vacation in Europe. Thanks a lot for sharing the news from Iceland with us. Even with errors, we all make oops now and then. You do great work!!
I'd just like to say that I love your regular use of the word "skosh." I grew up using that, and I think my mom got it from her Iowa family. Keep up the amazing work, one "skosh" at a time!
I believe the borehole at Keflavik will only be sufficient for supplying district heating. I heard they are not hot enough to be used to generate electricity.
Thanks for the update and looking forward to seeing how the situation evolves. I'm particularly interested in future updates regarding the effort (see the 20-minute mark on the video) to, quote, "bore whore holes", unquote, as a future energy production strategy. An exciting time for geology!
@3:19 when you pointed to the "spray water", that is actually just a leak in the delivery pipe/hose. The actual spray is up and to the right on the berm.
Bruce Garner’s work is always impressive, but with the eruption ending, his predictions for the dates of a next eruption might need to be adjusted. If the rate of inflation would increase post-eruption, which seems reasonable to consider, the dates might start in, say, August, or at least be more uncertain until a post-eruption rate of inflation becomes more clear. Does that make sense? I’d be a bit hesitant about stating the dates exclude August when conditions are quickly changing. Thanks, Shawn!
Hey - very true - it’s just a forecast. If you look at the chart the two dotted lines are forecast and current - the forecast is a forecast of what the average uplift will average to by the end. The current is the current average uplift rate which currently is below the forecast rate. I expect those to converge over time. The forecast rate gives September 7th to 14th for the next event - the current rate is showing October but that is currently jumping around a fair bit still. 😊
It's been many years since water was used to cool/slow lava to protect a town in Iceland and it was very successful. Looking back and researching that attempt to redirect the flow I notice that the process was not really to stop the flow, as the berms this time are doing but to channel the flow to miss the town and buildings by cooling the edges if the flow to redirect it to a slightly different course that still took it where it wished to flow. The water process was not even an attempt back then to slow the flow. The Met Office geologist interviewed yesterday kept saying that the water this time is to slow the lava to give more berm building time which seems very different from what they did with the water before where they just used it to cool the dudes if the flow while still letting it move at the rate it wanted ourt towards the ocean just routing it's path to be less destructive. Now that we have a good mapping of the berms, they too seem to be placed ad walls to stop the flow instead of really creating a channel where the lava can flow and spread into uninhibited areas instead if building up behind these berms. It just seems to be that the 1970's use if water to channel the flow around the town while still giving it topography to run to the ocean made for a much simpler control of the lava. When they first started the berms I actually thought they were just creating something like river banks where the lava could run between heading in a more natural way instead of building up walls to block the lava which is leading to it building up behind the berms, and then spill over. I just wonder why they are thinking blocking it is better than just controlling the path it takes to the coast?
Because you can't know where the "springs" are going to pop up, you can't know where the river is going to be. Thus you can't build river banks in advance. On a sloping ground like this you can build berms on the uphill side and hope that it stops the flow. I'm interested if they've done any active redirecting to relieve the pressure on the berms? I assume if you poke holes on the lava tubes some of it will spill out on the sides, rather than all of it flowing over the berm.
The fissures south of Hagafell and inside the protective berm of Grindavik between the outer and inner protective berm is still out gassing even this morning. which shows the lava is still close to the surface and inter action with the ground water, and is releasing other volcanic gases.
My husband and I are thinking about visiting Iceland next winter for Northern Lights, going to or from visiting family in Norway. Maybe I can work it in a way so that we can get some volcano action going to. Thanks for the great update professor.
Shawn if you want to see another interview(s) with Thor Thordarson you could checkout the youtube channel of Iceland Review. They just posted the first of 2 interviews. While this is a simple and just for the public interview it still is interesting. he talks about the end of the series and how it could go on from there. Also some nice drone footage from Arthur "Art" Bicnick. On another issue: forecast and prediction mean the same thing and can totally be used interchangeably. The word forecast probably has germanic roots while prediction is coming from Latin - since English is a weird romanic-germanic language mix you get quite a lot of words meaning the same from both language roots. A prediction can be precise or fuzzy and vage - so can be a forecast. You may have been getting used to calling it weather forecast and not weather prediction but it is the same and both means it is not precise and has a vage element to it and probabilities and some things are more sure than others. Same thing with geologic/volcanologic predictions. TL;DR predictions = forecast
It would be interesting to look at the topography, since the lava flows downhill. I don’t know how much elevation data on the new lava surface is available to the public. The large accumulations of lava from the March and May eruptions means new flows are starting at a higher elevation and have more chance of flowing over the berms, but I don’t know how much higher the berms would need to be to push the lava west in the area north of Svartsengi. We can hope that this cycle of eruptions ends before it does a lot more damage, but preparation is important.
Bro it's been getting dicey here in mid Utah. Apparently, there was an oblesk showed up here maybe 5 days ago. Love ya man keep up the super excellent work😊
Thanks for the update, Shawn. I always appreciate your prespective. I do have a ❓Just curious how close, if at all, the lava is to the top of the mountains, Hagefell and Þorbjörn and Sýlingarfel. Thanks, again!
QUESTION: What is the topography like at the "upper berm" where you thought the spill over had happened? Obviously, they built a berm there because they were concerned. With the lava field near the fissures building up thicker and thicker, it seems almost inevitable, if eruptions keep happening, that there will be a run in that direction. If lave spills over, that looks like a very steep hill.
And much of the recent flow was due to collapse of much of the spatter cone, releasing the molten lava that had been contained within over the landscape.
Aloha, from Makaha...can't wait to see your assessment of where the lava is coming from threatening the power plant...I have an idea of the source, just want to see if I'm spot on with your assessment....
They have proper gas masks and gas meters at all times, wear heavy boots and other appropriate clothing. And of course there are experts on site to tell them to evacuate if necessary.
Mow that we have had months of new lava flows, when will they issue new topography maps? I expect that any new eruptions may flow differently depending on the new topography. It would be interesting to see how much these previous flows have raised the ground.
Just a quick question, could you possible due an episode on what is happening at Mt. Saint Helens in WA state. Heard they were having a bunch of earthquakes in and below the crater. Love your RUclips channel. Thanks.
I wonder if infrared photography could identify if there is still lava erupting and being transporting directly into tube(s) ??? Do the drone pilots there have that capability ??
Please show us an overlay of the known fissures in the area of the recent lava flows. I wonder if the older fissures might be channeling lave and/or heat under the new flows. Perhaps they are guiding the flow.
I know it is a bit early but the western GPS stations (Eldvorp, Skipastigshraun, and H20) are rising a bit faster than the others. It would be a load off if the eruptions did move off to the west. I know…the plumbing is already set to the east but it will be interesting to watch.
Thanks for another great update Shawn! I have a question about Bruce's chart which is, what does E stand for in E4/E5? If it stands for eruption it would be E5/E6 right?
I’d love to see the lines of elevation in the relevant area. Post-eruption (while the rifts and vents are quiet) why don’t they make attempts to…sculpt…the areas where magma will most likely exit the subsurface in an effort to channel the lava flow toward lower terrain to the north or south? That’s a real question and I would like to know why they don’t do something along those lines. I’d use dynamite instead of earthmovers to get the ball rolling because the ball would of course be very very hot. I’d like a real answer from someone with solid expertise.
hi shawn I was lookig at the data and i think its possible that the decrease in rise is possibly related to an increase in the size of the magma chamber if input remains the same the land rise will be affected by a factor of x^3 as it is a volume increase. is there any modeling on the magma chamber. I also did a curve projection based on a quadratic that gave me a target of sept 7-21. i dont think a linear fit is best to predict here. i see a logarithmic curve forming that intersects all the eruption points
Finally I hear something that makes sense (backup for power plant). Best would have been to relocate Grindavik, i.e. build a New Grindavik for free and according to the specifications of the folks of Grindavik. Then it might have made sense to defend the power plant (still look for backups as they do now) as blocking the path to the South has obviously made the situation worse for it. We also must consider the planet itself. It knows best what needs to be done and in the end all the land occupied now was formed by the processes that we decided to fight. The whole situation is a good exhibition of how mankind over time lost its marbles and can work like an idiot on idiotic things for an idiotic long time before common sense sets in again.
Thoughts on this being over by October? Planning a trip to London and wanted to fly over to Iceland while there, but not sure about adding it to our itinerary right now. Thanks in advance.
Hi. Love your updates. But i do have a question that i was wondering about. Sinice the lava flow burst out on the bottom last week on the north side, is it possible that the lava has stopped coming to the top and out of the cone, and just go out that way, and is still on its way to Svartsengi? Of course it is less lava flow since we don't see it around the cone, but if it has found a lava tube down to svartsengi it could just as well be ongoing ??
Hey - very true - it’s just a forecast. If you look at the chart the two dotted lines are forecast and current - the forecast is a forecast of what the average uplift will average to by the end. The current is the current average uplift rate which currently is below the forecast rate. I expect those to converge over time. The forecast rate gives September 7th to 14th for the next event - the current rate is showing October but that is currently jumping around a fair bit still. 😊
I'm assuming the "shallow" lava body that feeds these eruptions is the source of the heat that made this such a good spot for the power plant. Presumably a safer spot might have a weaker supply of geothermal heat. Hmm.
Please be sure to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE. You can support my educational videos by clicking on the "Thanks" button just above (right of Like button) or by going here: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=EWUSLG3GBS5W8 Or: www.buymeacoffee.com/shawnwillsey
I see there is a discussion about the water. The cooling water is currently pumped from the power plant, so that has a salinity of 2/3 of sea water. The ground water at the Reykjanes peninsula is a mixture of sea water and rain water since the whole area is full of fractures leading out to the ocean. The government has invested in larger pumps that currently are being be shipped to Iceland so that they can pump large volumes of seawater to cool lava in future eruptions.
The source of water is a mixed issue, since it is a combination of the pumping ease of the water from the source combined with the actual temp of the source water, and hence its thermal efficiency at cooling. Pump plant water might be at 30 degrees C, but if you can get twice as much there as 5 degree harbor water, then it is the preferred choice.
My choice now would be to create the highest stiffest wall that they can at the original northern berm. Lava shifted away is good lava. Fill up that big empty area to the north. Might be time to think about lowering the height of sillingacantspellit as a source of berm material.
I heard it said yesterday that the water was being sprayed in the hope of directing the flow, rather than any attempt to stop it or slow it, makes sense I guess.
Thank you for adding this information :)
Thanks! You have been so busy but you haven’t forgotten about us and that is really appreciated! Thank you for all your content!
A good scientist always admits errors. Kudos.
Thank you Shawn for the date. The information you give is always very interesting. Appreciate everything that you are doing. Glad to hear you had fun with the RUclips people and the excursion you all went on. Looking forward to your next update. Have a wonderful week and river cruise.
I find the IMO has much better detailed updates now than they did back in the beginning, when it was very difficult to get any real information.
Thank you for always filling in the blanks! 👍
Thank you, Shawn, for another clear and informative update on the situation in Iceland, much appreciated as always. No need to apologize: you added a correction to your June 19th video actually, so everything is fine, really :) Good thing that the Icelandic authorities are considering building another geothermal powerplant elsewhere on the peninsula, either as a backup or replacing Svartsengi's. As you said, all these mitigation measures are only buying them time... Again, kudos to all the workers, firefighters and Icelandic people who are doing a truly amazing job! I just love their spirit and admire their courage. "Chapeau bas !" as we say in French :)
And of course, thanks to Bruce G and to Amanda Jo for helping you out.
Thanks for this update Shawn: also thanks to Amanda=Jo and Bruce. Hope you and your wife have a wonderful Rhine cruise.
I read on X that 9500 liters per minute were being applied recently (these last few days.) I also found basalt's specific heat is on the order of 1 Joule/gram-Kelvin (water is about 4.184 Joule/gram-Kelvin.) But the density of basalt is around 3 g/cc vs water's 1 g/cc. The enthapy of evaporation of water (100 C liquid to 100 C steam) is 2257 Joule/gram. The enthalpy of crystalization of basalt has varying figures, but I took the figure of 400 Joule/gram from some tables I looked over. Assuming the basalt requires 200 K to crystalize and assuming the water starts at room temps (not too important, though), then "(9500 liters/minute)*(1000 g/liter)*(2.5e6 joules/kg)/((400e3+200e3) joules/kg)/(3g/cc)" works out to about 0.2 m^3/s of lava being solidified. That's not much compared to the minimum effusion rate of 3 m^3/s. But it seems worthwhile when compared to the leakage of lava across the berms near Svartsengi, recently.
Shawn, could you check my calcs? I'm basically familiar with these undergrad calcs. But I certainly may have missed something important.
And thanks for the report!!!
Thank you for the information shared. A big hug to Iceland, which is always in my heart. I miss everyone so much.
Thank you for your remarks about the "stopping" of lava. I still see the images of the center of Todoque at the start of the eruption where they tried to divert the lava with some huge concrete blocks. Eventually that square was covered by 30 meters of lava... So much for the puny human efforts...
Much appreciation for you spotlighting Iceland's response to this situation. It is indeed impressive and your balanced approach to how you cover this clearly delineating facts from observations and opinions makes a difference! Thank you,
2 dozers is a national response?
@@donaldkasper8346 you might not see everything in use but more importantly, do not forget the size of the nation Iceland in terms of population. They have barely 385.000 inhabitants, 140.000 living in Reykjavík itself, about 250.000 in the region. That leaves 135.000 for the rest of Iceland. So considering this, 2 dozers of that size, geared for this kind of work could well be a national response. Just look at a random town with 400k people and see which capabilities they have. The Icelandic response is impressive.
@@AronSquander Then the PM calls up Biden, asks for the loan of 20 D-9s for the summer and build a 200 ft berm. I cannot see how we could not spare the loan.
Thank you- appreciate your updates, love your team.
The subsurface under the power plant is more dense yet pliable while the subsurface to the east is less dense and brittle subject to cracking and fracturing creating a path for the magma. That was my understanding anyhow.
Given the height of the existing berms around the power plant complex; wonder what the next steps will be to protect the area? Quite an engineering project if there is another upcoming eruption.
PS - Wonder if it’s feasible to build a berm across the arm of the lava flow like the new roadway and direct the next lava flow in another direction?
You cool the lava to stop its direction of travel and put another berm on top of the flow.
It’s okay if you make mistakes Shawn! No big deal…we still love your content!
It's good that there might be an alternative location for a power plant even though it might take awhile to build a new one. Learning about the underlying geology interests me too. May you and your wife have a great time on the cruise!
Thanks so much for the update 😊
Thank you! Great statistical analysis, Bruce!! Awesome work!!
Thank you. 😊
Thank you for your faithful updates. Glad you had a good field trip.
Good update. Appreciate all you do. Interesting news about the exploration for a new geo-thermal plant. Thanks to Amada Jo too for supplying you with the news stories.
Glad to hear that they are planning a new/backup geothermal plant. Always appreciate your updates Shawn - thank you.
Looking forward to seeing some updates from your cruise. You will love it...I did that a few years ago, and I am sure you can a new perspective to some of the treasures there!
Always appreciate the update. Thank you for your time and knowledge. It is amazing to see the monumental effort being put in by the workers to save the infrastructures. They should publicly recognize all of the individuals by name if they havent already. Hope they win the battle against mother nature in the long run for all their efforts. Thanks again!
Thanks again for another great update! I'm so glad I found you Professor Shawn. I'm still learning in my older age. Enjoy your next trip! Bless you.
Welcome aboard! Never stop learning.
Oh, I hope your cruise is wonderful. I took a Rhine cruise from Amsterdam to Basel back in the 90s (when it was rather less popular than it is now), and it was both relaxing and amazingly beautiful. One of my best vacations, ever.
Thanks, once again, Shawn for the thorough and informative update.
Thank you, Bruce and thank you Shawn. I would very much like to know more about the geology of the magma.
Shawn ,thanks for the frequent updates. Enjoy your Rhine cruise. And for your information, the Laacher See volcano is quite close to Koblenz. Might be a cool side step if you pass there.
As always, thank you so much for the updates. Much appreciated, Shawn! ✌💙
Hi Shawn
I wish you and vife a nice vacation in Europe.
Thanks a lot for sharing the news from Iceland with us. Even with errors, we all make oops now and then.
You do great work!!
This Aussie loves your taste in music! Cheers for the updates.
Thanks for all the updates you keep bringing, does really help grow knowledge in this field, fantastic subject, loads to learn Mother Earth is amazing
Wow! Almost 30 inches of uplift since it all started!
I'd just like to say that I love your regular use of the word "skosh." I grew up using that, and I think my mom got it from her Iowa family. Keep up the amazing work, one "skosh" at a time!
Thank you for the update. Much appreciated.Enjoy your cruise!
Thanks, Bruce, for the great graphic. I'd love to know the geology under the power plant.
I believe the borehole at Keflavik will only be sufficient for supplying district heating. I heard they are not hot enough to be used to generate electricity.
Storage area has been heated and stretched...flow into it may be same rate but it is larger and may take longer to fill. IMOO
That was my thought to. That’s why I think the decay function works in my spreadsheet.
Fighting a relentless unstoppable force until the eruption stops. Hoping this eruption stops and for no new eruptions.
Thanks for the update and looking forward to seeing how the situation evolves. I'm particularly interested in future updates regarding the effort (see the 20-minute mark on the video) to, quote, "bore whore holes", unquote, as a future energy production strategy. An exciting time for geology!
As always…grateful for you and these updates!
Thanks for all the hard work on these videos
Johan says he never hear the term "berm" until you used it. Made me chuckle. He's a wonderful drone pilot!
@3:19 when you pointed to the "spray water", that is actually just a leak in the delivery pipe/hose. The actual spray is up and to the right on the berm.
A couple of other Icelandic geologists have reported that the spillover lava was quite liquid.
Bruce Garner’s work is always impressive, but with the eruption ending, his predictions for the dates of a next eruption might need to be adjusted. If the rate of inflation would increase post-eruption, which seems reasonable to consider, the dates might start in, say, August, or at least be more uncertain until a post-eruption rate of inflation becomes more clear. Does that make sense? I’d be a bit hesitant about stating the dates exclude August when conditions are quickly changing. Thanks, Shawn!
Hey - very true - it’s just a forecast. If you look at the chart the two dotted lines are forecast and current - the forecast is a forecast of what the average uplift will average to by the end. The current is the current average uplift rate which currently is below the forecast rate. I expect those to converge over time. The forecast rate gives September 7th to 14th for the next event - the current rate is showing October but that is currently jumping around a fair bit still. 😊
It's been many years since water was used to cool/slow lava to protect a town in Iceland and it was very successful. Looking back and researching that attempt to redirect the flow I notice that the process was not really to stop the flow, as the berms this time are doing but to channel the flow to miss the town and buildings by cooling the edges if the flow to redirect it to a slightly different course that still took it where it wished to flow. The water process was not even an attempt back then to slow the flow. The Met Office geologist interviewed yesterday kept saying that the water this time is to slow the lava to give more berm building time which seems very different from what they did with the water before where they just used it to cool the dudes if the flow while still letting it move at the rate it wanted ourt towards the ocean just routing it's path to be less destructive. Now that we have a good mapping of the berms, they too seem to be placed ad walls to stop the flow instead of really creating a channel where the lava can flow and spread into uninhibited areas instead if building up behind these berms. It just seems to be that the 1970's use if water to channel the flow around the town while still giving it topography to run to the ocean made for a much simpler control of the lava. When they first started the berms I actually thought they were just creating something like river banks where the lava could run between heading in a more natural way instead of building up walls to block the lava which is leading to it building up behind the berms, and then spill over. I just wonder why they are thinking blocking it is better than just controlling the path it takes to the coast?
Redirecting the flow _is actually the function of the berms._
Because you can't know where the "springs" are going to pop up, you can't know where the river is going to be. Thus you can't build river banks in advance. On a sloping ground like this you can build berms on the uphill side and hope that it stops the flow.
I'm interested if they've done any active redirecting to relieve the pressure on the berms? I assume if you poke holes on the lava tubes some of it will spill out on the sides, rather than all of it flowing over the berm.
Excellent thank you.. good to see your maps and explanation 😎
The fissures south of Hagafell and inside the protective berm of Grindavik between the outer and inner protective berm is still out gassing even this morning. which shows the lava is still close to the surface and inter action with the ground water, and is releasing other volcanic gases.
My husband and I are thinking about visiting Iceland next winter for Northern Lights, going to or from visiting family in Norway. Maybe I can work it in a way so that we can get some volcano action going to. Thanks for the great update professor.
Thank you Mr. Shawn!🙋♀️🌋❤️🔥
Shawn if you want to see another interview(s) with Thor Thordarson you could checkout the youtube channel of Iceland Review. They just posted the first of 2 interviews.
While this is a simple and just for the public interview it still is interesting. he talks about the end of the series and how it could go on from there.
Also some nice drone footage from Arthur "Art" Bicnick.
On another issue: forecast and prediction mean the same thing and can totally be used interchangeably. The word forecast probably has germanic roots while prediction is coming from Latin - since English is a weird romanic-germanic language mix you get quite a lot of words meaning the same from both language roots.
A prediction can be precise or fuzzy and vage - so can be a forecast. You may have been getting used to calling it weather forecast and not weather prediction but it is the same and both means it is not precise and has a vage element to it and probabilities and some things are more sure than others.
Same thing with geologic/volcanologic predictions.
TL;DR predictions = forecast
Des Moines, Iowa, USA
It would be interesting to look at the topography, since the lava flows downhill. I don’t know how much elevation data on the new lava surface is available to the public. The large accumulations of lava from the March and May eruptions means new flows are starting at a higher elevation and have more chance of flowing over the berms, but I don’t know how much higher the berms would need to be to push the lava west in the area north of Svartsengi. We can hope that this cycle of eruptions ends before it does a lot more damage, but preparation is important.
Thanks doc can't wait to the next update wendy albany western Australia
Thank you. Enjoyed listening to that.
Di…Cumbria.
Bro it's been getting dicey here in mid Utah. Apparently, there was an oblesk showed up here maybe 5 days ago. Love ya man keep up the super excellent work😊
The dirt berms are never breached by the flows pushing them out of the way, they have to be overtopped, so they just need to be higher.
Thanks for the update, Shawn. I always appreciate your prespective. I do have a ❓Just curious how close, if at all, the lava is to the top of the mountains, Hagefell and Þorbjörn and Sýlingarfel. Thanks, again!
QUESTION: What is the topography like at the "upper berm" where you thought the spill over had happened? Obviously, they built a berm there because they were concerned. With the lava field near the fissures building up thicker and thicker, it seems almost inevitable, if eruptions keep happening, that there will be a run in that direction. If lave spills over, that looks like a very steep hill.
Hi from Orlando
Great as always Shawn... Iceland is primarily if not fully igneous rock types from what I can see.... It is a recent (geologically speaking) land mass
Hot and Humid South Florida 👋
Same gulf coast Texas
Do some "random river cuts" on your cruise!
Thank you Shawn 😊 great update very informative lesson 👍 👏 😊
Have a wonderful vacation! 😊
I would love to learn and understand... especially why these eruptions start where they do!
And much of the recent flow was due to collapse of much of the spatter cone, releasing the molten lava that had been contained within over the landscape.
That video was from DrAstroGeoTech and Just Icelandic.
love your work Shawn
Aloha, from Makaha...can't wait to see your assessment of where the lava is coming from threatening the power plant...I have an idea of the source, just want to see if I'm spot on with your assessment....
Thank you for a great update
Love your updates.
You should display your silver play button on the wall behind you 😎👍🏿 great work
Definitely!
Thanks Shawn!
Hi from Luxemburg Shawn
Do you know if the workers near the lava have a protection as they are really near the toxic gases..
Thanks Pascale
They have proper gas masks and gas meters at all times, wear heavy boots and other appropriate clothing. And of course there are experts on site to tell them to evacuate if necessary.
Great update.
Thank you👍
Mow that we have had months of new lava flows, when will they issue new topography maps? I expect that any new eruptions may flow differently depending on the new topography. It would be interesting to see how much these previous flows have raised the ground.
Just a
quick question, could you possible due an episode on what is happening at Mt. Saint Helens in WA state. Heard they were having a bunch of earthquakes in and below the crater. Love your RUclips channel. Thanks.
Thank You!!🙏🤗
I wonder if infrared photography could identify if there is still lava erupting and being transporting directly into tube(s) ??? Do the drone pilots there have that capability ??
No one is trying to stop the flows. They are redirecting the flows to go elsewhere.
Very interesting!Thanks for sharing. 😊
They are currently using water from the power plant. It will be a while until they can get sea water to the overflow locations.
Thanks again Professor.
Please show us an overlay of the known fissures in the area of the recent lava flows. I wonder if the older fissures might be channeling lave and/or heat under the new flows. Perhaps they are guiding the flow.
Thx Prof ✌🏻
I know it is a bit early but the western GPS stations (Eldvorp, Skipastigshraun, and H20) are rising a bit faster than the others. It would be a load off if the eruptions did move off to the west. I know…the plumbing is already set to the east but it will be interesting to watch.
As I understand it the 3? regional heating plants have not connected their systems, that would be a first step while they build the new powerplant.
Shouldn't you be able to see sub-surface flow with Infrared imaging?
Thanks for another great update Shawn!
I have a question about Bruce's chart which is, what does E stand for in E4/E5? If it stands for eruption it would be E5/E6 right?
You are right - I’ll update that. Thank you. 😊
I’d love to see the lines of elevation in the relevant area. Post-eruption (while the rifts and vents are quiet) why don’t they make attempts to…sculpt…the areas where magma will most likely exit the subsurface in an effort to channel the lava flow toward lower terrain to the north or south? That’s a real question and I would like to know why they don’t do something along those lines. I’d use dynamite instead of earthmovers to get the ball rolling because the ball would of course be very very hot. I’d like a real answer from someone with solid expertise.
hi shawn I was lookig at the data and i think its possible that the decrease in rise is possibly related to an increase in the size of the magma chamber if input remains the same the land rise will be affected by a factor of x^3 as it is a volume increase. is there any modeling on the magma chamber. I also did a curve projection based on a quadratic that gave me a target of sept 7-21. i dont think a linear fit is best to predict here. i see a logarithmic curve forming that intersects all the eruption points
I’ll see about adding that and seeing which is better. 😊
Finally I hear something that makes sense (backup for power plant). Best would have been to relocate Grindavik, i.e. build a New Grindavik for free and according to the specifications of the folks of Grindavik. Then it might have made sense to defend the power plant (still look for backups as they do now) as blocking the path to the South has obviously made the situation worse for it.
We also must consider the planet itself. It knows best what needs to be done and in the end all the land occupied now was formed by the processes that we decided to fight.
The whole situation is a good exhibition of how mankind over time lost its marbles and can work like an idiot on idiotic things for an idiotic long time before common sense sets in again.
Thoughts on this being over by October? Planning a trip to London and wanted to fly over to Iceland while there, but not sure about adding it to our itinerary right now. Thanks in advance.
Hi. Love your updates. But i do have a question that i was wondering about.
Sinice the lava flow burst out on the bottom last week on the north side, is it possible that the lava has stopped coming to the top and out of the cone, and just go out that way, and is still on its way to Svartsengi? Of course it is less lava flow since we don't see it around the cone, but if it has found a lava tube down to svartsengi it could just as well be ongoing ??
I take my hat off to the Icelanders. They work so hard to save all in danger. Love u Gertie South Africa.
How does the power plant deal with the uplift and the pipes bringing steam up and hot water going into the ground?
Hey - very true - it’s just a forecast. If you look at the chart the two dotted lines are forecast and current - the forecast is a forecast of what the average uplift will average to by the end. The current is the current average uplift rate which currently is below the forecast rate. I expect those to converge over time. The forecast rate gives September 7th to 14th for the next event - the current rate is showing October but that is currently jumping around a fair bit still. 😊
I'm assuming the "shallow" lava body that feeds these eruptions is the source of the heat that made this such a good spot for the power plant. Presumably a safer spot might have a weaker supply of geothermal heat. Hmm.