Uplift From Continual Influx of Magma Beneath Svartsengi Power Plant, Iceland: Geologist Analysis
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- Geology professor Shawn Willsey provides a brief update on the latest eruption north of Grindavik, Iceland.
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Iceland paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/f... 
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Hi Shawn have you investigated The German Volcanic Lake
Thank you! I’ve been in the medical field for over 4 decades (not a clinician but most of my years in anatomic pathology, surgery…support staff and administration). My point being, I read some of the medical studies and when I see a diagnosis I am not familiar with, I’ll read a pathology blurb about it. Not enough to be any sort of expert, but I am able to understand the gist of the report. I applaud you encouraging us to read geology articles, etc. You will be amazed and can pat yourself on the back if you pick up and understand even a portion of it all!
@@sueellens
Seeking information and nor believing one source is always good!
That said, I think this channel gives good information! 👍👍
Hi Shawn, good to have you back with a fascinating update. I love how you encourage us to read more academic science papers, just give them a go. Hope you had a good break in Europe. I hope your weather was better than we had in the UK.
Ugh, I think we've had our day and a half of summer.
Thank you Shawn, for looking at that scientific paper. Too many on RUclips don't think we are intelligent enough to look into these things, and it is nice that you are not condescending, and can look at data in an interesting way.
I enjoy your gentle updates. No dramas,
Thanks, Shawn. Hope you enjoyed the cruise!
I've been looking for an update from you! Thank you! 👍
Hope you and your wife enjoyed your vacation! ❤️
Thanks Shawn great update.. I read that paper. This volcanic episode has everyone scratching their heads. Thanks for explaining it so well. Good to have you back. Looking forward to the next 101. 😊
Why would everyone be scratching their heads? This area is literally sitting on two tectonic plates moving away from each other. Hence you get volcanoes!!!
Thank you for the update! I really enjoy these videos which keep us up to date with the activity in Iceland! Much appreciated!
Thanks for the update, it was awesome to see you walk folks through the basics of understanding a scientific paper. We're always looking forward to your videos, you're a great presenter!
Good morning on this Sunday morning! I am late seeing this video. I hope you and your wife had a wonderful vacation. 😊
Thank you for the informative video and the great job you did of explaining the data on the study.
Very much appreciated!
Wow. You've barely returned home and you're already making a video update to tell us what's going on in Iceland: you are simply the best, thank you Shawn! :) Also, thanks for Val Troll's paper. I've bookmarked it and will definitely read it. And I'm looking forward to the next Geology 101 episode ;) Have a nice weekend!
Thank you Professor. Clear and precise.🤔
Thanks, Shawn. I hope you had a good time on the Rhine. Great to have you back.
Thanks for your updates, Shawn. Welcome home. ❤
Thanks for the update and hope you had a great time on the trip
Thank you Shawn. Great update. Very much appreciated. Cheers from Down Under … 😁🌴🌴🌴
Boom. Shawn is back, yes hes back.....
Thanks for another detailed update Shawn, hope you and your family had a relaxing time in Europe. Until the next update stay safe and Gid Bless
Thanks Shawn. Hopefully I have timed my trip to coincide with the next eruption. I'm so excited at the prospect of seeing it live!!!
Thanks Shawn for the update. Very interesting. Hope you had a good trip on the river boat
Thank you❤
Can you maybe do a video on Etna's recent eruption and talk about Stromboli as well?
And Campi Flegrei as well 👍🏻👀
e@@wtglb Or … or, here's an idea! *_Go find a channel with an Italian Geologist who talks about these!_* We have Google, use it.
Dr. Willsey is _not_ your personal performance-monkey. And he's not an expert in every last volcano on the planet. Nor, for that matter, is he necessarily interested in-depth in every single volcano on the planet.
Also, looking at it from the perspective of research in the physical sciences, I can see, from his videos, that Dr. Willsey's research interests are in (1) the Geology of western North-America, specifically the region north of the Great Basin; and (2) Hawaiian-type Volcanos.
The Reykjannes Peninsula volcanos are Hawaiian-type volcanos. That, I believe, is why Dr. Willsey is talking about them.
I have a PhD in physics, but changed careers 26 years ago after getting my degree. I'm comfortable talking about general topics, and about things my dissertation touched on … but that's it. Areas outside of my doctoral research I ain't touching - because _I don't know them._ Because _that's what we're trained to do in the physical sciences:_ we don't open our mouths about things we're not expert on, _for fear of getting it wrong._ It's *_pounded_* into us in grad school: "Don't spread incorrect information. Before you open your mouth, _make sure_ what you're about to say *_is correct."_*
That's why every scientist seems like they're hemming-and-hawing, why the seem like they're "unwilling to commit" or not certain: because we're that hardnosed about getting it right. Hell, "95%-certain" in the natural-sciences is the bare-minimum for considering something to _maybe_ be factual.
So I'm not surprised Dr. Willsey doesn't wanna talk about volcanos _that aren't in his area of expertise._ The best you'll get out of him is a slightly-more-rigorous version of the Wikipedia article about types of eruptions and volcanoes. Because that's the mark of academic professionalism, which Dr. Willsey quite clearly is.
Speaking of which: Stromboli is the type-namer for a kind of eruption: Strombolian Eruptions. Etna is a stratovolcano and tends to have a variety of eruption types, including Plinian. And Campe Flegri is like Yellowstone or Toba. You can find all of this on Wikipedia and educate yourself on the Very Basics really, really easily.
Thanks Prof, good to have you back, Hope you enjoyed Europe
You are always providing us something to think about, sometimes my brain hurts & I don’t completely understand & other times I think, oh yeah that makes sense!
Thanks very much for the update, hope you had a good holiday 😊
Thank you Shawn for the update!
Thank you for the update ❤
Thank you, Shawn! Great information, as always.
Great to have you back thanks for the update
PS I'm kind of amused at yesterday's clickbait du jour - SO SCARY! TWO VOLCANOES IN ITALY ERUPTING AT ONCE! ....Stromboli and Etna, as they have for most of human history.
That said, look up videos of Etna on 4th/5th July - VERY pretty and epic, even for a longtime volcano watcher. (and guilt free viewing, since it's not threatening life or property.)
... Unfortunately Stromboli is misbehaving. The subtitles on the video I hit were unhelpful, but it looked to me like the slope volcanologists have been monitoring partly came down in a landslide/ pyroclastic surge that flowed out over the ocean.
I don't think anyone was hurt, but I know they were worried a big collapse could set off a tsunami without much warning time for Italian coastal cities.
also, Stromboli was sending up whatever you call an explosive ash cloud when it's too small to be Plinian. it needs to go back to its cute tootlefart tephra cinder cone eruptions with all the gas that makes them shoot up like rocket nozzles.
Yay. I hope you had a great time and not too many scowls or rolling eyes from your lady wife!! We appreciate your dedication and glad you're back 😅😅 and have missed you. ETNAs joining in now. Not quite the same, but interesting contrast.
I hope it’s ok to mention that Val Troll put out an explanation of the paper on his channel. He tried to make it easy to understand for non-experts. Thanks, Shawn, for your accessible description!!
Thanks for the update -- with your explanation I understand the new graph in the Met update better than when I originally read it.
Thanks for this great update!
Thanks for walking us through Troll's group paper
I'd love to have a general geology Q&A some day. Iceland has been a real gateway to geology subjects for me.
Have you checked out Shawn's Geology 101 series. I think 3 or 4 videos in the series have dropped so far.
Thank you Shawn. Will there be a video about Rocks along the Rhine.
Are you referring to Rhinestones?
Always fantastic info- Ty!
Thanks!
Thanks for all the hard work on these videos
Thank you for the update!
Thanks for the update and congratulations on achieving 111K.
Good to be back .
Thank you Shawn, you're dedication to geology and education is just outstanding. Truly a great service to science and public outreach!! Someday we hope to join you on one or more field trips. A small critique: your curser was very small and when pointing out illustrations on the scientific paper, it turned into an even more invisible cross-hair. Also, the illustrations were small to our RUclips view and would've helped us visualize it more rapidly. Otherwise so well done. One question, wouldn't the fact that the island is slowly spreading apart, but the rigid crust is cracking and creating grabens with increasing fracturing to allow one storage source of lava to spread to more of those series of grabens, thus possibly a large area becoming alternate zones of eruptive fissures as in the past?
would be great if you would look into campi flegrei & vesuvius for a session or 2,,, i know you're busy but this is going to catch millions off guard due to lack of planning in building & transport & the shear size of the possibilities,, thnx
And Ischia
and yet again a great update thanks from Denmark :))))🌋
I wonder if all of this data would allow material engineers to accurately calculate the elasticity and brittleness of the crust that caps the magma reservoir, and whether that data, together with data points from other locations, would allow for more accurate eruption predictions.
Hi from Orlando!
Welcome home. I hope you went through my hometown Koblenz and visited the Deutsche Eck where the Mosel and Rhein confluence. I was born right across where the Festung Ehrenbreitstein rises up on the right side of the Rhein River. Living in Montana now and enjoying your videos. I live in Dillon and we have a fantastic geological program at our College lead by professor Rob Thomas!
Thanks Shawn!
Thank you, much appreciated!
Welcome back we missed you. Looking forward to more updates wendy albany western Australia western Australia
Looking forward to next Geology 101 lesson
I finally caught up. I have actually been using the knowledge…several Jeopardy questions on geology!
Thank you !
Thanks for sharing this paper. I follow Val on RUclips. We were both at St Andrews Uni some years ago! I’ll send Amanda Jo the next paper when he shares it hot off the press! I agree, it’s a good scientific paper. Val had an excellent igneous mentor in Dr Colin Donaldson. Personally I’m interested in where in the crust the macro and micro phenocrysts of olivine form since they differ in some elements. Fractional crystallisation combined with quite complicated plumbing… The seismic is a great help showing that low velocity zone though.
Pulled up YT hoping on a magma update and it was #1 on my site list!
Thank you. Could you please comment on the area in the Juan de Fuca plate which apparently has something going on? Sorry, but my vocabulary in this area is quite limited, but I’m trying!
The last eruption spilled more than double the amount of lava as the estimated content of the upper magma chamber was. Can that be explained with a shared system, i.e. that the extra magma/lava came from that system?
That system isn’t stopping any time soon, by the looks of it. What changed to make it so active, I wonder.
That would fit nicely with the idea of a deeper storage, where the current near-constant feed of the known shallower reservoir is a slower emptying of that deeper storage with the eruptive intermittency is due to the shallower body. In general, I think it's not surprising activity should be in bursts, as rock already shaken up and weakened by previous passage of magma should be more susceptible to further intrusion, until the pressure in the larger system is sufficiently relieved to go dormant again.
Great that you didn't have a good internet connection. The best news was you had no distraction from enjoying your trip this time. It's always great getting your reports. Are you going to work on something from Italy.
Glad to see this update and hope your trip was enjoyable. Did you notice any lowering of the river levels?
Thank you Shawn 😊 great content update 👏 it is fascinating how the earth 🌎 works. 😊
Hope you and your wife had a good time in Europe. Thanks for letting us know what is happening in Iceland
Thx Prof ✌🏻
thanks for the update Shawn!
I suppose they need the Geophys folks to answer why the eruption site shifted.
As a Pu'u O'o fan, I know that sometimes an earthquake can be the trigger - although there's a chicken and egg problem of whether the earthquake shifted the configuration of the subsurface fissures, constricting some and opening others, or whether it's the symptom of magma breaking through a barrier and causing a fault to shift (can it do that?)
Also, it's my understanding that sometimes magma is stored not so much in a chamber like a hollow tank surrounded by solid rock, but in a spongelike mush. it seems like different parts of the mush becoming more or less sluggish as it crystallizes could send the magma in a different direction, much like lava lobes building up until they make their own walls and divert themselves to a new "downhill" at the surface.
but this is only speculation/hypothesis.
Question: as with the COlumbia basin basalt, there is an large amount of weight involved with all the lava. Has any study been done, or is it too early, on the weight effecting the two grobins (sp) around Grindavik?
Hope you had a great vacation, you deserve that!
Thanks, as always, for another insightful discussion of the Iceland situation. I have "borrowed" a copy of Bruce's eruption prediction spreadsheet and have been keeping it up-to-date with current inflation numbers. Best estimate for eruption #5 is now Aug 27 - Sept 9.
With regards to the westward migration of the eruption site, is it possible that there may be some sort of "pulse" of magma in the plume over by West Vatnajökull and that pulse is in some way making its way over to the west. So, it hit Fagradalsfjall a few years ago, made its way over to Svartsengi late last year and will next make its way over to Reykjanes in the next few years (finally making sense of various experts predicting a migration of the eruption site to the area near the Eldvörp crater row)?
Yes, I love the Geo 101 series; it's quite different from Nick's approach. I'm on tenterhooks waiting for the next one. Don't mind having homework 😅 Sir. Or are you prof?? I don't think I was paying attention, but I brought you an apple to make up for it.....
Shawn is a prof of geology at the College of Southern Idaho. He is also a certified mountain climbing guide.
How interesting to understand where things are at now. Thank you ! We were wondering - we could only listen to about half your information update now. We will come back later for the other half. To us, there seems to be a sharp edge or a sharpness to much of your microphone voice. We turn our volume way down but that sharp edge still comes thru. But anyhow - Thanks for this news !
What I feel amazed about this particular area and the performance over 7 months or so, is the consistent intrude, erupt, and dateline that is followed. The supplying source of the magma must be a fan of sensational news. What better way to keep Iceland on the front page and tourism in the forefront? 😲👀💪
Hi Shawn, Hope your river cruise was all that you expected and more. You had made the comment about the paper written about the chemistry of the lava rock of the last 3 years. about way now the storage zone under the power plant for the magma. My only thoughts are, it could have been due to a series of earthquakes that opened up the right channels for this to form. Of course these earthquakes didn't have to happen recent, rather they could have happened years ago and a recent one was the final one needed to connect them all. There are lots of ways to run this.
TY. I appriciate the intitial photo of Sundhunuka Crator from a distance. Hope it was okay to screen print it for my own collection (Not for republication).
The elevation map at 4:58. Is there a colour which shows the highest elevation? I was interested to know if the pattern was an elevated circular rise with the central area lower than the red zones. The central area looks turquiosey light green which if compared with the land rise to the right which seems to show the Turquoisey Green as lower than the Red then Yellow. One would there fore using the other elevation as a reference legend believe the center of the the Svatsengi land rise is not rising as much or as fast as the red ring area. Phorbjorn seems to be very central. LOL. Maybe Phorbjorn is causing it's weight to keep the land there from rising as much. IDK.
Very 'Craters of the Moon' like, in looks anyway
Thank you. Another good presentation to help us understand in simple terms.
I don’t do complicated.
Di…Cumbria.
The DEM shows some pretty consistent SW-NE-trending features. How do these relate to the fractures we see in the videos and the overall stress regime of the plate boundary? Is all this activity associated with a transform on the mid-Atlantic ridge??
The models showing closed inflow between events is generally just the slope of the GPS uplift trends we've been watching so closely. What's interesting is that they've put a flow rate to it, but the conclusion that "it's remained roughly the same since January" has been pretty obvious since... January.
Thanks for the real-time coverage- The cone went from spitting and running and glowing to just a monument. Now it seems ground deformation might wreck what the lava flows hadn't?
The ground deformation is very small, only a few cm over a large area. The importance is what it indicates about the filling of the magma chamber deep underground, predicting the next eruption..
@@b.a.erlebacher1139 I generally get the big picture, I'm thinking LOTS of hot-water pipes and associated power-plant infrastructure that will "complain" with enough displacement-
@@jackprier7727 I'm not an engineer, but Icelanders have a lot of experience with earthquakes and a very strict building code for resistance to really severe ones. The way I see it is that if your house gets uplifted unevenly by a few cm, you'll probably get some plaster cracks. But if the whole nrighbourhood is evenly uplifted, tapering off gradually from the edges over several kilometers, you probably won't notice it. By building to accommodate both frequent earthquakes and substantial temperature changes this small height but large area uplift shouldn't be a problem. I remember one night last winter that Thorbjorn moved 20cm west (!!!) but nothing broke.
@@b.a.erlebacher1139 that sounds right-
Hi Shawn, so you went to see the Rhenish Massif, with its beautiful slate slopes of the Middle Rhein Valley? Did you take a trip to the East Eifel Volcanic Field with its magnificent "Maare" (water-filled calderas) as well? I hope you and the wife had a good trip! 😊
great article with diagrams
Can you please take a look at what is happening with Stromboli in Italy and make a video about it? Apparently southern Italy is on high alert expecting huge explosion!💥
Would have liked a bit on Campe Flegrei, Etna, and Strboli.
It is striking that very little seeds to be known about the "magma plume". What is, for example, the evidence for the existence of a "magma chamber"? If the previous eruptions occurred ca 800 years ago, how much has that magma cooled? What about the size, density and velocity? How are those related to the timing of processes on the surface? Some years ago I read about the mapping of a magma chamber underneath Yellowstone. Any such mapping in Iceland? Volcanology seems to be jumping around on a single leg?
How physically intrusive are the interventions, necessary to connect such a power plant to a geothermal heat source such as at Svartsengi? Significant enough to potentially make the strata more susceptible to intrusion, or so small as to effectively make no difference at all?
HI Shawn, greetings from Western Austraia! Whats your take on the Campii Flegrei situation? I need a credible analysis as I have close friends going over there in September. Is there anything to be concerned about? I would really appreciate an answer on this subject please. Regards Karen.
A 3d image of the earthquakes similar to what the HVO did for kilauea would be interesting to see
Aloha from Makaha
All the magma that has reached the surface is now weighing down on the area it occupies. This added mass could be affecting the lower levels underground.
Can they tell by the 'concrete mix' if they all come from the same magma chamber? I can understand that the mix in Iceland might be different from Hawaii or Italy... But how different would The mix it be from other places in Iceland?
Thank you, Professor. That was very interesting. Being an armchair vulcanologist, this is amazing. Where would I go to read the paper, in translation?
The paper is in English. The link is at the bottom of the video description.
@@mtcynthus I couldn't see the bottom of the screen. Electronics and I are not friends.
Is it possible that the slowing of the inner core and its potential impact on the magnetic field is affecting the increase in volcanic activity with respect to changes in magmatic flow?
There hasn't been an increase in volcanic activity. It only seems so because of better communications, and better availability of information by media like youtube. There are normally 40-55 volcanoes erupting on earth on any given day, many of them in remote areas.
" that the slowing of the inner core " - not sure to what you are referring. If you are referring to recent reports about the rotational differences between the inner core and the rest of the planet, that story was greatly misunderstood by many. The solid inner core is, due to the liquid outer core, very slightly able to have an angular frequency different than the solid mantle (and then crust). This is a small difference and it seems that there have been slow transfers of angular momentum back and forth between the solid core and the rest of the planet. Regardless, as another commenter noted, there is no meaningful change in volcanic activity in recent time.
weird question, but do you think that all the solar activity has anything to do with the volcanos going off?
That question is often raised, but there is to put it simply no mechanism in physics that would allow solar activity to impact seismic or volcanic activity on earth.
Also note that while solar activity follows an eleven year cycle, seismic and volcanic activity doesn't.
I’m just a couch potato here so please forgive me 😊. Those models show the ground as uniform, unsure that’s the word I want, but I expected they’d show the rift between the plates. Talking about magma sources, is there not one source beneath the rift? Also, my spud brain wonders if the melting ice and shift in the oceans’ weight contributes to the pressure and movement of plates.
It looks like the the whole area between Grindavik and the airport is rising.
Hey Shawn, welcome home. That cough, take a Covid test. Thank you for the update!
Agreed.
My Bosses wife came back from Spain with Covid.
Now I am confused... so QUESTIONS:
If magma is the result of rocks being pressed against each other to a point where they melt, wouldn't there be magma forming all along the line where 2 tectonic plates collide? (as opposed to specific spots that generate magma which then flows to a reservoir). Or are tectonic plates split into separate blocks that move independently but behave as a group to match an overall movement? (in such case, it would explain magma forming in one spot for a few years while others spots are quiet).
Also, in the specific case of Reykjanes Peninsula, if the fault is east west, would the heat needed to melt rocks come from friction of 2 plates moving in different direction as opposed to pressure of 2 plates pushing against each other?
Does magma created as a result of friction behave differently from magma created as result of pressure (in terms of its composition, temperature and how it flows away from where it is created?
Does crust composition vary a lot when looking at scale of the size of Iceland? Is there the equivalent of ore rich areas that make for different composition just a few km apart? In human lifetime scale, would continents move enough that rocks at the point of "collision" would change significantly enough to make a difference in magma composition?
For instance, if there were a gold deposit at the plate boundary, wouldn't the magma created there be rich in gold for centuries because in the end, continents don't move that much? Curious on how magma compsition can change in a way that scientists can detect for the same area in a matter of months.
I recall for the 2018 Kilauea eruption learning that they noticed change in composition of magma initially coming out of east rift zone and later, indcating that at first, it was "old" lava that had been in east rift zone and later it was lava that had flowed from the Kiluaea reservoir. Does magma already in a reservoir change over time (other than outgasing), or is would the differences track all the way down to different rocks melted into magma?
Also:
I can understand a pipe feeling magma to an underground reservoir a few feet below surface and ever so offen, that magma travels through cracks and finds a way out to surface. But I am very fuzzy about what happens between plate boudaries causing heat to melt rocks (I assume over large distances) and that pipe feeding a reservoir.
Iceland sits on the northern end of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This is where the tectonic plates are spreading not colliding. The magma is coming from a reservoir several kms or miles below the crustal surface.
The magma reservoir is ultimately fed by the mantle which lies below the crust. So the magma is melted rock because it comes from deeper in the earth and not because of pressure.
But it is because of pressure that does keep it hot and molten as it approaches the surface to erupt.
Also I'll add that as the plates are spreading apart that is what allows magma to rise up through the diverging plates. The main reason Iceland exists is because of a hot spot that sits on the ridge allowing an especially large amount of magma to come to the surface forming the island.
I will further add to this by suggesting that you have a look at Shawn's two most recent "Geology 101 videos" - Divergent and Convergent plate boundaries, respectively. In those videos, you will learn why you get volcanoes at both types of boundaries.
"If magma is the result of rocks being pressed against each other to a point where they melt" - not really. For _any_ substance one must look at what is known as a *phase diagram* that will relate temperature and pressure to the phase (e.g., solid or liquid) of a substance. Pressure alone will not typically cause a melt of a solid.
"in the specific case of Reykjanes Peninsula, if the fault is east west," - the Peninsula is covered in many faults. The mid-Atlantic ridge is itself a _spreading center_ which should be thought of different than a fault.
"Does crust composition vary a lot when looking at scale of the size of Iceland?" - when a mixed liquid freezes there will be differential precipitation. For an island as large as Iceland, which is really just the tip (above water) portion of an igneous province, after many millions of years of eruptions you will have a variation of composition around the island. Some areas will be more silica rich (implying a cooler magma) than others.
@@timpointing Those videos are what prompted my questions because watching his videos changed my thoughts from "it comes from the core" to "no, it comes from tectonic plate movements". Now, someone else mentioned no, it comes from the mantle and finds it way up due to cracks caused by tectonic plate movements.
I know that for Kiluaea, there is a reservoir at about sea level (about 1200m below crater) and hence able to feed fresh good hot steamy lava to east rift zone. But I have no idea of what happens below that reservoir.
u look for any "rhinestones" from rhine river? where the name comes from
The wife signal on the boat prevented an update you said? I’m not surprised. She probably wasn’t willing to mix work with play.
Only kidding. 😎
Yeah. The wife signaled to "put that laptop away and come to dinner!" 😉
In reality, though, Shawn's wife has been extremely generous in sharing Shawn with us ... even on their anniversary, if I'm not mistaken!
WiFi signal glitchy? More likely the Wifey - “no RUclips while we’re on holiday”! 😂
(Jokes aside, good update and I hope you both had a good trip to Europe)
quite the cone !