Yesterday, we launched a one-week Daily Kos Styrktarátak Slysavarnarfélagsins Landsbjargar - the Daily Kos fundraiser for ICESAR, Icelandic Search and Rescue. I was hoping we might raise $500-1000 for their critical work saving lives.
You guys totally knocked out out of the park in the first day.
As of 6:13 PM last night (the last point I have figures for), donations from 77 individuals had raised $2,975. That's bloody incredible. Later in today's article, I'm going to sweeten the pot.
But first? How good are those gas forecasts anyway? Where is this magma really coming from? How can we find the answers? And why have I taken to asking a bunch of questions at the start of each article?
...
Let's start the Eldfjallavakt!
Okay, I lied. We're actually going to start with some quick good news: Míla live cams are back!
Thank you, rain and volcanic fog, for stepping aside so we can see better!
Of course, "moving" isn't always a good thing when it comes to the plume. Here's today's Mist forecast:
But really... can we actually trust this? We've gotten some questions about inconsistencies in the FLEXPART forecasts before - what about the Met Office CALPUFF forecasts? We can't compare it to meters because there are so few meters in Iceland right now, most places that get hit don't have meters, just locals assessents of the situation (Iceland just ordered 40 new meters). But there is one thing we can compare it to: itself.
In the below image, I put today's (Friday's) run on the top and the previous day's forecast for Friday on the bottom:
That's.... quite honestly pretty awful. The first day isn't even close because it starts each run assuming clean air. The wind plume directions are then totally different for both the afternoon and late evening. Now, these simulations are new, I'm sure they'll refine them over time... but we definitely don't want to see warnings being issued to people based on information of that quality.
Now, two data points don't make a trend. But it does raise some questions about how good these models are - and I've got a long list of questions of all types. And a list of questions seeks answers. Which is why tomorrow I'll be heading out on a two hour drive to Stykkishólmur.
Stykkishólmur is a quaint fishing town of 1000 people out on Snæfellsnes (a peninsula best known for the mountain Snæfell, a purported source of mystical energies and the entrance to the depths in Journey to the Center of the Earth). If you've seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, you've seen Stykkishólmur passed off as supposedly being Nuuk, Greenland (what they later claimed was Stykkishólmur was actually Seyðisfjörður). It's the town that Bobby Fischer was planning to move to before he died. It has the second longest water slide in Iceland:
It's.... oh wait, this blog is about volcanoes, right! Okay - so, it just so happens that tomorrow, geologist and geochemist Haraldur Sigurðsson will be giving a lecture about Bárðarbunga in Stykkishólmur. Afterwards, I plan to ask him all of the questions I can think of.
And all of the ones you can think of as well. Post them below before 2 PM Icelandic time, and if I have time I'll ask them.
Here's one for him. He wrote about the materials analysis of samples from Holuhraun:
This is a sample of basalt magma, which has sat in a shallow magma chamber in the crust a good length of time and evolved there. This is not a sample of primitive magma, which comes straight from the mantle, from great depth. Thus the theory of some of the scientists is dead, that the dike is coming straight from the mantle ... This information aout the sample supports the following simple picture of activity in Bárðarbunga: (1) Primitive magma (MgO at 10 to 12%) streams up from the mantle and fills a magma chamber shallow in the crust under the caldera of Bárðarbunga....
Okay, fine. Except that this was from the
latest report of the scientific committee:
Analysis of the magma along with modeling, which has come up in Holuhraun in recent weeks, suggests that the magma has come up from more than 10 kilometers deep.
Are these statements in contradiction? One could say that the "shallow" chamber he talks about is at more than 10 kilometers depth - but even in geological terms, that's not generally considered "shallow". So what exactly is going on here? That will definitely be a question put to him.
Also, the analysis he shows says that the magnesium is 7%. Why does magnesium matter? The predominant mineral that makes up the upper mantle is olivine, magnesium iron silicate (as a gemstone, olivine is known as peridot - yep, that peridot jewelry you may have came straight out of the mantle!) The ratio of magnesium to iron in olivine crystals can vary; high magnesium crystals have a high melting point, so they tend to precipitate out over time in shallow magma chambers. Magma from the upper mantle is about 10-12% magnesium. Thus, if this erupted lava contains 7% magnesium, then it has been de-enriched in magnesium.
That's fine, but it's still rich in magnesium compared to most Icelandic eruptions. Laki (1783), for example, was under 6%. Askja (1961) was under 5%. Hekla, 1970? Just a little over 3%. Yes, there have been higher, as he points out - for example, Kistufell, at 10-12%. But 7% does not appear to be significantly depleted by Icelandic standards, and Þorbjörg's suggestion that we could possibly be looking at magma that evolved at depth alongside a deep magma influx does not sound unrealistic. And should it be noted that Kistufell, this "straight from the mantle" example, is even closer to Bárðarbunga than Holuhraun?
We'll see what he has to say.
Meanwhile, vulcanologist Ármann Höskuldsson is still really big on pointing out how sure he is that this will be going on for a long time, that any shutdowns will be temporary ("Somewhere, all this crud has to come up"), and that the odds of a caldera eruption should not be overlooked.
Major planned roadwork in the area near Ásbyrgi and Dettifoss has to be delayed because they can't get access to the gravel quarry without putting their equipment in indue flood risk should a jökulhlaup occur.
In positive volcano news: tourist flight prices just took a nosedive as Icelandair, a major airline, has started offering 45-minute overflights for $420. Sure beats $2000!
Now our last story... same as our first, but with a twist. As you know, we're raising money for the Björgunarsveitir, Iceland's search and rescue squads (ICESAR):
Our week-long styrktarátak ends at midnight Iceland time next Wednesday, and I've decided to make it interesting. I'm going to offer two custom prize packages, one to the person who makes the single largest donation, and one randomly chosen (by a computer), with the selection weighted by how much they've donated donated. Aka, a person who gives $50 is twice as likely to win as a person who gives $25, but even a person who gives $5 could conceivably win. Donations from yesterday of course count toward the total.
For each of our winners, they can chose whatever sort of small Icelandic goods they want to their choosing, so long as the purchase and mailing cost are reasonable. Some random examples:
* Lopi wool (it's fuzzy and light, so it's cheap to ship)
* Icelandic candies
* Harðfiskur (fish jerky)
* Lava jewelry (note: I can't guarantee that the jewelers source their lava from Iceland)
* (Small) semiprecious gemstones from my land - chalcedony (jasper, chrysoprase, etc) of any color, potch opal, quartz (nodular or botryoidal), (non-optical) calcite, maybe a zeolite, etc, or simple lava rock.
* Movies, music, (small) books, etc from Iceland
* Guided tour of anywhere in the capitol region the next time you come to Iceland
And so forth. I won't put a hard price limit on purchase or shipping costs, just keep it reasonable. So for those of you who donate (donation link here), definitely let me know how much you're giving, I'm keeping a list - you can either post in a comment, send me a message, or drop me a line at meme05@eaku.net. Adding one cent to the donation or leaving a message can help make it clear that this is part of our fund drive.
And once again... thank you all!
Today, just one video here, and it's old, so it's possible I posted it before... but I don't recognize the footage and I just love watching that lava roll, so here you go. :)
Update, 19:00:Just got back from the lecture. Had some Mist on the way, but only light - will write about it tonight. I got an update on the fundraiser on the way there. Ready?As of 11:30 (Iceland time) this morning, 129 individuals had given a total of.... $5088!!! Just amazing.