A volcano erupted close to Iceland’s capital Reykjavik on Friday 19th March, spewing lava into the sky following thousands of recent earthquakes.
The eruption began around 8:45 pm in the Geldinga Valley, near the Fagradalsfjall Mountain, around 19 miles (30km) southwest of the capital. This was the first eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula in almost 800 years and The Fagradals Mountain volcano had been dormant for 6,000 years.
The Meteorological Office classified the eruption as “small” and stated that it posed no immediate danger to people in Grindavik or to critical infrastructure and it was not considered a threat to any towns.
They stated that a fissure of around 500-750 metres long opened at the site, shooting lava up to 100 metres high. By early Saturday they confirmed in the updated statement that “the volcanic activity has somewhat decreased.”
The Met Office were quick to report that the eruption was minor and there were no signs of ash or dust that could disrupt aviation. They released a video of events on Twitter. The Icelandic Meteorological Office also said on Saturday that the “eruption was easing”, shouldn’t interfere with travel and that the pollution was likely to have “little effect on [the] health and well-being” of the area’s inhabitants.
Reykjavik’s international Keflavik airport was not closed following the eruption, but each airline had the opportunity to decide if it wanted to fly or not. Both arrivals and departures showed no disruptions on the airport’s website.
Páll Einarsson, a professor emeritus of geophysics at the University of Iceland wrote in The New York Times that the eruption is “Quite harmless and we don’t expect any damage, not even ash clouds that could disrupt flight traffic.”
This south-western area of Iceland is the most heavily populated part of the country. The Department of Emergency Management said it doesn’t anticipate evacuations unless levels of volcanic gases rise significantly. The Associated Press reported that they were not anticipating evacuations because the volcano is in a remote valley.
Residents in the town Thorlakshofn, just east of the eruption site, were told to stay indoors to avoid exposure to volcanic gases as the wind was blowing over from the West.
The Department of Emergency initially urged people on Twitter to “close windows and stay indoors,” and the Prime Minister tweeted to “keep away from the immediate area and stay safe.” But to the town’s relief, this eruption isn’t expected to spew much ash or smoke into the atmosphere.
Although unaware of when it would occur, the eruption was expected at some point. The area began rumbling with increased seismic activity 15 months ago, and the tremors increased dramatically in February.
The Met Police revealed that over the past three weeks, the area has been rattled by about 50,000 small earthquakes, dozens of them magnitude 4 or stronger.
The New York Times highlighted the joy and relief experienced among many as Ms Pálmadóttir, from the Icelandic Meteorological Office, reports “People were getting pretty tired, we were a bit suspended and were all waiting for the eruption.”
This amount of earthquakes occurring on the peninsula in the past month is a dramatic shift from the 1,000-3,000 earthquakes registered each year since 2014. Iceland frequently experience tremors as it crosses two tectonic plates which drift in opposite directions, it’s also home to more than 30 active volcanoes.
Scientists are now preparing for what could be decades of increased activity; they’ve observed that volcanoes in south-western Iceland become active approximately every 800 years and eruptions can then occur for up to 200 years.
The New York Times revealed in a statement from the Professor of Volcanology at the University of Iceland: “There’s a lot of them, and that worries people, but there’s nothing to worry about, the world is not going to collapse.”
In 2010, the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano sent clouds of ash and dust into the atmosphere, halting more than 900,000 flights, stranding millions of passengers and forcing hundreds of Icelanders from their homes.
Thankfully this eruption didn’t cause disruption of the same degree.
Danielle Saunders
Featured image courtesy of Tod Podmore via Unsplash. Image license can be found here. No changes were made to this image.