Magma Movement under Mt Hekla
Posted by JAC on 7/6/2011, 5:14 am



According to the news on Rúv the GPS movements that many have been seeing around Hekla volcano in the past few days are real. At the moment the civil disaster authorities have been notified and also local emergency authorities. Nobody seems to know what is going on with this magma moments for the moment. But they can be tracked with the GPS network to some extent. What is more interesting is that this does not seems to have started until few days ago. But first signals of this happening did take place in April and May, but at lot smaller scale. What is interesting is that fact that no earthquakes appear during this magma movements, there is also no harmonic tremor when the magma is moving around in the crust close to Hekla volcano. But if there is any earthquakes, noise or whatever coming from Hekla volcano it is going to appear on my geophone that is located about 16 km away from peak of Hekla volcano. The distance is even less from the actual edge of the Hekla volcano system it self.

Normally, there are no changes in the GPS network before an eruption in Hekla volcano. So this is highly unusual event in Hekla volcano since instrumental monitoring started few decades ago.

It is an question if this means an fissure style of eruption is going to take place in Hekla volcano. But that does sometimes happen, as with any volcano in Iceland. For the moment however the only thing that can be done is wait and speculate (within reason).




http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/Unusual_Activity_Around_Hekla_Volcano_0_379812.news.aspx


Meters around Mt. Hekla in southern Iceland have shown "unusual activity" in recent days. The Public Safety Commission has been alerted.
According to RÚV Public Radio there is no reason for action as of now.

The movements have been recorded in five very precise meters that have been placed around Mt. Hekla in recent years. Professor Páll Einarsson says that these movements are seen in all five meters and even though the evidence is not conclusive they are thought to show magma movement under the volcano.

It has now been eleven years since Mt. Hekla, Iceland's most famous volcano, erupted. In the years since then the mountain is said to have slowly expanded because of magma buildup.

The last eruption in Hekla came on February 26 2000 and then earthquakes started an hour and a half before the outbreak of the magma.

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Magma Movement under Mt Hekla - JAC, 7/6/2011, 5:14 am
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