“Some have ideas that the techniques are related at intensity,” says Edward Marshall, a geochemist on the College of Iceland—both at once, with magma flowing between the 2 subterranean mazes, or not directly, the place they business force. However any geologic connection between Fagradalsfjall and Svartsengi is tenuous at perfect, making figuring out why magma ascends on the former a number of occasions, then switches to the latter, a tall order.
This investigative effort is additional difficult by way of the present disaster’s further idiosyncrasies. During the last few years, Thorbjörn—a volcanic mound just about the Svartsengi geothermal energy station and Grindavík—has sometimes inflated, in all probability because of the motion of magma someplace beneath, however this has at all times ended with out incident. The occasions of the previous week “undoubtedly mark a spoil in that development,” says Tom Winder, a volcano seismologist on the College of Cambridge.
Preliminary estimates trace that the quantity of magma concerned is extra considerable than the peninsula’s previous 3 eruptions, and it additionally flowed into the Svartsengi house at an astonishing velocity. “Why the magma influx price seems to be such a lot upper this time, and certainly the place it used to be sourced from, stays the most important open query,” says Winder. Bearing in mind the apparently hefty quantity of magma, the opportunity of a long-lived eruption, or an differently very prolific eruption of lava, is top—however satirically, as with many eruptions, it might be that just a fraction of that molten rock sees sunlight.
That the magma hurriedly rose towards Grindavík past due final week, then paused simply underneath its now-empty streets, has engendered each interest and nervousness. The explanations for this interlude don’t seem to be fairly transparent. All the way through the 2021 eruption, there used to be a three-week hole between the magmatic curtain invading the shallow subsurface and the emergence of the eruption itself. The similar might transpire this time. Or it is going to erupt after you end studying this text—there’s no surefire solution to know.
That there will also be an eruption isn’t positive. Right now, in keeping with the proximity of the magma to the skin and the consistent seismic rumbling, Iceland’s Meteorological Administrative center suspects that there’s a very top probability of an eruption, someplace alongside that 10-mile-long line of deformed and quaking flooring, within the coming days. However there’s however a small likelihood that the magma can not in finding an get away path and stays belowground for the foreseeable long term.
