A Volcano In Iceland Furiously Erupted After Thousands Of Small Earthquakes In The Area

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Residents near and around the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik, were privy to a violent volcanic eruption that took place last Friday evening, March 19. A giant red cloud managed to light up the sky, making the sky look ablaze with orange fire.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) issued a statement via Twitter on Friday evening around 20:45 GM, stating, “Volcanic eruption has begun in Fagradalsfjall,” a mountain found south-west and around 25 miles – or 40 kilometers – away from Reykjavik.

The eruption caused the clouds to turn red in the evening sky, while rivers of red lava were seen coming out of the fissure located in the ground. Video footage was caught by a coast guard helicopter as it flew above the location.

Even more interesting is that the volcano erupted after thousands of small earthquakes occurred in the area recently, said the IMO.

In fact, just recently a 7.0 magnitude earthquake occurred off the Japanese coast of Ishinomaki, which is a city sitting 65 miles away from Fukushima. But more notably, there have been over 34,000 recorded earthquakes along the Reykjanes Peninsula over the past few weeks as well.


A report from March 4 shared that “quake activity has previously preceded volcanic eruptions.” However, by March 14 the report warned that the quakes became worse, and the country was placed on “high alert,” concerned about the possible next volcanic eruption.

Eerily, less than a week after and after thousands more quakes, the first volcanic eruption was recorded on Friday night in the Reykjavik Peninsula in over 800 years. Loads of other videos were taken, showing rivers of red lava flowing out of the volcano’s fissure vent.

According to the IMO, “The fissure is estimated to be about 200 meters (219 yards) long.”

And given the size of the eruption, Reykjavik residents could clearly see the effects of the explosion. As a matter of fact, according to a resident from the town of Grindavik located just 5 miles – or 8 kilometers away, Rannveig Gudmundsdottir, “I can see the glowing red sky from my window.”

She added, “Everyone here is getting into their cars to drive up there.”


But as the coastguard officials and the police made their way to the scene late that Friday night, they also warned the public to stay away from the area as there was no way of knowing whether it was contained or not.

While there have been over 40,000 earthquakes that occurred around the area in just the past four weeks alone, it’s considered a giant leap from the usual 1,000 to 3,000 earthquakes that were recorded each year since back in 2014.

Surprisingly, the Krysuvik volcanic system doesn’t actually have a central volcano, but rather it’s system is found south of Mount Fagradalsfjall. This is on the south-west Reykjanes peninsula of Iceland.

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According to the IMO website, “The first notification was received by the Meteorological Office at 2140 GMT. The eruption was confirmed through webcams and satellite images.”

The eruption occurred near the country’s biggest airport, Keflavik International Airport, as well as the small fishing port of Grindavik, both just a few kilometers away. But thankfully, the area is not highly inhabited, therefore authorities don’t think that the eruption will cause any true danger to anyone.

Notably, the region is known for effusive volcanic eruptions rather than explosive ones. This means that the lava flows out of the ground, rather than spewing tons of ash clouds way into the sky like the Eyjafjallajökull eruption back in 2010 that happened to suspend air traffic in Europe for a lengthened period of time, weeks in fact.

Although a no-fly zone has been established within the area of this recent eruption, thankfully it seems to have subsided since Saturday evening.

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What might be even more alarming is that according to the IMO, the Krysuvik volcanic system has actually been inactive for at least the past 900 years. The last recorded eruption was back in 1240, which was almost 800 years ago.

But given the number of earthquakes that have been documented over the past several weeks, the new activity has caused the region to be under greater surveillance. On February 24, an earthquake of 5.7 magnitude was logged on the Reykjavik outskirts, which was later on followed by uncommon smaller tremors. There were so many that they numbered more than 50,000 actually. This has been the highest number of tremors logged since digital recordings became a thing back in 1991.

 

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