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UPDATE : The volcano in Icelanderupted for the third timeat around 6:00 a.m. local time on Thursday ( Feb. 8) .
The risk of a volcanic eruption on Iceland ’s Reykjanes Peninsula is once again growing as magma continues to pool in the area 2.5 miles ( 4 kilometers ) north of the sportfishing town of Grindavík , according to the Icelandic Met Office ( IMO ) .
A volcano is spewing lava and smoke as it erupts on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula on Jan. 14, 2024.
An estimated 318 million cubic foundation ( 9 million cubic meters ) of magma now sit beneath Svartsengi , which is nursing home to the Blue Lagoon resort and Svartsengi geothermic mightiness flora . That ’s equivalent to the volume of around 3,600 Olympian - sized swimming pool .
Five days ago , on Feb. 1 , the volume of magma was cover to be 230 million three-dimensional feet ( 6.5 million cubic m ) , with the IMO already warn officials thatthe volcano was prime to erupt again . " The count on amount of magma under Svartsengi has now reached the modest limit of the amount believe to have accumulated there before the last eruption , " IMO representatives write in a translatedstatementon Monday ( Feb. 5 ) .
Between 318 million and 460 million cubic base ( 9 million and 13 million cubic m ) of magma are thought to have accumulated in the same chamber before an eruption on Jan. 14 thatsent lava coursing toward Grindavík .
Svartsengi is home to a geothermal power plant and the Blue Lagoon resort and spa.
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The land get rising again following the bang and remain to amplify as liquified rock gathers under the surface , although the rate has slow up in the last few days , according to the IMO statement . This pattern is the same as ground movement record in the week and daylight preceding the bam on Jan. 14 and a premature eruptionin December 2023 .
" There is therefore an increase chance of magma period and eruption in the coming days or weeks , " IMO representatives wrote .
Current hazard map from the IMO showing the areas at greatest risk of a volcanic eruption.
Predicting when and where an eruption will take piazza is not possible . A hazard function bring out by the IMO shows the region believed to be at greatest risk , with a corridor stretching from Grindavík in the southward to Stóra - skógafell to the northeast . Svartsengi , where the magma is pooling , is considered at a very blue risk of a volcanic extravasation .
However , temperature and pressure measurement taken from boreholes in Svartsengi could provide a monition that another eruption is on its way .
" We saw a substantial increase in the pressure in the boreholes before thedyke intrusion on Nov. 10,“Lilja Magnúsdóttir , the managing director of resource management at HS Orka geothermic power plant in Svartsengi , secern Live Science in an e-mail . A similar increase in pressing was also recorded ahead of the bang on Dec. 18 , alarm staff to the possibility that another butch intrusion could culminate in an eruption .
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" Around 40 [ to ] 50 moment later , it come out , " Magnúsdóttir say . " So we made an automatic program to detect this sign . If an alert is activate , the program charge a warning electronic mail to our faulting at HS Orka and to the Icelandic Meteorological Office . "
The program supply a warning in the former hours of Jan. 14 , auspicate an eruption four 60 minutes and 20 minutes later , Magnúsdóttir said . " We were also able to predict that it would erupt further in the south than in the previous blast , " thanks to a perfect modification in pressure on the southerly bound of the geothermal reservoir , she add .
