Molten lava continued to gush and spread from a new volcanic fault in the Reykjanes peninsula on Sunday, March 17, in southwest Iceland, already the scene of three eruptions since December.
At the start of the eruption, which began in the early evening on Saturday, the Icelandic Meteorological Institute (IMO) estimated that it was “the largest”, in terms of magma discharge, of the series that the region has been experiencing for four months.
On Sunday, the IMO noted that the molten material was flowing “continuously and slowly”, but that seismic activity had “decreased significantly overnight” – a “development very similar to that of the three previous eruptions on the Sundhnukur”. “There are now three active openings on the fissure,” says the IMO.
Live video feeds show glowing lava and plumes of smoke. The lava is now some 200 meters from the pipeline coming from the Svartsengi power station, which supplies 30,000 people with electricity and water.
This region, located about 40 kilometers southwest of Reykjavik, is one of the most populated in Iceland. A state of emergency was declared at the start of the eruption and the small town of Grindavik was again evacuated, as well as the geothermal tourist site of the Blue Lagoon.
The approximately 4,000 inhabitants of Grindavik had to be evacuated on November 11, at the time of the first eruption, after hundreds of tremors damaged homes and largely cracked the roads, raising fears for the future of the locality.
Fears for the Svartsengi power plant
The earthquakes were then followed by a volcanic fault on December 18 which spared Grindavik and then a second on January 14 on the edge of the town, pouring orange lava into the streets and reducing three houses to ashes.
On February 8, a third eruption near the same locality was accompanied by a river of magma of 15 million m3 during the first seven hours. It was only on February 19 that the inhabitants of Grindavik were allowed to return to this town, but only around a hundred of them chose to return to live there.
In mid-February, the IMO warned that GPS data suggested the resumption of swelling of the ground and therefore the accumulation of magma, a prelude to a new eruption. These eruptions also raise fears of damage to the Svartsengi power plant. Evacuated at the first eruption, it has since been managed remotely, while dikes were built to protect it.
Iceland is home to 33 active volcanic systems, the highest number in Europe. It is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a crack in the ocean floor that separates the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates and causes earthquakes and eruptions.
The activity recorded since 2021 in this Reykjanes peninsula testifies to the awakening, after 800 years, of a long fault allowing the rise of magma, volcanologists agree.
