The Icelandic authorities declared an emergency situation after a series of earthquakes near Gindavík, in the southwest of this island in the North Atlantic, and warned of a possible volcanic eruption, for which they ordered a preventive evacuation of this city of 4,000 inhabitants located 50 kilometers from the capital, Reykjavík.
“At this time, it is not possible to determine exactly if and where the magma could reach the surface. There are indications that a considerable amount of magma is moving in an area stretching from Sundhnjúkagígar in the north towards Grindavík.” , the Icelandic meteorological service reported last night.
He specified that “the amount of magma involved is significantly higher than that observed in the largest magma intrusions associated with the Fagradalsfjall eruptions.”
The signs currently observed are similar to those on the eve of the first eruption of this volcano in 2021 and very similar to the seismic activity that was measured approximately a month before that eruption.
The most likely scenario now, taking the Fagradalsfjall eruption as a reference, is that “the magma takes several days (rather than hours) to reach the surface,” added the meteorological authority.
Between midnight and 2:00 p.m. local time on Friday, about 800 tremors were measured about three kilometers north of Grindavík, nine of them with a magnitude greater than 3.
Grindavik is located near the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, a popular tourist destination that temporarily closed earlier in the week as a precaution. The city is also close to the Svartsengi geothermal power plant, the main provider of electricity and water for the 30,000 inhabitants of the Reykjanes Peninsula.
Iceland’s meteorological services reported 500 earthquakes in the region between 18:00 GMT on Friday and 06:00 GMT on Saturday, 14 of them with a magnitude greater than 4. Iceland has 33 active volcanic systems, the largest number in Europe.
This North Atlantic island overlaps the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a crack in the ocean floor that separates the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
