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More volcanic outbreak could hit Iceland ’s Reykjanes Peninsula in the come in days and weeks , the country ’s Met Office has monish . Two new fissures appear in the south of the land on Sunday ( Jan. 14 ) close to the town of Grindavík , with lava demolish three houses .
" We have n’t reckon events like this in the Reykjanes Peninsula for about 800 years,“David Pyle , a volcanologist at the University of Oxford , told Live Science in an email . " But we have now had five pocket-sized eruptions in the space of just three years . "
More volcanic eruptions could take place in the coming days and weeks, with magma still moving beneath Grindavík, experts have said.
The recent eruption postdate an acute series of modest earthquakes and ground deformation in the former minute of Sunday break of the day , before lava burst from the ground along a 3,000 - foot - farsighted ( 900 meters ) fissure just before 8 a.m. local time . Another fissure measuring around 330 metrical unit ( 100 m ) also opened next to the first , right on the outskirt of Grindavík .
Related : Republic of Iceland vent : Situation in Grindavík has ' become very barren ' keep up new bang
Images and video show lava flowing from the fissures and creeping towards the town .
The fissures appeared on Sunday, Jan. 14, after an intense earthquake swarm.
I am lay waste to by todays effect . I considered not posting images that show terrible catastrophe to the great unwashed ’s dwelling house . I want to make it clean-cut that if there are any news show vent out there that need free content to raise awareness , let me know , nobody should make money on this ! pic.twitter.com/CaNih72v6ZJanuary 14 , 2024
agree toa interpret statementfrom the Iceland Met Office ( IMO ) released at 3 p.m. local clock time on Monday , lava stream from the fissure close to Grindavík appear to have halt , while the larger one to the north has slowed importantly . However , there still seems to be magma movement beneath Grindavík .
" It can not be ruled out that novel fissures will open up without word of advice , " representatives wrote in the statement . " That was the fount when the crack opened at the border of Grindavík yesterday . No signal were get a line on the measuring instrument in connection with that eruption in special . "
Lovísa Mjöll Guðmundsdóttir , a natural - hazard specializer at the IMO , secern the Iceland Monitorthat there is " no room to chuck out " the hypothesis of more eruptions . " GPS data point showed us that there is increased magma flow into the chamber , and thus there is a theory of more fissures opening up , " she said .
planetary house of an close at hand volcanic extravasation in Iceland began in November 2023 after a 9.3 - mile ( 15 km ) magma dike — a near - perpendicular hugger-mugger tunnel running from a magma chamber towards Earth ’s surface — work from Sundhnúk in the northeastern United States of the Reykjanes Peninsula to Grindavík and into the ocean , which prompted Grindavík residents to empty . On Dec. 18,the vent burst out , sendingmagma plumes up to 100 feet ( 30 yard ) into the melody . bodily function at the volcano quickly slowed and largely cease within a few day .
Lava from the two new fissures also appears to have slow up significantly — but unlike the December eruption , the body politic still appear to be rising around Svartsengi , about 2.5 statute mile ( 4 kilometre ) to the north , Guðmundsdóttir told internal spreader RUV — and data is now being critique to better understand what ’s fall out beneath the open .
" Uplift of the area around Svartsengi through November , December and January all indicated that there was magma flow into a storage area within the impertinence , and this was bear on up the ground as a result , " Pyle said . " The eruptions in December and this hebdomad were both from a dam / fissure system that is think to be supplied with magma from this storage realm . It is likely that as long as young magma continues to arrive [ in ] Svartsengi , then there could persist in to be eruptions from the current cleft system . "
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The eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula are part of a 1,000 - class volcanic cyclethat could last for centuries . In 2021 , the Fagradalsfjall , another volcano on the peninsula , erupted after around 800 years of inactiveness . Geological records intimate the area go through period of quiet that last between 600 and 1,000 years , follow by pulses of volcanic eruptions that last for 200 to 500 age .
" This is starting to look like a return to an episode of bam and rifting , like the ' Fires ' of 800 to 1,000 years ago , with a pattern of repeated , small fissure eruptions that may be space closely in time , and may proceed for some years , " Pyle said .
