We May Soon Witness a 3rd Eruption of Iceland's Reykjanes Volcano (Patreon)

It once again appears that a volcanic eruption will occur fairly soon at Iceland’s Reykjanes volcano, at least in my opinion. Before I present why I am making this claim, I want to note that I’m not making a claim that an eruption is imminent. Instead, I’m suggesting the Reykjanes volcano might erupt between February 7th and February 11th. And no, a magma run event is not yet occurring as I make this post. 

Since October 25th 2023 when the latest state of activity at the Reykjanes volcano began, the volcano has followed a 4 step process. 

1) Magma builds at a 5 kilometers magma chamber ~1100 m south of the Svartsengi Geothermal Power Plant.

2) This process continues until approximately 10 million and 12 million cubic meters of magma is present (this step ends 20 - 38 days from the last eruption).

3) Magma runs to the east, then either heads northeast or southwest (usually southwest). A strong earthquake swarm is generated.

4) A volcanic eruption occurs, or the intrusion fails. After the eruption ends or intrusion fails, return to step 1.

The magma chamber in question seems to send molten rock in "magma run" events once it becomes full, and this appears to occur once it receives a total of between 10 million cubic meters and 12 million cubic meters. These "magma run" events have so far occurred between 21 and 37 days after either the intrusion started or the prior magma run event. Since the last eruption occurred from January 14th to January 15th, this would suggest the next eruption will occur between February 4 and February 20. Since January 15th, magma has been flowing into the 5 kilometer depth magma chamber at a rate of approximately 5 cubic meters per second, as of February 6th, its magma chamber contains 9.5 million cubic meters. Since 5 cubic meters per second translates to 432,000 cubic meters a day, you can see why I stated February 7th to February 11th. (Simply add 432,000*1-5 days to the existing total). 

Yet, volcanoes are inherently unpredictable. I say this even though Reykjanes is one of the simplest types of volcanoes; a fissure system (I could describe this as a series of straight lines which magma erupts from). Yet, look at the complexity even this simple system has! The current Reykjanes magma chamber is located fairly far away from its 2 prior eruption sites. 

Because of this unpredictability, no one can truly predict when a volcanic eruption will occur, or if one will occur at all. All we can do is give an educated guess. (This post was merely an educated guess on what might soon occur).

I’m also guessing that the next eruption occurs around 3300 meters northeast of Grindavik, between the Dec 18-20 2023 and Jan 14-15 2024 lava fields. So, probably further away from Grindavik this time than what we witnessed on January 14-15 2024, although no one can know for sure.

I hope you all appreciate this rambling.