A volcanic fissure on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula reawakened in late May 2024.
A volcanic fissure on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula reawakened in late May 2024. This eruption, the latest in a series that began in December 2023, was notable for its vigorous start. Some of the highest estimated lava flow rates of all the recent eruptions near Grindavík occurred in the first hours of the eruption.
The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of the ongoing eruption on June 2, 2024. The natural-color scene is overlaid with an infrared signal to help distinguish the lava’s heat signature. By this time, volcanic activity along a fissure extending up to 3.4 kilometers (2.1 miles) long had subsided after its initial burst. The most active areas, emitting the hottest thermal signals (light green), are near one of the craters that erupted in March 2024, according to the Icelandic Met Office (IMO). Much of the black area in the image is cooled lava, but note that dark shadows from clouds are also present.
Models indicated that 18 million cubic meters of magma had accumulated beneath the fissure since the March eruption, the IMO reported. This was the largest volume of magma to build up in the reservoir since the intrusion first formed in autumn 2023. And the lull in aboveground activity between March and May represented the longest period since late 2023 that magma had accumulated without erupting.
Read more at: NASA Earth Observatory
Photo Credit: Lauren Dauphin/NASA
