Blue Lagoon, Iceland - seismic activity (and webcam)

[merry]

There has been a lot of seismic activity and ground shaking in Reykjanes recently, and there has been considerable speed on the landmass at Þorbjörn. Vísir has a webcam in the area, where you can see the view of Þorbirn, over the Blue Lagoon and the Reykjaness Peninsula.

Numerous earthquakes have been recorded in the last few days and expansion is measured at a depth of several kilometers under Þorbirn. It is believed to be a sign of magma accumulation. Experts are closely monitoring the situation and the Norwegian Meteorological Agency is on duty 24 hours a day.

The webcam is up on Þorbirn and points towards the Blue Lagoon.

Eeek!!!!

OC, do you have any more information?

I'm looking at the webcam now, and there are frequent white flashes happening at the back left of the line of lights. I thought at first it was something dramatic but it's so regular I don;t think it can be.

webcam - right click the page to translate to English

[OurCreature]

I haven't been monitoring events in Iceland recently - clearly I should be!

There has been increased seismic activity in Reykjanes during the last few days; the epicentre of it is a small mountain near a fishing village called Grindavík which is south of the Blue Lagoon with the mountain in between. The people of Grindavík are being given regular updates about the seismic activity in case the authorities decide they need to evacuate.

There have been calls for the complex at the Blue Lagoon to be closed until the seismic activity has ceased; the owners don't want to do that and say they have evacuation plans etc. Critics have claimed that if the magma, presently 4.3 km below the surface, suddenly bursts through to the surface in the wrong place it could boil the water very quickly in the Blue Lagoon and take whoever was unlucky enough to be bathing in the water at the time, which could be dozens and dozens of people and what good would your evacuation plans be in that eventuality.

Here's a link to an article in Morgunblaðið about it; the article is in English.

https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news ... ps_rising/

Also a later article in Iceland Review.

https://www.icelandreview.com/news/reyk ... rea-grows/

[merry]

Very interesting, OC, thank you!

I certainly wouldn't be getting into the Blue Lagoon right now!

I hope the people of Grindavik are ok!

[OurCreature]

I certainly wouldn't be getting into the Blue Lagoon right now!

Nor will anybody else because it has been closed until the seismic activity has ceased.

[merry]

I hope it all settles down soon

[merry]

The webcam is showing a lot of steam arising now, which it wasn't when I first posted it.

[merry]

Apparently they are evacuating Grindavik now.

It's frightening when natural forces take over. Reminds us of how perilous our human existence is, wherever we live on our planet.

This is the road to the Blue Lagoon which Juliet and JYM drove over just a few months ago

[OurCreature]

There have been some quite powerful tremors in Grindavík which resulted in a supermarket being shaken and goods being hurled to the floor - here's a link to a video. The accompanying article is in English and says that most people have left Grindavík; Netto (the supermarket, it's part of a chain) has booked 12 hotel rooms in Reykjavík for those employees who had nowhere safe to stay.

https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news ... e_store_w/

Meanwhile the Blue Lagoon is closed for a week but of course that period of closure will be extended if the tremors don't go away.

[Furby]

I suppose in Iceland they have proper plans for such things don't they not like in England where we say oh dear it's rained dreadful disaster what to do etc we didn't expect rain is unprecedented. Same with sun in summer and snow in winter.

[OurCreature]

The Grauniad has noticed that something is going on in Reykjanes.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ion-threat

According to Wikipedia Grindavík has a population of 3,300 which is a little less than the 4,000 reported.

[OurCreature]

Some of you may have noticed that the official statements about the current seismic activity in SW Iceland emanate from the Iceland Meteorological Office; that's because monitoring such activity falls within their empire. I don't know why they gave that job to their Met Office.

I've just had a conversation with one of my friends in Iceland and she told me that she hasn't felt any tremors where she lives in the very east of Reykjavík, just off the road going east to Hveragerði and on to the horse farm that J and Sam like. However her brother lives in Hafnarfjörður somewhat closer to the activity and they have been feeling a lot of tremors and find it quite scary. Grindavík has been evacuated completely. The magma intrusion that they are worried about is thought to be much bigger than that which accompanied the volcanic eruption a few miles east a few years ago and it could cause a lot of very expensive damage to infrastructure if it breaks through to the surface.

If the worst happens it will be the first time such disruption has been caused for 50 years when the volcano Eldfell made its appearance on Heimæy in the Westman Islands in January 1973 and something like 5,300 people had to be evacuated because the new volcano was just outside the town.

[Patience]

If I remember correctly, the Blue Lagoon is next to the power plant. I read that they have barriers they will put around the plant. I am unsure what they will do.

[OurCreature]

If I remember correctly, the Blue Lagoon is next to the power plant.

That's correct, Patience. Originally, the authorities were looking for geothermal hot water so that they could put the Reykjanes towns and villages on a district heating system similar to that in Greater Reykjavík. They found the hot water but it was so full of mineral salts that they had to use heat exchangers to make it heat up ordinary water and pipe that to the urban areas. The not-so-hot minerally saturated water was allowed to run off into the neighbouring lava field. It was also noticed that the water was sufficiently hot to permit the building of a smallish geothermal power station. I remember that when they first generated electricity at Svartsengi its output for a while was bigger than that at a purpose built geothermal plant (which they had endless trouble with at first) in NE Iceland at Krafla near Lake Mývatn. Now Svartsengi produces more electricity than Krafla because they kept on increasing its capacity after the first building phase.

It wasn't too long before the water collected into pools deep enough for people to bathe in (novelty value) and then people began to notice that the water had therapeutic qualities. So some enterprising Icelanders set up rudimentary facilities there for more organised bathing and roped off the areas where the water was a bit too hot for comfort. After that big money moved in and the Blue Lagoon as it currently is was created with a hotel, loads of changing rooms, beauty shops and a nice restaurant.

It's only with the current seismic activity that the authorities AFAIK have started to consider protection for the power plant - walls etc out in the lava fields. I don't know how effective such defences would be, or even if they would manage to guess right as to where to put them.

[OurCreature]

I should add that what you can see in the webcam on the left (where Merry's steam is) is the power station with the main road connecting Grindavík to the main road to Reykjavík on the right. The Blue Lagoon resort complex is further to the left and not on the webcam. Right in the distance across the screen is the main road connecting Reykjavík to the international airport and the towns in Reykjanes but it is only really visible at night because of car lights, road lights, town lights etc.

[merry]

There's a good site here for updates,and photographs

Live Blog from Grindavik

A magma tunnel under the sea sounds like the stuff of nightmares

Here's Juliet in the Blue Lagoon in March 2022

[merry]

I didn't realise Juliet and JYM went to Grindavik last year

Grindavik was the town where we went quad biking last trip and apparently the lava tunnels we quad biked around (I think we've got a video of me standing in high winds next to one!) were the ones that were sort of the eruption centre

And when they evacuated the people they left loads of animals behind including 54 ponies, but apparently they have managed to get nearly all the animals out now.

Apparently among the rescued animals were 15 THOUSAND chickens!

[OurCreature]

They showed some of the chickens being evacuated from Grindavík on the news yesterday.

And they have moved the webcam slightly so you now can see the Blue Lagoon complex to the left of the power station.

https://www.visir.is/g/20232484665d/bei ... thor-birni

Here's one of the Icelandic Search and Rescue chaps looking at the fissure - as you can see there's quite a difference in height either side of it. The photo belongs to Morgunblaðið, one of the big daily newspapers in Iceland.

[eccles]

The guy in the photo looks like a Marvel superhero.

[merry]

Ha, so he does!

There's a lady who lives in the area and tweets as MewsForCats

Her tweets are very interesting especially at present as she is giving little updates and films on her daily life in the area.

The Daily Mews From Iceland
@MewsForCats
·
3h
Things are progressing. Sulphur dioxide levels rising and friend who is now leaving the area called to tell me that the town is visibly sinking more as they are leaving.

I think she is writing AS a cat but she ain't no Chaircat

[OurCreature]

They have started building barriers to protect the power station and the Blue Lagoon. It's being paid for by a special tax on property owners.

https://www.icelandreview.com/nature-tr ... rs-begins/

The Blue Lagoon will remain closed until 30 November when they will reassess the situation.

As for the animals................they have nearly all been rescued though 12 still remained unaccounted for on 13 November.