By Bryan Pinero
On February 8th, 2024, at approximately 5:30 a.m. local time, Iceland’s Mount Sýlingarfell began to see seismic activity in its northeastern area. Thirty minutes later, a two-mile-long fire was formed, and a volcanic eruption began. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, this is the third eruption that has occurred since December, and experts say this activity is set to continue.
The same article reported that people in the area were surprised to have seen this recent and continuous volcanic activity after “centuries without volcanic activity in the region.” This volcanic activity occurred in Iceland’s West Volcanic Zone, which, before 2021, had not been active since the year 1200.
The eruption’s lava fountains were able to reach a height between 160 and 260 feet high, and the volcanic plume, a mix of magmatic gasses and air in the atmosphere when an explosive eruption occurs, expanded two miles high into the air.
It caused countless communities living on the Reykjanes Peninsula to have no heat or hot water when lava flooded a supply pipeline. Schools, gyms, and swimming pools were closed because of this, and guests were evacuated from the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.
The population in Grindavík, which is the town closest to the center of the volcano, had already evacuated even before the eruption in January and had not returned to Grindavík.
Previously, the volcano had already erupted in December and again in January. A week before the most recent eruption, the Icelandic Meteorological Office gave a warning that there was magma gathering up, close to the amount gathered during the January eruption, and that the next eruption could occur in the coming weeks or even days.
However, a day after the eruption, a drone flight was conducted, and no further eruption activity was found. Additionally, sensors were not encountering any volcanic tremors, which has many hoping the volcanic activity has finally concluded.
Despite what the sensors are not detecting, future volcanic activity in Iceland is still a possibility. David Pyle, a volcanologist at the University of Oxford, says that while there is no indication of a bigger eruption happening in the near future, there is still magma flowing into the crust which, at times, bursts out into an eruption.
“We have now seen this same pattern since late October, and it looks like it will continue into the future,” said Pyle.
