Monday, April 08, 2024

Live from the Sundhnúkur Eruption

Live webcam view of volcanic activity in Iceland

The Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland has been experiencing a period of heightened volcanic activity since December 2023. This follows an increase in seismic activity that began in late 2019. The most recent eruption started on March 16th in Sundhnúkur near the town of Grindavík.

You can view a live webcam of volcanic activity in Sundhnúkur on Live from Iceland.  This webcam shows a live feed of the eruption near Sundhnúkargigar, north of Grindavik from Mt Þorbjörn.  

animated map showing the increase in seismic activity in Sundhnúkur starting in December 2023

vafri.is/quake is an interactive map of near real-time seismic activity in Iceland. The map uses data from the Icelandic Meteorological Office in order to plot live and historical earthquake data across the country. 

The map's GPS Viewer plots data from GPS stations. GPS stations can monitor seismic activity by recording how far the position of a station is displaced by a seismic event. In the screenshot of the GPS Viewer map above you can see the sudden increase in seismic activity in Sundhnúkur starting in late 2023 and continuing to the present date. 

The arrows on the map visualize the direction and scale of movement recorded by the GPS stations. The yellow and green arrows clearly show the magma dike of the volcanic eruptions in Sundhnúkur pushing land to the northwest (yellow) and southeast (green) of the dike. The blue timeline control allows you to view the GPS displacement data by date.

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