An Icelandic Meteorological Office official yesterday said the office was lowering the risk level for the Bardarbunga volcano in central Iceland to orange from red, the highest level.
The decision came after the office said on its Web site earlier in the day that there were no signs of ongoing volcanic activity at Bardarbunga.
The Met Office had raised the risk level after detecting a small eruption under a nearby glacier on Saturday.
Photo: AFP
It also said two earthquakes had shaken the volcano overnight.
Ash from the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010 shut down much of Europe’s airspace for six days, affecting more than 10 million people and costing US$1.7 billion.
Saturday’s small sub-glacial eruption, which closed part of Iceland’s airspace though its airports remain open, was also in the Bardarbunga range, but at a distance of 25km from the earthquakes’ epicenters, the Met Office said.
Iceland’s Civil Protection Department said scientists flew over the ice cap on Saturday afternoon but saw no visible signs of the eruption on the surface.
Scientists were monitoring a hydrological station downstream from the volcano for flooding, a common result of volcanic eruptions in Iceland.
Iceland sits on a volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic’s mid-oceanic ridge and eruptions occur frequently, triggered when the Earth’s plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
Met Office vulcanologist Melissa Pfeffer on Saturday said it was not clear when, or if, the eruption would melt through the ice — which is between 100m and 400m thick — and fling steam and ash into the air.
She said it could take up to a day for the ice to melt — or the eruption might remain contained beneath Europe’s largest glacier.
Scientists were monitoring a hydrological station downstream from the volcano for flooding, a common result of volcanic eruptions in Iceland.
Pfeffer said the amount of ash produced by the new eruption would depend on the thickness of the ice.
“The thicker the ice, the more water there is, the more explosive it will be and the more ash-rich the eruption will be,” she said.
There have been thousands of small earthquakes over the past week at Bardarbunga, which is Iceland’s largest volcanic system and located under the ice cap of a glacier. It is in a different range to Eyjafjallajokull, which erupted in 2010.
The Met Office said in a statement a magnitude 5.3 earthquake at 5km depth had struck after midnight while another, with a magnitude of about 5, had occurred about five hours later.
“These are the strongest events measured since the onset of the seismic crisis at Bardarbunga and the strongest since 1996,” the office said on its Web site.
There was no sign of any eruption at Bardarbunga, it said.
“Probably, earthquakes near the Bardarbunga caldera are a consequence of adjustment to changes in pressure because of the flow of magma from under the caldera into the dyke which stretches to Dyngjujokull,” it said.
The region of the Bardarbunga volcano, in the center of the North Atlantic island nation, has already been evacuated due to days of heightened seismic activity there.
The evacuated zone was extended somewhat on Saturday, but Icelandic airports remain open although airspace of 140 by 100 nautical miles (259km by 185km) above the volcano has been closed.
The red alert is the highest warning on the country’s five-point scale and indicates an eruption is imminent or underway with a significant emission of ash likely.
The color codes are intended to inform the aviation sector about a volcano’s status.
Additional reporting by AP
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