The managing director of the Icelandic Meteorological Office didn't mince words: "We're going through a volcanic crisis." Matthew Roberts' comments to the New York Times come as his agency on Tuesday warned of an eruption within the next seven to 10 days. Should that come to pass, it will be the eighth eruption the country has weathered since March 2021. "This is perhaps the most intense period of volcanic activity affecting an urban environment at the moment," Roberts added. The Times reports the current activity is far outpacing the country's average of some type of volcanic activity every three to four years, though experts don't describe it as historically abnormal.
The IMO's warning flags "increased microseismicity ... detected within the Sundhnúkur crater row" near Grindavik. Fox News explains that as of Tuesday, the IMO said roughly 10 small earthquakes had been reported in a 24-hour period, and about 90 over a weeklong period. Prior to the most recent eruption, the IMO said there were more than 50 earthquakes reported daily. "Model calculations of volume change suggest that enough magma has been recharged to the Svartsengi reservoir to trigger a new event," its warning reads.
Per a piece by University of California, San Diego, geosciences professor James Day for the Conversation, change may be a long time coming: "History tells researchers that these eruptions will likely last a long time. The volcanoes will erupt periodically every few years, for days to months at a time, for up to several hundred years into the future." (More Iceland stories.)
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