Volcano Watch 2023: What The Heck Is Happening By The Blue Lagoon?



Tens of thousands of earthquakes have rattled the Reykjanes peninsula since October 27, 2023, and GPS readings show ground uplift and magma accumulating 4km underground. What makes this different from the similar events in 2021, 2022 and July 2023? It’s all happening right by the Blue Lagoon, the town of Grindavík and the Svartsengi Power Plant.

The Reykjavík Grapevine’s Jón Trausti Sigurðarson visited the seismically active area with volcanologist Þorvaldur Þórðarson on Nov. 8, 2023, to find our what’s going on.

Read our July 2023 feature in which we spoke with Þorvaldur about the current volcanic cycle: https://grapevine.is/mag/feature/2023/07/23/where-theres-smoke/

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20 thoughts on “Volcano Watch 2023: What The Heck Is Happening By The Blue Lagoon?”

  1. Human’s comprehension of time is limited to small scales. Yet science sees beyond these short timescales. Townsfolk not heeding the warnings of scientists is stuff of movies… yet it still happens all too often. One can only hope that the outcome of this magma dome isn’t catastrophic… but science can only predict so much. As an aside I loved listening to the scientist being interviewed. His voice reminded me of my favorite director Guillermo Del Toro, who I could listen speak for hours. Definitely a great attribute for a professor!

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  2. Mt. St. Helens, in 1980, had similar things happen. There was a growing bulge on its side for weeks, and frequent earthquakes, before it finally erupted explosively on May 18th. I will be interested to see what happens here, and I pray no one dies.

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  3. I think it's kind of typical that there is so many volcanic activity around the globe. Like Italy and the US too. What if everything starts to erupt at once? We might enter a new ice age

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