Reykjavik, Sept. 6, (dpa/GNA) – Iceland’s latest volcanic eruption has ended, two weeks after it began, the Icelandic Meteorological Office announced on Friday.
The office said there had been no visible activity in the resulting craters for about half a day. The eruption north of the Stóra-Skógfell mountain lasted 14 days.
Modelling calculations suggest it is the largest of Iceland’s six eruptions in the past nine months in terms of lava volume, the experts wrote.
Only the eruption that began in mid-March, which lasted around 54 days, and another eruption that began at the end of May, which lasted around 24 days, were longer in duration.
The ground on the Reykjanes Peninsula south-west of the Icelandic capital Reykjavik suddenly opened up again on August 22. As a result, glowing red lava gushed to the earth’s surface from a fissure estimated to be almost 4 kilometres long.
This time there was no danger to the nearby fishing village of Grindavík, which had been evacuated in good time. Several houses in the settlement were destroyed during a previous eruption.
Vulcanologists expect that there will be repeated eruptions of this kind on the peninsula. The weather office says land uplift has already begun again in the area, which means new magma is once again flowing into a huge underground chamber. The Icelandic broadcaster RÚV reported that this indicates another eruption is possible in the next three months.