“Based on satellite and ground-based data, emissions of sulfur dioxide from Fagradalsfjall are in the range of several thousands of tons per day-similar to the 20 eruption,” said Simon Carn, a volcanologist at Michigan Tech and member of a NASA team that monitors sulfur dioxide emissions. Scientists closely watch sulfur dioxide because it can contribute to air quality problems and acid rain. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide are the three most abundant gases found within volcanic plumes. The rate is similar to what was seen in the two earlier eruptions. Scientists from the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland calculated that the eruption was discharging about 12 cubic meters of lava per second on July 17. Cooled lava flows from previous eruptions appear black. Warm areas-the new lava flows-appear bright yellow and orange.

The image includes a combination of visible and infrared light ( bands 6-5-3), which helps distinguish the heat signature of the lava.

The false-color image of fresh lava flowing south (top of the page) was acquired on July 17, 2023, by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) on Landsat 9. The length of the main fissure shrank from 800 meters to about 75 meters and much of the activity became limited to one spatter cone (seen in the photo below) along the northern edge of the fissure. After this initial burst of activity, the eruption calmed. In the first hours of the 2023 eruption, the earth split open and fountains of lava spilled from new fissures as plumes of sulfur dioxide and other volcanic gases billowed kilometers above the ground. The current eruption is centered near Litli-Hrutur, a small 312-meter (1,024-foot) peak on the Reykjanes Peninsula several kilometers northwest of Fagradalsfjall’s two prior eruption locations.

Prior to that, the volcano had been quiet for 800 years. The latest eruption follows a months-long event in March 2021 and a weeks-long event in August 2022. On July 10, 2023, lava began to spill from the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system in southwestern Iceland, marking the third consecutive summer of activity at the volcano.

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