A video has captured the moment a massive geyser erupted on the Reykjanes Peninsula, spewing molten ash and fire into the sky.
Local news reports said a powerful earthquake began around 8:30 p.m. today, followed by an eruption near the town of Grindavik around 9:30 p.m.
The eruption had been expected for several weeks due to the current seismic activity in the area and pressure changes in the wells.
Rescue teams were reported to have been sent to Reykjanes and Ölfus, while thousands of people in Grindavik and the Blue Lagoon were evacuated.
Local authorities have asked residents to stay away from the area for their own safety and that of emergency services.
A live stream of the eruption has been launched on YouTube, which currently has more than 1,000 viewers, as lava erupts into the atmosphere and smoke billows into the air.
Emergency services remain on the ground.
A video has captured the moment a massive geyser erupted on the Reykjanes Peninsula, spewing molten ash and fire into the sky.
Local news reports said a powerful earthquake began around 8:30 p.m. today, followed by an eruption near the town of Grindavik around 9:30 p.m.
At various points over the past six months, thousands of Icelanders have been evacuated from their homes in and around the town of Grindavik due to its proximity to the volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula.
British Ambassador to Iceland Dr Bryony Mathew posted a photograph of the eruption on social media with the caption: “Here we go again! The volcanic eruption has just started in Iceland. This is the view from the residence in central Reykjavik.”
Angel Brownawell, who is currently on holiday in Iceland, said: “We had no idea it would be today! We were having dinner in the hotel bar when people started talking about the latest news.
‘I’m from the Washington DC area, so my immediate, almost instinctive reaction was that this was some political news story.
“I’m back in my hotel room now. I saw smoke coming out of the hallway window. It was a reddish hue and was almost covered by clouds when it got dark. My husband and I weren’t sure if it was the volcano or the setting sun, but the sun had already gone past its setting point by that time.”
MailOnline previously reported that Iceland has been rocked by eight volcanic eruptions since 2021 that have forced citizens to flee their homes.
An international team of scientists studied lava samples and seismic data from the past three years of eruptions.
They found that the peninsula sits atop an interconnected magma plumbing system that could keep the volcanoes fed with molten rock for decades to come.
Lead author Valentin Troll, professor of petrology at Uppsala University, says: “A comparison of these eruptions with historical events provides strong evidence that Iceland will have to prepare and be ready for this volcanic episode to continue for some time, possibly even years or decades.”
Emergency services at the site of the volcanic eruption in Iceland
The eruption took place near the evacuated town of Grindavik.
A live stream on YouTube currently has over 1000 viewers.
Pictured: Iceland’s popular Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, a popular tourist attraction that has had to close and reopen several times due to eruptions.
Iceland is located directly above what is called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
As these plates move apart, hot rock from Earth’s mantle, the largest layer of the planet, can force its way to the surface.
This makes volcanic eruptions a fairly common part of life, occurring about every three to five years.
However, after lying dormant for 800 years, the Reykjanes Peninsula in the islands suddenly became active again in 2021 during the Fagradalsfjall fires.
In late 2023 and early 2024, new volcanic fissures formed near the fishing village of Grindavik, ejecting huge columns of lava to the surface.
To understand why this area was suddenly hit by such intense volcanic activity, scientists tried to find out where the lava that caused these eruptions came from.
Just as each person has a unique fingerprint, each piece of magma has a unique combination of around 50 different trace elements and three different oxygen isotypes.
Professor Ilya Bindeman, a volcanologist at the University of Oregon, explains: ‘There is a mixture of these oxygen isotopes in the air we breathe and we don’t taste the difference.
‘Their differences are generally not important for chemical reactions, but it is important to recognize them since their relative abundances in magma can differentiate one magma source from another.’
By taking lava samples from different eruptions over the past three years, researchers realized that they all had an extremely similar chemical fingerprint.
Professor Troll told MailOnline: ‘Geochemical analysis of major and trace elements, as well as stable isotopes, implies that the magma that has erupted at Svartsengi since late 2023 is of the same type as the magmas that erupted at Fagradalsfjall between 2021 and 2023.
‘Therefore, both eruption sites are fed by the same magma source at depth.’