GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 25, NO.

7, PAGES 1043-1046,APRIL 1, 1998

Sources of crustal deformation associated with the

Krafia Iceland eruption of September 1984
Th6ra rnad6ttir
Department of Geosciences,Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

Freysteinn Sigmundsson
Nordic Volcanological Institute, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

Paul T. Delaney
U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona

Abstract. A decade-long plate-boundary rifting episode disrupted by rapid deflation during rifting events. The defla-
in northern Iceland ended with the September 1984 fissure tion episodeswere accompanied by earthquake activity that
eruption of Krafla volcano. We apply a nonlinear inver- migrated laterally along the fissure swarm away from the
sion method to geodetic data collected before and after the magma chamber,signifyinglateral dike injections[Einars-
eruption to infer the location, geometry, and strengths of son and Brandsddttir,1980].
deformation sources associated with the eruption. The net The most recent eruption of Krafla began on Septem-
outflow of magma from a 3-km-deep magma chamber be- ber 4, 1984 and lasted two weeks. Initially, a curtain of
neath the Krafla caldera was 30- 120 x 106 m a. A similar fire emanated from a 8.5-km-long segmented eruptive fis-
volumeof magma,50- 70 x 106ma, wasemplacedin a 1- sure (Figure 1), but activity decreasedrapidly and became
mostlylocalizedat one vent near its north end [Tryggvason,
meter-wide, •9-km-long dike extending from the surface to
•7 km depth. Furthermore,
at least110x 106ma of magma 1986]. This eruption continuedfor a longertime than prior
erupted. Accordingly, a surplus of magma must have been eruptions and produced the largest volume of lava during
expelled from a secondreservoir, the location of which, al- the 1975-1984 episode. The lava flow covers an area of 24
though uncertain, is likely to lie at depths greater than •5 km2 anditsdense-rock
equivalent
volume
is0.11kma [Rossi,
km beneath Krafla volcano. It would be difficult to detect 1997,]. This volumedoesnot includea significantamountof
this deeper source because of the narrow aperture of the magmathat wasobservedto flow backinto fissures[Einars-
geodetic networks. son, 1991],so we considerit a minimum value.
Records from four continuously-recording electronic tilt-
Introduction meters at Krafla caldera revealed a more complex chronology
of surface motions, than during prior eruptions. Co-eruptive
The Krafia volcanicsystem(Figure 1) at the divergent deflation was interrupted on September 5 by a 4-day-long in-
plate boundary in North Iceland consists of the Krafia flation, the only suchinflation ever observedduring a Krafla
central volcano and a 10-km-wide and 100-km-long fissure eruption. The effusion rate reached a minimum in the third
swarm. The central volcano has a subdued topography but day and then increased steadily until the eruption abruptly
is neverthelessa focusof magma production along the Krafia stoppedon September18 [Einarsson,1991]. Basedon the
fissure swarm. A caldera formed at Krafia --•100,000 years recorded tilt and other ground deformation data, Tryggva-
BP [$aemundsson,
1991, ]. Within the calderathere is an son [1986]inferredseveralconnectedmagmareservoirs,in-
extensive geothermal system and a magma chamber at •3 cluding the one at --•3 km depth and another at no more than
km depth [Tryggvason, 1986;Brandsd6ttiret al., 1997;$ig- 10 km. The bi-modal geochemistry of the 1984 lava is also
roundssonet al., 1997]. Activity of Krafia is characterizedby suggestiveof magmasfrom different depths [K. GrSnvold,
rifting episodesseparatedby long periods of dormancy. The pers. comm.,1997].
two most recent episodesoccurred in 1724-1729, and 1975-
1984. During this last episode, •20 dike-injection events
Geodetic Data
took place and nine of them led to eruptions[Bj6rnsson,
1985]. Geodeticmeasurements showedthat an 80-km-long Crustal deformation of Krafia volcano was extensively
segment of the Krafia fissure swarm widened by up to 9 monitored during the 1975-1984 rifting episode. In this
meters [Tryggvason,1994]. The 3-km-deepmagma cham- study we use49 EDM data from March 1984 and March 1986
ber beneath the Krafia central volcano was the center of
[Tryggvason,1993], observationsfrom 16 tilt stations (32
activity during the rifting episode. It received continuous data) from June 1984 and September/October1984 [Tryg-
inflow of magma from depth with periods of slow inflation gvason,1995], and 9 sectionheight differencesobservedby
levelingon April 10, 1984and September7, 1984 [Bj6rnsson
Copyright1998by theAmericanGeophysical
Union. et al., 1985], (seeFigure 1), to investigateboth the magma
sourcesand the dike intrusion of the 1984 Krafla eruption.
Papernumber98GL50655. The largest ground movements were measured close to the
0094-8534/98/98GL-50655505.00 southern end of the fissure where there was a baseline exten-

1043
1044 ARNAD•TTIR ET AL.: INVERSION OF GEODETIC DATA FOR DEFORMATION SOURCES

650 55'N

650 50'N

650 45'N

650 40'N EDM: 1.0 rn

Obs ß
Calc ............................
.•
Tilt: 100.0grad
Obs
Calc
•.... -
16fi•'W 160 40'w
Figure 1. Map of the study area showingthe Krafia
caldera, lake Myvatn, and 100 m elevation contours. The
1984 eruptive fissureis shown with bold lines, and the 1984 Figure 2. Displacementsand surfacetilts. The locations
lava field is shownin dark gray. The EDM network is shown of the best-fit dike and Magi sourcesare shownwith a thick
with black lines and triangles, the tilt stations are shown gray line and a gray star, respectively. Observed horizon-
with squares(0090 is labeled), and the levelingbenchmarks tal displacements(in meters) and tilt data (in /•rads) are
are shownwith dots(FM6414, FMl15 and FM5596 labeled). shownwith black arrows (solid and outline, respectively),
The insert showsa map of Iceland, with bold lines outlining and 95% confidenceellipses.SomeEDM stationshave only
the spreading segmentsin the neavalcanic zones. The study one baseline tying them to the rest of the network. The dis-
area is shown with a box.
placements for these stations have error ellipses that show
up as lines, with the error in the orthogonal direction be-
ing infinite. The calculated data are shown with bold gray
sion of 67 cm, a maximum tilt of 162/•rad, and a subsidence
arrows, the tilts as dashed arrows.
of ,,•40 cm. The standard error for the 1984 and 1986 dis-
tancemeasurementsare cr2 = (5mm)2 + (1 ppm)2 andcr2
= (22 mm)2 + (1 ppm)2 respectively[Tryggvason,•al.
We use the standard measurement error for tilt reported by deformation is due to a pressurechangein a magma chamber
Tryggvason
[1995],typically•3 /•rad,and4 ram/ •mmfor and a dike that was formed during the 1984 Krafia eruption.
the levelingdata [BjSrnssonet al., 1985]. The magma chamber is modeled as a point sourceof volume
The network geometries are not ideal. Most EDM sta- change[Mogi,1958,] and the dikeas an opening-mode
dislo-
tions lie to the east of the eruptive fissurewith only a few cation, assuming that the earth is a homogeneous,isotropic,
lines measured across it. Almost all the tilt stations and
elastichalf-space[Okada,1985, ]. We estimateeight model
benchmarks are at the southern end of the fissure, near the parameters for the dike - length, height, depth, dip, strike,
Krafla magma chamber. The tilt and leveling data are there- location(x, y), and opening- and six for the Magi source-
fore primarily sensitiveto the location and source strength depth, location (x, y), and three sourcestrengths.Whereas
of the magma chamber whereas the EDM data give infor- the Magi source location is constrained to be the same for
mation on the dike source.
all three data sets, the source strengths vary as the EDM,
tilt and leveling data were collected at different times.
We seek the model that minimizes the weighted residual
Modeling and Results.
sumofsquares
(RSS),ra"-Xr. Herer istheresidual
vec-
We invert the geodetic data to estimate the geometry,. tor, the difference between the observedand predicted data
location, and strengths of the sourcesof crustal deformation and E is the data covariance matrix. We use the nonlinear
during the 1984 Krafia eruption. We assumethat the surface optimization algorithm NPSOL[Gilletal, 1986; t•rnaddttir
 2•RNADOTTIR ET AL.: INVERSION OF GEODETIC DATA FOR DEFORMATION
• 0.0 FM64i4.........
= -0.1
ca -0.2
;• -0.3
ß• -0.4
>
-0.5 .... ! .... • ....
0 5 10
Distance (km)
Figure 3. Observedand calculatedvertical displacements
(in meters) as a functionof distancealongthe levelingpro-
Discussion
file, from benchmarkFM6414 to FM5596 (seeFigure i for
locations). Subsidenceis negative. The dots are the ob- The volume change of a volcanic edifice due to a Mogi
servedvalues, the solid line showsthe prediction of the best-
fit model, and the dashedline is the contribution of the Mogi
source. Observed subsidence at benchmark FM5596, the
last in the profile, amounts to 0.4 m, assumingno elevation
change at benchmark FM6414. The calculated maximum
subsidencefor the best-fit model directly above the Mogi
source is ,.-0.8 m.
and $egall, 1994], becausethe predicted surfacedisplace- end of the eruption on September 18. We therefore use
ments are nonlinear functions of the model parameters. Us-
ing a range of starting models and broad upper and lower
bounds on the parameters, we assured that our solution is
a global minimum. First we obtain the location, strike, and
dip of the best dike model using only EDM data. Other-
wise the dike location is biased westward
0090. Although the location of the dike was not constrained
to lie along the eruptive fissure, it came quite close (Fig-
ure 2). We then estimate the remainingparametersof the
dike and Mogi sources(a total of 10 parameters)using all
the data. The model that best fits the EDM, tilt, and lev-
eling data has a Mogi sourceat ,.-3 km depth at 65.7151øN, /•cr•st is the rigidity of the elastic material around the cham-
16.8056øW and a vertical dike source, •09-km-long and ex-
tending from •-7-km-depth to the surface,that has an open-
ing of 1 m. Figure 2 showsthe location of the dike and Mogi
sources,and the observedand predicted horizontal deforma-
tion. The observed EDM station displacements are calcu-
latedby the model-coordinate method[Segalland Matthews,
1988,]. The locationof our Mogi sourceis in goodagreement
with other studiesbasedon the tilt data [e.g., Tryggvason,
1986; Tryggvason,1995]eventhoughthey did not include
a dike source. Figure 3 showsthat the agreement between
the observed and calculated elevation changesis excellent.
For comparison, we also show the effect of the Mogi source
alone, demonstrating that the contribution of the dike to
the vertical deformation is very small in the area coveredby
the leveling network.
The best-fit model has an R$$
97% of the signal in the data. We use a total of 90 data and
solve for 14 model parameters applying 4 constraints. Thus
the reduced X2 of i implies crudeestimateof its minimumdepth. The minimumvol-
X2 forthemodelis 9 (a reduced
a perfect fit, and appropriateerror estimatesof the data).
The largest misfit is for tilt station 0090, which is probably
caused by local disturbance.
We generate synthetic data to addressthe resolution of
SOURCES 1045
sourceparameters, in particular the dike depth and height.
FMli5 .........
The synthetic data are calculated from a known model for
the same station locations, and types and error of data as
in the Krafia area. They are then inverted and the solution
compared to the known model to see how well the parame-
ters are retrived. "Good" resolution means that the param-
eter is retrievedwithin 5ø- 10ø or 1-2 km. In summary,we
find that the Mogi model parameters are well resolved, as
well as the dike strike, location, and opening. However, the
•vI559• dike dip and depth extent are not well constrained for dikes
! .... ! ....
15 20 25 extending below 5 km depth. From this we conclude that
the dike extendsfrom the surfaceto somedepth greater than
•5 km, with the 7-km bottom for the dike as the preferred
model.
and conclusions
source, i.e., the integrated volume of surface uplift or sub-
sidence
is AV• = 2•ruzm•Xd
2, whered is the sourcedepth
and Uzm•x is the maximum vertical displacement. Model-
ing of the leveling data that spans the period from April
10 to September 7, 1984, indicates 79 cm of subsidence
above the magma chamber. Inspection of continuous tilt
recordedduring the eruption (e.g., Figure 27 in Tryggva-
son[1986])suggeststhis numbermust be increasedby 25%
to account for the subsidence from September 7 until the
Uzm•=-0.98 m and d = 2.8 km to obtain AV• = 48 x 106
ms. This is comparable
to the volumeinferredby Tryg-
gvason[1986]. The volume changeof the sourceitself is
2AVe/3 for a Poisson'sratio of 0.25 [e.g., Delaney and
McTigue, 1994]. The Mogi sourcerepresentsa finite-size
towards tilt station magma chamber. In that casethe volume of magma leaving
the chamber, AVm, is not the same as the volume change
of the magma chamber, since the pressure release causes
expansionof the magma remaining in the chamber. Consid-
ering the compressibilityof magma [Johnson,1987, ], it is
found that AVm = (8(t•crust/kmaama)/9q- 2/3)AV• where
ber and km•am• is the bulk modulus of magma. Johnson
[1987]usesgravity and geodeticdata from Kilauea to infer
AV,• = 2.4AVe. If we assume2AVe/3 < AV,• < 2.4A¬,
the net outflow of magma during the 1984 eruption from
the 3-km-deepKrafia magmachamberwas30 - 120x 106
ms. Our modelingsuggests that the volumeof magmaem-
placedasa dikein the 1984eruptionwas50- 70 x 106ms.
In addition,at least 110 x 106 ms wereemplacedas lava
[Rossi,1997, ]. Thereforea secondmagma sourceunder
Krafia is required. Evidence for magma flow into the 3-km-
deep chamber from a deeper source is provided by the short
period of inflation during the eruption observed by contin-
uouslyrecordingtiltmeters [Tryggvason,
1986]. We are not
able to resolve the location or depth of this secondreservoir
with our dataset. Thus we can not determine if all or only
of 720 and accounts for part of the magma from the secondreservoirflowedthrough
the 3-kin-deep chamber.
Using the above arguments we can, however, make a
ume of magma expelledfrom the secondreservoir.wasat
least40 x 106ms. This volumechangein a reservoirat 5
km depth, would cause a maximum surface subsidenceof
,,•10 cm. Such a small elevation change would be hard to
1046 /i.RNADOTTIR ET AL.' INVERSION OF GEODETIC DATA FOR DEFORMATION SOURCES
discriminate from other sources of deformation. If the sec-
ond magma reservoir resides at higher level in the crust,
it should have caused deformation clearly expressedin our
data.
Acknowledgments. We thank E. Tryggvasonand A.
BjSrnsson for providing us with the geodetic data. Suggestions
from D. Dzurisin, A. Rubin, M. Ryan, and two anonymous re-
viewers improved the manuscript. This research was funded in
partby NASA(grantNAG5-1940)
to Th..•. Thefigures
were
produced using the GMT public domain software.
Segall, P., and M. V. Matthews, Displacement calculationsfrom
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T. 2•rnad6ttir,Dept. of Geosciences,
PrincetonUniversity,
Princeton,NJ08544. (e-mail: thora@geo.princeton.edu)
F. Sigmundsson,Nordic Volcanological Institute, University
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(Received November 21, 1997; revised February 6, 1998;
acceptedFebruary 18, 1998.)