Author: Jón Frímann

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Minor earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula

Donations: This year (2014) is going to start in the same way as last year (2013) did end. I am broke this month. I am working on fixing this, but it takes time until it does. My social welfare income remains low, but the exchange rate of ISK to DKK have been improving for the past few days. I hope that they continue to do so. Information on how to support me with donations can be found here. Information on why I am always broke can be found here in past post on this subject.

Yesterday (31-December-2013) an earthquake swarm took place on Reykjanes peninsula. This was an minor earthquake swarm with largest earthquakes having the magnitude of 2,5. The depth of this earthquake swarm was around 5 km.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This earthquake swarm took place close to a mountain named Fagradalsfjall. I do not know (or remember) if this a cinder cone or some other type of volcano in this area. More details of this earthquake can be found here on Icelandic Meteorological Office website.

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Happy new year 2014

I wish everyone a happy new year 2014. I also want to thank the people who did support me with donation during the year 2013. Without this donations this website would not be here and my other projects that I am currently working on.

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Earthquake activity in Esjufjöll and Kverkfjöll volcanoes

Earthquake activity started again in Esjufjöll volcano today (20-Desember-2013). The largest earthquake had the magnitude of 2,9 and had the depth of 5,0 km. So far only two earthquakes have been recorded, but it is not uncommon that earthquake activity in Esjufjöll volcano starts slow before it picks up. Earthquake activity remains low in Esjufjöll volcano, but there is now more earthquake activity in Esjufjöll volcano for the past few years then in past several decades (perhaps, recording is missing in the past)

Kverkfjöll volcano

Earthquake activity continued in Kverkfjöll volcano today. None of the earthquake did reach the magnitude of 3,0. The largest earthquake had the magnitude of 2,0 and the depth of 5,3 km.

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Earthquake activity in Esjufjöll volcano and Kverkfjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

I am expecting more earthquake activity in Kverkfjöll volcano. But I expect it to remain small as it currently is at least I do not expect any earthquake above the magnitude of 3,0 to take place as is.

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Fossil of a tree found in road tunnel work

A long time a volcano erupted in Iceland. This volcano spewed out basalt lava field (Hawaii style). This lava did flow over a forest that was nearby and killing all the trees in it. Few weeks ago and several million years later and few kilometres down the remains of this forest was found. Since one of the tree did fossilize in the lava. As the tree was engulfed in the lava it did turn to charcoal that was later removed by water and leaving the empty imprint of the tree in the bedrock.

The remains of the tree are now clearly visible in the road construction tunnel. The hole after the tree is full of water and part of it has been removed by the tunnel digging. Picture of it along with news can be found in the link below.

Fossil of a tree found in tunnel construction

Far eftir trjábol í Vaðlaheiðargöngum (Rúv.is, Icelandic, Picture)

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Magnitude 3,1 earthquake in Kverkfjöll volcano

Today (19-Desember-2013) at 09:30 UTC a magnitude 3,1 earthquake took place in Kverkfjöll volcano. The depth of this earthquake was 5,0 km. No aftershocks have been recorded following this earthquake.

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The magnitude 3,1 earthquake in Kverkfjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This is the first activity in Kverkfjöll volcano for some time now. But overall activity has been slowly increasing in Kverkfjöll volcano for the past few years. So far however there is nothing to suggest that volcano eruption is going to take place in near future.

Update 1: Three aftershocks took place in Kverkfjöllum volcano. The largest one had the magnitude of 1,7. The other two earthquakes had the magnitude of 1,3 and 1,5. With the depth of 6,5 km to 3,4 km.

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The aftershocks in Kverkfjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

It is possible that more aftershocks are going to take place in Kverkfjöll volcano in next few hours to days.

Blog post updated at 16:37 UTC.

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Quiet period continues in Iceland

Donation note: Please donate to help me continue this website. Please check this site for details on how to donate. Thanks for the support. 🙂

A new quiet period has started in Iceland, it is an extension of an quiet period that has been ongoing in Iceland for the past few months and is currently with no end in sight. I don’t know what is driving this quiet period at the moment, since quiet period are a bit of mystery and might always be that.

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Quiet in Iceland. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

For the past two weeks just around 120 earthquakes have been recording during each week (7 days) and for Iceland that is really low amount of earthquakes. This type of quiet period has been ongoing for most of the year 2013. I just hope that new year 2014 is not going to be quite so quiet as 2013 was.

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Earthquake swarm in Hengill volcano

A earthquake swarm of minor earthquakes took place in Hengill volcano today. This earthquake swarm was due to Orkuveita Reykjavíkur was pumping down water in the area.

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The earthquake swarm in Hengill volcano this evening. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

The largest earthquake had the magnitude of 1,4. Other earthquakes were smaller.

Continued earthquake activity north of Kolbeinsey Island

During the week the earthquake activity continued north of Kolbeinsey Island. Two more earthquakes appeared, they had the magnitude of 3,0 and 3,1 according to EMSC. I do not have any image of that activity since I was travelling the days it was on Icelandic Meteorological Office website.

Webicorder images still do not update

Something failed in my hardware few days ago so no webicorder images are updating at the moment. I do not know what did go wrong or what did fail and it is going to be few weeks until I know why. According to electronic usage readings from my home something powered down or was powered down (I know what normal usage should be based on what electronics where turned on when I left). I am not sure what was turned off or did go offline and I won’t find out until I get back home. Until then my webicorder images are not going to be updated. International webicorders are updating (mostly) normal now and all large earthquake activity in the world is going to appear on that website. I do not run any of the images shown there so they are unaffected by this failure.

Donations

Like so many projects on the internet. I depend on donations to keep my working ongoing here. They allow me to work on this full time. Since I am not allowed to use the “Donate” button from Paypal. People have send me the donation directly via “Send Money” option on Paypal website. Thanks for the support.

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No updates on webicorder images due to internet connection failure

At the moment the webicorders are not updating due to a hardware failure in my apartment in Denmark. I am not sure what has failed, but it appears as my wan router has failed. How it has failed I do not yet know and I won’t know until in January-2014 when I get back home. I am trying to work on a fix remotely, but it is unlikely to work. I am also hoping that my wan router might reboot it self and start working again. But I find that might not happen or work.

If this fixes it self it would be great, but the chances are it is not going to happen. Until then the webicorder images that I run are not going to be updated. There is little that I can do about it at the moment.

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Earthquake swarm activity north of Kolbeinsey island

Donation note: I want to thank people for the donations I have received over the year. But donations allow me to continue my work here and keep writing about volcano and earthquake activity in Iceland. If not for donations I would not be able to do anything. That includes writing on this website. So I am always thankful for donations. Since they allow me to continue my work here. Donations also allow me to maintain my geophone network in Iceland is expensive and last hardware updates was exactly that. So if you can donate, it is most welcomed. Information on how to donate can be found here. Thanks for the support.

During the night a magnitude 4,1 earthquake was recorded around 240 km north of Kolbeinsey island. This is automatic location and magnitude. So it is subject to change.

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Earthquake activity north of Kolbeinsey island (green star). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

I don’t know yet if I detected it on my Böðvarshólars geophone (website here). Since I have not had the change to review the data from that geophone yet. I am not sure what is taking place at that location. This might be earthquake swarm activity before and eruption starts there, but due to remote location and ocean depth it is currently impossible to know for sure at this point.