Author: Jón Frímann

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Special report: Part of Japan moved 4 meters due to the Mw9.0 earthquake

According to BBC News it seems that that part of Japan moved up to 4 meters in the Mw9.0 earthquake. Closest to the epicentre of the earthquake the movement is possibly up to 20 meters, but the movement might have not been all the same within the fault line (100 wide and 500 km long). This earthquake might also have shifted the Earth axis about 16.5 cm. But this earthquake has also changed the sea bead in such way that it needs to be remapped for ships.

Two videos of the earthquake.

BBC News on this.

How the quake has moved Japan (BBC News)
Pictures of the damage from the earthquake (BBC News)

Support Japan and it’s population with donations.

2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami (Google Information web page)

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Special report: Pre-earthquakes to the Mw8.9 earthquake in Japan

It appears that before the large earthquake that did happen today (11th March 2011) there was a sequence of a pre-earthquakes. The pre-earthquake to the large Mw8.9 earthquake was a Mw7.2 (EMSC data) that took place on the 9th March 2011 at 02:45 UTC. This pre-earthquake was followed by about dozen or so aftershocks, the largest one being Mb6.2 (EMSC data).

The problem with this type of pre-earthquakes is that you cannot know that they are pre-earthquakes until after the large earthquake takes place. Because of that fact, it is only now known that the Mw7.2 was a pre-earthquake to the Mw8.9 earthquake that did hit Japan today (11th March 2011).

Please see BBC News or CNN for more news about this earthquake.

For webicorders that show the earthquake can be found here. USGS webicorders can be found here.

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Special report: A Magnitude Mw8.9 earthquake struck Japan

At 05:46 UTC (14:46 local time) there was a Mw8.9 (or up to Mw9.1, it is hard to terminate the exact size of this large earthquakes right away) earthquake in Japan. The depth of this earthquake was registered 24 km depth. But that is the reason why this earthquake did create this big tsunami. According to news there has been great damage following this earthquake. Loss of human lives following this earthquakes is also feared. But already there have been found bodies of 300 people that died following this earthquake. After the earthquake a huge whirlpool was created according to BBC News, a video of it can be seen here.

The rupture zone is estimated to be about 500 km (EMSC). But that number might change on a later date. A lot of aftershocks have followed the main earthquake. The largest aftershock did reach Mw7.0 in size so far. But there have also been a lot of earthquakes that have magnitude Mb6.0 – Mb6.9. Many more aftershocks of size Mb5.0 – Mb5.9 have also happened. I have no information about smaller aftershocks. But I am going assume that the number of earthquakes in smaller range is in the number tens of thousands.

This earthquake was recored on all my geophones. Even the one that I have here in Denmark on the second floor where I live.

Above: The Mw8.9 earthquake in Japan on Heklubyggð (Iceland) geophone. This picture is under CC licence.

Above: The Mw8.9 earthquake in Japan on Hvammstangi (Iceland) geophone. This picture is under CC licence.

Above: The Mw8.9 earthquake in Japan on Sønderborg (Denmark) geophone. This picture is under CC licence.

I am going to post more information about this earthquake when I have them. I am also going to post more information about the aftershocks later on.

Please check all major news networks for news about this earthquake.

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New earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano

The quiet time did not last long. But it appears that a new earthquake swarm has started in Krýsuvík volcano. So far this earthquake swarm is just a minor one. But it is hard to know how this develops in the next hours. But it is worth keeping a eye on how this earthquake swarm is going to develop. This earthquake swarm has been in ongoing since 13:13 UTC today (10. Mars 2011), but this is a slow earthquake swarm and does not have had many earthquakes over the past few hours.

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Big plan changes for me

While this is completely off-topic I still find it necessary to say this (I will go back to volcanoes and earthquakes in next blog post). There have been some big plan changes to my plans. The biggest change is that I am going to move back to Iceland in August. This is so not what I had planned. But there is nothing that I can do about it as my income does not support living in Denmark for the moment. If remains to be seen if I move too a different country in the future. As of this moment all such plans have been put on a hold for undefined period of time.

I am going to move back to Iceland in August and then go back to school to learn electronics and other fields so I can get a good job or something that gives me the income to support me in setting up geophones and watching volcanoes. It is going to be costly moving to back (~200.000 ISK, ~1.236€, ~1.712$) to Iceland so all support for this is welcomed when the time comes. Until I move back to Iceland I am going to be in Denmark and I hope that I am going to have enough money for food each month and for all that I need to pay for.

Thanks for reading this blog, and thanks for the support and the donations. 🙂

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Quiet time in Iceland once again

While everyone is watching the eruption in Hawaii. Iceland earthquake activity both in volcanoes and on the fracture zones is taking a break.

So while Iceland is taking a break I am going to write about volcanoes that are never in the news. Not in Iceland and not in the international press. They are not in the news because they are quiet and have been for some time now.

I am going to start tomorrow (hopefully) with a volcano called Snæfellsjökull (wiki here) (if you did think Eyjafjallajökull volcano was hard to say, just try this one).

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The subscription button

If people are wondering what the subscription button is doing there I have a answer. This blog is not going to charge for a subscriptions and never is going too. This button (because PayPal didn’t offer any other button that I could find) is for people how want to donate ten euros every month to this blog for six months at the time. This blog is going to remain free as it has always been since I did start this blog.

I thank all my readers for the support. Both for the donations and for reading this blog. It makes my work worth doing it.

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Frost quakes in Iceland highland

At the moment there is a lot of frost quake activity in the Icelandic highlands. This happens because of the cold weather that is in Iceland at the moment.

Some of the frost quakes have decent quality in the SIL data. But this also creates the problem that it makes harder to see real earthquakes in this if they have also poor quality in the SIL data on the Icelandic Met Office web site. This frost quake activity is going to continue until the ground and the lakes are completely frozen over in the Icelandic highland. Frost quake activity might start elsewhere in Iceland also, if it gets cold enough for this to happen and if the ground supports it also.

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Earthquake activity increases again in Krýsuvík volcano

It appears that Krýsuvík volcano earthquake activity is increasing again. This time around it appears that the earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano has moved more to the west then last weeks earthquake activity.

The biggest earthquake so far is a ML2.1 earthquake with the depth of 6.9 according to automatic data on Icelandic Met Office web page.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The new earthquake area in Krýsuvík volcano. It is more to the west then the earthquake area that was making earthquakes last week. Activity appears to be picking up slowly. But it is hard to know how this develops over the next few hours or days.

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Quiet time in Iceland at the moment

Currently everything is quiet in Iceland. There is little earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano but still ongoing at really slow rate however. Nothing is going on in the volcanoes in Vatnajökull. The TFZ fracture zone is also quiet and has been for some time now. So far only few earthquakes have taken place in TFZ in the last week. But no earthquake swarms have taken place there in a long time now.

In general the activity in Iceland is really quiet. While everything is quiet in Iceland, there is a eruption ongoing in Hawaii. Please see Erik blog for more details.