Category: Geophone network

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Typical geophone station that I run

Here is a picture of a typical geophone station that I run in Iceland. This is the computer and other needed hardware on the Böðvarshólar geophone station that I am running. This hardware used to be the Hvammstangi geophone station until December 2012 when I had to move it.


Click on the image for full size. This image is released under Creative Commons licence. Please see the CC licence page for more details.

What is not shown in this picture is the geophone it self. But it is in the white box on the table. The readings from all my geophone stations can be found here.

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Hvammstangi geophone has been fixed

It turns out that the fault with Hvammstangi geophone station was a software issue. Not a hardware issue. I have now fixed this after instructions from the manufacturer of the hardware. This was a software bug. If this had been a hardware issue. It would have been a lot harder to fix. The Hvammstangi geophone station is now running normally. Any earthquake activity in TFZ appears best on this geophone station.

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Hardware failure in Hvammstangi geophone

In accordance with rules of bad timing. The Hvammstangi geophone station has had a bad hardware failure. What exactly has failed I am not sure of yet. But currently the geophone station does not power up. So the hardware failure is most likely in the board that converts the analog signals to digital signal for the PC. I am going to make an attempt to fix this issue when I go to Iceland in December. If that is unsuccessful. I have to send the hardware to the U.S and have it fixed there. If that is the case. The Böðvarshólar geophone station won’t go online until sometimes in the year 2013. I can’t afford replacement station. I am just to broke to buy it (as always. I am too broke to do anything in reality at the moment).

This means I have no way to detect earthquakes in north Iceland at the moment. But if any large earthquakes takes place there. My geophone stations in south Iceland are going to record such earthquake to some extent.

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Changes to the geophone network in December 2012

The following changes are going to be made to the geophone network in December. The Hvammstangi geophone station is being decommissioned. The hardware is going to be moved to new location. That is going to be a new geophone station called Böðvarshólar (bhr). This change costs me 29.900 ISK (182€, 1360 DKK, USD 236), plus a monthly charge of 2190 ISK for 3G connection. But I can only connect the geophone to the internet over GSM/3G in this location. Any donation to support me to cover this hardware cost is welcomed.

I am also going to do an maintenance on Skeiðflöt geophone station. A backup power is going to be added and I am going to resolve the freezing issue that I have been having with this station for some time now. This maintenance and adding a backup power to this geophone station is going to cost me 10.900 ISK (66€, 495 DKK, USD 86), any donation towards this cost is also welcomed. As backup power is needed for this location. But the electric grid in this location is for some unknown reason unstable at times. I do not know why that is. But to prevent damage to the hardware. I need to add a backup power to prevent it.

Other changes are not planned for the geophone network at present time. But I am not going to end my geophone network operations as I had originally planned in November. But the cost of running and sometimes hardware changes and maintenance for this geophone network is keeping me rather broke at the moment. Something that I am not happy with. I do have income of Google Adsense. But when traffic is low (when nothing is happening), this Google adsense income is low and is not even close enough to cover my costs at time and at times paying the bills that I need to pay. I always pay my bills on time. But sometimes that is all I do that month and nothing else.

The web page is going to move from the simnet.is address to jonfr.com address. I am going to post more details on that in January 2013. I am going to cut some minor costs with this. The savings won’t be great. But just a little bit.

So any support with donations are welcomed. As they help me keeping all this running. So I can report to all what is taking place in Iceland when it comes to volcanoes, earthquakes and general geology.

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Geophone network is going to stay up

I have changed my mind on taking the geophone network down. The main reason being that data is valuable. The data that I am collecting today has value. I did not release this until this morning. After I had been telling the person who hosts my Hvammstangi geophone that data has value yesterday. This is also true for my geophone network. But it is going to cost me a lot to keep it running as is. The largest cost being maintenance and internet cost over 3G (2190 ISK, 13,41€ a month pr. 3G connection where that is used).

But this is it. My geophone network is going to stay up until I can replace it with a better network in the future. When that is going to happen I do not know. But I hope it is going to take me less then 10 years until I can start to implement that plan.

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End of my geophone network in December 2012

It is not easy for me to make this decision. But I have dedicated to end my geophone network as it is today in December 2012. The reason is cost of running it. I just can’t afford it. I am also dealing with cost of hardware, maintaining that hardware and so on. That is just how it is. Dealing with technical problems is also a factor in this. Computers die, hardware needs to be replaced after certain amounts of years. This all costs me money. Technical assistance by the people who are hosting the geophone hardware also costs time for them. It also costs money for them in electricity cost (not a lot. But something as all the hardware uses electricity).

While it is great being able to track earthquake activity in real time (5 min delay on my web page). I just cannot afford it. I am also not going to move back to Iceland. So that makes maintaining my geophone network today even harder. So in December 2012 this is going to be all over. All my geophone network stations are going to go offline and that is going to be end of that. I am going to keep the hardware for later use somewhere else. Where and when that might be is unknown at the moment.

I want to thank everyone how did support my effort in building my network as it is today (buying Skeiðflöt and Eyrarbakki geophone stations). Sadly I can no longer maintain the geophone network as explained above. But that is just how it has to be.

Following geophone stations go offline in December 2012

Hvammstangi
Skeiðflöt
Heklubyggð
Eyrarbakki

Following geophone stations are going to remain online

Bov, Denmark (but the web page is going to move soon to a new server)

Future network

While the current geophone network is coming to an end. It does not mean that I am going to quit my plans so easy. I plan on building a new network of seismometers (proper ones) in Iceland when I can afford it. When that might happen I do not know. But I am going to build it in a SIL style. The seismometers are also going to be located far from any human traffic so I won’t have any noise from that or any other cultural noise source (at least, keep it at minimal). I am also going to hire people and create a company around this to take care of the hardware and process the earthquake data gathered.

I am going to build seismometers network in the following place when I can afford it (this means. When I am rich).

Iceland
Canary Islands (maybe. Not sure yet.)
Falkland Islands (Details pending)

The new network is going to be a proper network. It is also going to be in places that Iceland Meteorological Office has no SIL stations at the moment. But this is going to take a while until it happens. So all that people can do is to wait until I am ready to do this. It is going to take a few years at least.

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Earthquake traces of the magnitude Mw5.6 earthquake

Here are the earthquake traces of the magnitude Mw5.6 earthquake that took place in TFZ on 21.10.2012 at 01:24 UTC. I did detect this earthquake in all of my geophone stations in Iceland.


The Mw5.6 earthquake in TFZ. This is the Z trace. This image is released under Creative Commons licence. See licence page for more details.


The Mw5.6 earthquake in TFZ. This is the E-W trace. This image is released under Creative Commons licence. See licence page for more details.


The Mw5.6 earthquake in TFZ. This is the N-S trace. This image is released under Creative Commons licence. See licence page for more details.

The interesting thing about this earthquake is how stronger the N-S,E-W trace is compared to the Z (vertical). This shows that this earthquake movement was strongest on E-W and N-S then vertical (Z).


The Mw5.6 earthquake in TFZ. This is Heklubyggð geophone station. This image is released under Creative Commons licence. See licence page for more details.


The Mw5.6 earthquake in TFZ. This is Eyrarbakki geophone station. This image is released under Creative Commons licence. See licence page for more details.


The Mw5.6 earthquake in TFZ. This is Skeiðflöt geohone station. This image is released under Creative Commons licence. See licence page for more details.

Earthquake activity is currently ongoing in TFZ. With earthquakes often reaching magnitude 3.0 in size. But many smaller earthquakes have taken place in the past 10 hours in TFZ. But overall the earthquake activity has slowly been dropping down since the large Mw5.6 took place at 01:24 UTC. If the earthquake activity is going to increase again is impossible to know for sure at current time.

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Earthquake activity update on 20.10.2012 at 14:51 UTC

Today (20.10.2012) has been busy in terms of earthquake activity in Iceland. So I am expecting to write a second update later today on this activity.

Hekla volcano

At 05:28 UTC there was an earthquake in Hekla volcano. This earthquake had the magnitude of ML1.1 with the depth of 0.6 km. No other earthquakes have followed this single earthquake. What this means is impossible to know at this time. But so far everything remains quiet in Hekla volcano.


Earthquake in Hekla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Kverkfjöll volcano

Earthquake activity continues in Kverkfjöll volcano. This earthquake activity is the result of dike intrusion into Kverkfjöll volcano. So far this earthquake activity is taking place in short burst of earthquake swarm.


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

Tjörnes Fracture Zone

At 02:07 UTC earthquake activity did start in TFZ. Just off the coast of Iceland. This earthquake activity is taking place in area that last had earthquake swarm in September. I did cover that earthquake activity in details on this blog. So far the largest earthquakes in this area of TFZ have had the magnitude of ML2.9. This is purely tectonic earthquake activity.

Earthquake activity in TFZ. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

It is difficult to know what happens next in TFZ earthquake activity. But it likely going to continue for the next few hours to days like earlier. It is best to keep an eye on this earthquake activity. This earthquake activity also sometimes stops for few hours before it continues again. Most of this earthquake activity can be seen on my geophone network web page.

If anything major happens in this earthquake activity. I am going to post new blog post with updated information on that activity.

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Update on Geophone network plan

I sometimes change my mind on my plans. I have changed my mind on turning off my geophone network in Iceland. After 10 years I am not going to be shutting it down. But I am going to continue to run it in the future. But after 10 years I am going to due some changes. What changes that are going to be exactly I am not sure yet. Depends on my wealth and what I can do. But one thing is for sure. I am am going to start building a geophone / seismometer network in Falkland Islands (link to my Falkland Islands geology blog) after 10 years. Regardless if I move there or not. Details on that plan depends on many factors that are not clear yet. Things often change when it comes down my plans. But that is just how it goes.

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Few words on my geophone network

I run a small geophone network in Iceland. This geophone network won’t be getting any bigger any time soon. I have two reasons for that statement. I cannot get hardware that I need to build my geophone network. The main part remains out of stock, the geophone. I have also come to releases that after about 10 years time I won’t be able to run the geophone network anyway. But my plan is that in about 10 years time I am going to move to the Falklands Islands. Based on distance, cost and such factors. It is going to make it impossible for me to run an geophone network at that distance. It is going to take me 10 years to assemble my plan and get the funds before I can move to Falklands Islands. During that time I am going to be living in Denmark.

I have been running the current geophone network, in one or other form since the year 2006. So that is already 6 years. This has not been easy task. With hardware failures, software failures, internet failures and other issues that I have had to deal with during this time. But I have managed to keep the system running during that time, with help of the people how are hosting it for me at location. I am always thankful for that help.

I am however just going to close the geophone network in Iceland after 10 years. Closing at one place means that I can open up at new place. That place is going to be in Falklands Islands with time. As I need time to set-up new geophone network. Along with solving connection issues and such things. Setting up new geophone network in Falklands Islands might take up to 5 years for me. Depending on connections and such. As I might have to set-up my own radio links (I just expand my lan into such radio links on 2.4Ghz). Since ADSL speeds are expensive and have limited data quota are included with the subscription (the largest is just 3,3GB for 1 month), along with limited mobile coverage in Falklands Islands. But this is just really early planning. The details are going to get shorted out when I move there after 10 years or so.

I however think it is good to run my own geophone network for more then 10 years (oldest parts of the geophone network have then been running for up to 16 years in the year 2022) on my own. I am not sure. But I do not think many people in the world are doing this as I am. But I might be wrong on this.

Hardware that I can buy in the future

With the future lack of geophone for me to buy. I have several options on what hardware to buy so I can record earthquakes. First of is the cheap SEP seismometer. But that is a long period seismometer with period up to 20 seconds. Good for detecting earthquakes more then 2000 km away. My second option is to by a digital seismometer that is called VolksMeter. But that is also a tiltmeter. But VolksMeter seismometer is expensive (while I am broke at least). They cost $1245 single channel and $1795 dual channel. This is without GPS, power supply and such things. Based on this prices. I am not going to buy VolksMeter seismometer any time soon.

Blog post updated on 28.09.2012 at 04:45 UTC.