Category: Geophone network

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Earthquake in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano / SISZ earthquake zone

Today (30.08.2012) at 11:59 UTC there was an earthquake with the magnitude of ML3.8 (4.2Mw) in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano / SISZ. But SISZ overlaps this area to some extend. So large earthquakes do happen in this area of Iceland on regular basis. This earthquake was felt in Reykjavík area, south Iceland and some part of western Iceland.


The earthquake location and the following aftershocks. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

In around 30 aftershocks have been detected in the area. More aftershock activity in this area cannot be ruled out. This earthquake did appear clearly on my geophones all over Iceland.


The earthquake at Eyrarbakki geophone station. This geophone is the closest to the earthquake. The most movement in this earthquake was on an N-S and E-W fault according to my geophones. This picture is released under CC Licence. See licence page for more details.


This is the earthquake as it was recorded on Heklubyggð geophone. It is the second closest geophone station to this earthquake. This picture is released under CC Licence. See licence page for more details.


Here is the earthquake as it did appear on Skeiðflöt geophone. This picture is released under CC Licence. See licence page for more details.


Here is the earthquake as it did appear on Hvammstangi geophone. This picture is released under CC Licence. See licence page for more details.

It is impossible to know for sure what this earthquake activity means. But earthquake activity in this area of Brennisteinsfjöll volcano did stop around 15:49 UTC. No aftershocks did go above 2.0 in magnitude. More earthquakes in this area should not be ruled out in the next few days to weeks.

Icelandic News about this earthquake

Alltaf von á eftirskjálftum (Rúv.is)
Skjálftinn á enda stórs misgengis (Rúv.is)
Verra ef safnið hefði skemmst (Rúv.is)
Skjálftinn hápunktur – ekki fyrirboði (Rúv.is)
Jörð skalf í dag (Rúv.is. Afternoon radio show about this earthquake in Icelandic)
Jarðskjálftasvæðið undir smásjá sérfræðinga (Vísir.is)
Má búast við nokkrum eftirskjálftum (Vísir.is)
Fólk hljóp á dyr í Litlu Kaffistofunni (Vísir.is)
Jarðskjálftinn var 4,6 stig (Vísir.is)
Á þriðja tug eftirskjálfta hefur mælst (mbl.is)
Jarðskjálfti upp á 4,6 stig (mbl.is)
Snarpur jarðskjálfti á höfuðborgarsvæðinu – Stærsti skjálftinn í 3 ár (Pressan.is)
Jarðskjálftafræðingur: Ekki búið að losa um neina spennu að ráði (Pressan.is)

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Donations for replacement geophone hardware needed

I have been having some issues with one of my new geophone station. This is the geophone station at Skeiðflöt. That geophone station monitors the activity in Katla volcano. So if anything happens in Katla volcano. I am going to see it first and best on that geophone station. My web page with all my geophone stations can be found here.

The problem seems to be hardware (failure in the hardware), or at least hardware incompatibility over USB port. This has resulted in that Skeiðflöt geophone station is always freezing. This happens every 2 to 4 days. I have to reboot the computer to get it working again (suggesting hardware incompatibility rather then anything else). But I cannot have this geophone station working like this. As frozen station means lost data from it. I do not know why the station is failing as it is doing. But

The cost of new replacement station (that is going to be serial, not USB) is $405 (2457 DKK) at current time. I do not know what the customs duties are for this in Iceland. But I do think they are none into Denmark (EU) on this type of electronics. I am going to replace the hardware in December 2012. As then I am going to Iceland over Christmas. At the same time I hope to install backup power at Skeiðflöt geophone station. But cheap backup power (650VA/360W) costs 10950 ISK (547 DKK, 73€, $90).

At current time I cannot pay for the replacement station, even if I wanted to. For that reason I am asking for donations to help fix this issue. I have already done a lot and spent some money on this issue. But I did move Skeiðflöt geophone station to 3G connection few weeks ago in order to improve connection stability. But that had been a issue for some time, as at first the station was connected over WLAN and ADSL.

Thanks for the support!

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How to spot an earthquake on my geophone helicorders web site

I run today 5 geophones. Four of them are located in Iceland. I have one geophone in Denmark where I am living. My helicorder web site can be found here. This blog post is meant to help people on reading what takes place on this geophones. What is earthquake and what is noise. As on my geophones there is a lot of noise taking place. I have put in markers on this images for easy reading. It is my first attempt on doing that. I hope it looks decent.

This is Hvammstangi geophone station earlier today. The green line, marked as note 1 means that I lost the connection with Hvammstangi geophone station during the night. Note 2 shows a typical noise on that geophone.

The red circle on shows a small earthquake that took place during the night close to Hekla volcano. The rest appears to be just a noise from nature, wind etc. Heklubyggð is often a quiet station.

Red circle around the earthquake that took place in Katla volcano during the night. The rest is just noise, cars, human walking around, wind etc.

This is the geophone station at Eyrarbakki. It doesn’t have any earthquake that I can see. But it has plenty of noise from all types of sources. Mostly washing machines of all types, human waking around, cars, wind etc.

I hope this rather short guide helps people finding earthquakes among the noise on my geophones. It is easier to find larger earthquake then smaller on my helicorders that I have online.

Update 1: Here is a picture of a larger earthquake taking place in SISZ in the year 2011.

The earthquake is the line that crosses above the helicorder image. This earthquake however only the magnitude of ML2.0 or around that. But it was close to my geophone at Heklubyggð.

Blog post updated at 01:14 CEST on 15.06.2012.

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Internet connection problem at Skeiðflöt geophone station

I have been having this issue for some time. I have already tried to fix it already. But that solution has not worked, and if I want to move to 3G connection it is going to cost me at least 15900 ISK, 97€, $123, 726 DKK. The problem is rather continued connection dropout. The connection that I am currently using is a 2Mbps ADSL connection that owners of the farm have, but over an poor phone line that does not carry ADSL signal so well (as I suspect is the case rather then anything else that I have think of before). There is an good 3G 900 signal in this area. So my solution would be to move this to 3G internet, rather then anything else. The connection charge pr month would be 1690 ISK (10€, $13, 77DKK) for 3GB of data. With that move. I should solve the connection dropout issues permanently.

This appears on my geophone web page with lack up updates for the Skeiðflöt geophone station. If it was connected normally, as it is going to be soon. This would result in green lines all over the helicorder image. Something that is not good, and makes it harder for me to monitor Katla volcano in real time. I plan on fixing this next month by switching over to 3G connection at that location. So I guess that June is going to be a bit broke for me as well (thankfully, there is cheap food in Denmark that I can buy. But I am still going to be broke). But I am going to work out the money issue somehow in the end.

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Few words about my geophone network

As many know. I run a geophone network in Iceland. This is my personal network. I have for most part funded it all on my own. But the last two geophones where exception to that. As I did fund them with donations from this web site. That made it possible to setup geophones at Eyrarbakki and at Skeiðflöt, a geophone that is close to Katla volcano.

My geophone network is not complex. It is build up on Mark Products 4.5 Hz 3 component geophone, like this one here. I also have to use analog to digital board and an amplifier. Both I buy both from the same supplier. I also have to use a PC with every geophone station. That is the hardest part of the setup, as PC often fail without reason and with age. For that reason I plan to move to something else in the future. Something that is not PC powered. Having this geophone network allows me to watch the areas where I keep them in real time if something of interest happens. Like an earthquake swarm or a eruption.

Sensitivity of the geophone network

I have setup my geophone network in a such way that it is sensitive to earthquakes. The smallest earthquakes that I can detect in a good weather is somewhere around -2.0ML really close to the geophone. This means in the instance of Katla volcano, that I can see earthquakes down to ML0.2 in magnitude. But I did that this evening, and I did detected that earthquake trough an high noise level. In the case of Heklubyggð geophone (Hekla volcano) and Skeiðflöt (Katla volcano). I am clearly going to see any harmonic tremor that those two volcano are going to make when an eruption starts, when ever that might be.

Wind noise is an constant problem on my geophone network. There isn’t anything that I can do about it. As isolating setup requires a lot of money and a lot of work to setup and maintain properly. Something that I cannot afford. I also cannot do this. But I do try to insulate the geophones with some cheap ways, like keeping them indoor and placing an cheap plastic bucket on top of them with some insulating material. But that does not work in the worst storms that pass over Iceland during the winter. But works well against minor noise in the environment.

All that my geophones record can be viewed online here. The images are updated every 5. min.

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First earthquake detected on Skeiðflöt geophone

This here is the first earthquake that I properly detect on my new geophone at Skeiðflöt farm. This is an ML2.0 earthquake in Katla volcano caldera according to IMO automatic SIL network. Even if there is high noise level I was still able to record it clearly. I might have recorded smaller earthquakes already. But they do not appear clearly so it is hard for me to be sure at the moment if I actually recorded them due to high levels of background noise.


The ML2.0 earthquake in Katla volcano caldera. This is based on automatic data and might not be 100% correct. This picture is released under CC licence. See Licence web page for more details.

This is promising for many reasons. It means that I can see earthquakes clearly even if there is high background noise level taking place at Skeiðflöt geophone. This also means that I am clearly going to see harmonic tremors and other events in Katla volcano, even in the glacier also. But this also depends on the noise level at the time. I do hope that the noise level is lower in summer then it is during the winter.

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Skeiðflöt geophone is up and running

Today I started the geophone at the farm Skeiðflöt. It is just south of Katla volcano. Some setup spikes are on the webicorder plot at the moment. But they should be clear off in the next 24 hours.

Currently there is bad weather in the area and it seems to show on the geophone at Skeiðflöt. But this new geophone adds to the sensitivity of my network and allows me to see earthquakes down to ML0.0 in good weather taking place in Katla volcano. But all large earthquakes should appear on this geophone regardless of most weather conditions outside. This geophone also increases my chances of seeing earthquakes in Eyjafjallajökull volcano if any take place to start with (it has been quiet after the eruption in the year 2010).

All my currently online geophones can be viewed online here. The webicorders are updated every 5 min.

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Website news for December 2011

Here are the website news for December 2011.

Name change for the blog in the beginning of January 2012

Since I now cover Spain and Canary Islands. A name change is needed for this blog. That name change is going to take place in the beginning of January 2012. The new name is going to reflect the area that I cover daily in this blog. This change is because I plan to move to Canary Islands (hopefully) in about 10 years time or so.

Changes in advertisement setup

I am going to change the display of the Amazon ads that I have here. Since I try to have ads from most of the language areas in Europe (that Amazon supports) there are many ads and they take a lot of space following it. So instead of using large banners. I am going to replace them with smaller banners or just ads boxes. Google Adsense are going to remain in the same size however as they have been on this blog.

Donations

This blog is free, so are all the information that I put forward here (all that is from me is under CC Licence). For that reason I depend on donations to do my work properly. There is also cost of hosting, living, computer hardware that I have to pay. I am not only living on this blog. But I do have social benefits as I am born with Asperger’s syndrome. Before people start to make a stereotype out of me, I must say that this is really mild version of Asperger’s syndrome that I have. But it has its challenges on times in the people department. But as social welfare goes, it is small amount and when I start to rent apartment again and all that. It is not going to last that long over the month.

My plan also to move back to Denmark have created the situation that I am now saving as much money that I can in order to pay for the moving cost to Denmark (more details later on in this blog post). For that reason I am broke so to speak. Thanks to some great donations last month have eased that pressure somewhat. But I am also trying to save the donations up for the move to Denmark. However, it has proven to be difficult trying to save up money with all the hardware failures that I have been having during the past two months. But that should be more or less over now. I at least hope so. I have only delayed one hardware upgrade until I move to Denmark. That is on my server computer. It needs a hard drive replacement. The hard drive is dying in that computer. But because it is going to be turned off after two weeks and is going to remain offline for the next few months until I move back to Denmark. I figured that it should be in good order (at least I hope so).

During the past two months I have had to replace old hardware that was on its last hours. This has both cut into my savings and told the sad story on how I have been avoiding proper hardware maintenance due to lack of money. To this day I have already lost data (nothing that was not able to get again, for most part) due to lack of replacing old hardware. This all comes down to the reason that I have been really broke for a long time, due to lack of proper income for what I want to do. This blog and my other writer work is a way for me to get out of that cycle of problems. But I am going to work hard on that goal to get off social welfare forever. Since I have grown tired of being poor and not to live my life as I want.

I also want to let people know that with growing geophone network the cost of running such network is going to increase. For the long time now I have been able to have that cost close to zero. But I am not sure for how long I can run it close to cost free. For at least one new geophone station that I am planning and hoping to get up and running in the new year I am going to have to buy a mobile modem (GSM/3G) and subscription (around €10 an month) so I can get data from it. As there is no good other connections in the area. There are going to be at least two geohone network stations like that I plan in coming months.

Geophone network

In December I plan to setup and start two new geophone stations. This geophone stations are going to be located in Eyrarbakki (a small village close to SISZ). The second one is going to be located on a farm named Skeiðflöt, it is located south of Mýrdasljökull but is inside the Katla volcano system that extends a little bit to the south in that area. I am not sure when the geophone stations go up. But it is going to be sometimes after 13 December, 2011. At least I hope so. But this is the plan now and I hope that it holds.

The new geophone stations are going to increase the sensitivity from ML1.9 at Hengill volcano (from Hekla volcano geophone) down to ML0.0 (or about that). For Katla volcano. I am going to be able to record earthquakes down to ML0.0, along with tremor spikes and other stuff like that. For the moment I can barely see earthquakes down to ML1.8 in Katla volcano. Overall, this is going to give me a lot better picture on what is going on in Katla volcano, in real time also.

For the year 2012 I am planning a geophone station at my mom and dad farm. Since now there is a mobile signal that I can use. The cost layout of that would be geophone + computer (I have already bought the computer) + GSM/3G modem and the subscription with that. I am going to post more details on that when the time comes.

Volcanoforum.eu is up and running

The volcanoforum.eu is now up and running. I am still setting up and looking for bugs. But it is ready for people to start registering on it and take part in the discussions. A volcano and earthquake related sections on the forum are going to appear soon. I am not yet done fine tuning the forum. So be patient on that front. But for the most part, it should be working now without any issue at all. At least I hope so.

Moving back to Denmark

In the year 2012 I am going to move back to Denmark. For the moment I am collecting all my money (that I can spare) for the apartment costs, moving cost and all that needs to be paid when I move between countries. I also plan to buy me a new television when I move to Denmark. So I am also collecting for that. For this reason, I am a bit depended on donations for the moment. I not sure yet when I move back to Denmark. But the search for the apartment starts in the early months of the new year of 2012.

Because of that. I do not have any apartment in Iceland and after December I am not going to have any good internet connection. For that reason my main computers are going to be turned off until I can move back to Denmark. This is going to limit me a little bit on what I can work on. But I am going the best I can with this. At least I have my laptop to work on (I should not fail, I hope anyway).

School is finished

I am now finished with school. All that is left are two tests. After that I move from the dorm where I have been living for the past few months. When that is over I move back to my mom and dad until I can get a apartment in Denmark. This all takes few months from start to finish. I do not think that there is anything else to say in this monthly web site news about this blog.

If there is something that I forgot. I am just going to add it later in a update to this blog post.

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Two geophones ordered

Yesterday I did order two new geophones to expand my geophone network. I am not yet sure when they are going to be up and running. But that is going to happen soon (hopefully) after they arrive in Iceland.

I want to thank everyone how did support this effort so that I was able to buy this two new geophones. All that is left now is to get a computer for the geophone station that is going to be close to Katla volcano.

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Money needed for buying two geophones has been reached!

I just want to know that the amount needed to buy two new geophones has been reached. So far total of 7,341.86 DKK has been collected. But I needed 6,731.18 DKK to buy two geophones. This however does not cover the cost of 25,5% VAT and possible customs that I might have to pay. Update 1: I am also missing one of the PC computers that I need to run the software for the data collections from the geophones. How I solve that problem is unclear at the moment. There is a computer ready on the Eyrarbakki geophone location. As the man how is going to house the geophone and the hardware for me there is in computers and had one spare computer at least.

This thing here is just a repeat of a comment that I made earlier.
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Finally good news about my financial status.

I am going to get paid a computer job that I was working on for several weeks. That is a good amount that is going to cover my cost on moving back to Denmark. But that is why I am not going to touch that money. But given the circumstance this month I am going to give my self a loan of that money at 0% interest to cover this month and the import of the two new geophones if donations do not cover this on there own. The loan is going to get paid back into that account when I am finished paying up my debt with the bank. I hate to do this. But for the moment it is the only way that I have to make my financial work in reality. I’ve been the other path and I am still cleaning up that mess!

This still however leaves out paying up my debt in the next few months and it is clear that I cannot cut into this money that I am just earning now . As that would just leave me worse off then I already am. I don’t want that.

But at least the worries that I had about the cost of moving to Denmark are over. I am happy about that for a change.
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I want to thank everyone that donated for this. When the time comes there is a e-book about volcano in it for those how donated. Just drop me a email if you want one of the e-book when the time comes (I can register you for the future release, that is no problem). I do not yet know when I finish writing and releasing them. But I hope that is sooner then later. This also goes for people how donate directly into my Danish bank account. But you have to send me email if you do donate that way. As the bank might not let me know if I get a money that way.

Blog post updated at 15:29 UTC.