Volcano and earthquake activity in Iceland
Yesterday (26-June 2024) at 17:07 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,1 took place in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano, not far from Bláfjallaskáli area. That is a popular skiing area during the winter.
This earthquake was part of a small earthquake swarm in the same area. It seems to have quieted down again.
Yesterday (26. January 2024) and today (27. January 2024) an earthquake activity took place in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano, in the Bláfjöll area. The first earthquake had a magnitude of Mw2,4 at 22:54 UTC on 26. January 2024 and the second earthquake had a magnitude of Mw3,1 on 27. January 2024 at 05:28 UTC. Smaller earthquakes started later today. That earthquake activity seems to have ended at the writing of this article.
This earthquake activity, at least in the case of the Mw2,4 and Mw3,1 earthquake did show a sign that they where created by magma movement, among those signs was a strong vertical movement and low period signal that only happens when magma creates earthquake. At this point in time, I don’t think an eruption is going to happen any time soon. It is possible that magma has started to collect in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano. It is going to be several years until something more happens, it might even take decades before anything serious happens.
Earlier this week, an swarm of earthquakes started in south of Brennisteinsfjöll volcano, also known as Bláfjöll mountain. This earthquake swarm started on a west to east fault north of a lake called Hlíðarvatn. This earthquake swarm has only been minor earthquakes, with magnitudes in the range of Mw0,0 and up to Mw2,3 but at the writing of this article, nothing above that magnitude. Over the week this earthquake swarm has evolved into a single area that seems to be circular, based on current earthquake activity. This strongly suggests that magma is the reason why this earthquake swarm is happening.
At the writing of this article, the earthquake activity is too small to start an eruption. Since this area is cold and the crust is too hard for the magma to flow freely inside it. Current depth of the earthquakes is around 5 to 7 km at the writing of this article and has not changed a lot during the week. While the Skjálfta Lísa image does not show this, it is possible that the earthquake activity has started to spread more east, compared to earlier in the week when this activity started. This earthquake actiivty might stop, as often happens in the early stages of a new eruption cycle in a volcano.
Today (10-December-2020) at 00:08 an earthquake with the magnitude of Mw3,5 took place in the volcano Reykjanes. This earthquake was felt in nearby area. Since then there has been a minor earthquake swarm going on in the area of Reykjanestá.
Green star shows the earthquake activity in Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Brennisteinsfjöll volcano
Today (10-December-2020) an deep earthquake swarm took place in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano. All earthquakes that took place where small in magnitude but depth was from around 5km to 12 km depth. It is not known at the writing of this article if this suggests an magma movement inside Brennisteinsfjöll volcano.
Orange dots to east of Krýsuvík volcano show the activity in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
I am expecting more earthquake activity in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano in next few months. It is going to take few weeks to months to see if anything more is going on there.
Today on 24-November-2018 a magnitude 3,3 earthquake took place in Bláfjöll area. Second largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of 2,9. Other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.
Earthquake activity in Bláfjöll area. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
The larger earthquake was felt in Reykjavík area according to news reports. The earthquake swarm appears to be ongoing.
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