Minor earthquake swarm on Reykjanes Ridge

Today (04-November-2013) at 04:03 UTC an minor earthquake swarm took place on the Reykjanes ridge. The largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 3,2 and the depth of 12,2 km.

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Earthquakes on the Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Earthquakes are no uncommon in this area and there have been several earthquake swarm in past few weeks. Currently there are no signs of volcano activity taking place at this location and there are no clues or suggestions that such event is about to take place at present time. The largest earthquake did appear clearly on my geophone network and it can be viewed here on my geophone website.

New earthquake swarm on Reykjanes ridge

Today (19-October-2013) new earthquake swarm started on the Reykjanes ridge. So far this earthquake swarm has been small, with only 16 earthquakes recorded. Largest earthquake in this swarm had magnitude 3,3 at the depth of 6,1 km.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. The green star marks earthquakes with magnitude over 3,0. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

I am expecting more earthquake activity in this area of the Reykjanes ridge over the next few days and weeks. It is impossible to know when an new earthquakes swarm starts. The best way is to monitor current activity at Icelandic Metorlogical Office website and on my webicorder website.

New volcanoes found 900 km south of Iceland

In an recent study mission on Reykjanes ridge they did discover new volcanoes. What was discovered is that there appears to be more earthquake activity outside the main rift zone than originally thought. They also found volcanoes that are up to 2000 meters high (from the ocean floor) and have some other oddities too. At this south part of Reykjanes ridge there is an fault zone at the south end of it. According to the news the Reykjanes ridge is now about to break it soon (in the next few million years) and extend it’s reach more south. This area of the Reykjanes ridge appears to be high in volcano activity, a lot more then previously thought. All of the volcano activity at this location goes unnoticed due to how remote this area is and how deep the ocean is at this location.

I don’t know what this fault zone is named. But I think it’s this one on Google Earth.


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Blog post updated at 23:41 UTC.

New earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula and Reykjanes ridge

Today (15-October-2013) at 01:43 UTC a new earthquake swarm started on Reykjanes peninsula and Reykjanes ridge. So far the largest earthquake has the magnitude of 2,5. At the moment no larger earthquakes have taken place. This earthquake swarm is currently ongoing, but the rate of earthquakes has dropped over the day and is currently low.

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

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. It’s just off the coast. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This area of the Reykjanes has been seeing a lot of activity in recent days and its possible that more earthquake activity is going to take place at this location in next few days to months.

Blog post updated at 21:42 UTC.

Earthquake deep on the Reykjanes Ridge

Yesterday (01-October-2013) at 19:41 UTC an earthquake with the automatic magnitude of 5.2 took place deep on the Reykjanes Ridge. This earthquake was around 1171 km away from Reykjavík so it is deep on the Reykjanes Ridge.

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Regional view of the earthquake on the Reykjanes Ridge. Nothing but ocean here. Copyright of this image belongs to EMSC.

It is impossible to know if this was one off event or part of an earthquake swarm in the area. It is just too far off any seismometer network for us to know. It is my guess that this earthquake was part of local earthquake swarm in the area, but that is just a guess. More information about this earthquake can be found here on EMSC website.

Magnitude 5.5 earthquake deep on the Reykjanes Ridge

Last night (26-September-2013) an earthquake took place deep on the Reykjanes Ridge. This earthquake had the magnitude of 5.5 according to reviewed results from EMSC. This earthquake was close to 1000 km from the south coast of Iceland so it was not felt by any human. Fish and crabs might have been disturbed however at that location. More information about this earthquake can be found here on EMSC website.

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The earthquake location on the Reykjanes Ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to EMSC.

An aftershock with the magnitude of 4.6 was recorded on the same location. Information about that earthquake can be found here on EMSC website. It is possible that more smaller earthquakes took place in this location, but due to distance from any seismometer network any smaller earthquakes then this are not detected at all.

New earthquake swarm on Reykjanes Ridge

During the night at 04:40 UTC a earthquake swarm started on the Reykjanes Ridge. There are no signs of this earthquake swarm being connected to any volcano activity, this just normal earthquake activity for this area. The largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 3.0, other earthquakes had less magnitude.

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The earthquake activity on the Reykjanes Ridge today. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

As with the earthquake swarm on 11-August-2013, this earthquake swarm happens short periods of activity with quiet between them. I do expect this activity to continue for the next hours to days, based on past history for this area. If that is going to happen I do not know yet. Largest earthquakes that can take place in this area can reach the magnitude of 5.5, but no larger than that, since the crust does not support any greater magnitude.

Earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge

A minor earthquake swarm took place on the Reykjanes Ridge during the night, it started at 04:17 UTC and ended at 08:13 UTC, there was some break in activity for few hours with each episode lasting for around 10 minutes. Earthquake swarms are common in this area of the Reykjanes Ridge. The largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2.9, other earthquakes were smaller in magnitude.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge, the earthquakes scattered around wrong locations by the automatic SIL system. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This earthquake swarm did appear clearly on my geophone network in Iceland. It can be viewed here. I do not know if this means more activity is coming on the Reykjanes Ridge, it is all just wait and see what happens in this case.

Minor earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge on the 29th of May

On the 29th of May (2013) a minor earthquake swarm took place on the Reykjanes Ridge. The largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2.3, the depth range in this earthquake swarm was about 5.5 to 12 km. This was just a minor earthquake swarm, it also did not last long.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge on 29th of May 2013. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This area of the Reykjanes ridge is highly active, only about three weeks ago there was a strong earthquake swarm in this area. This might just be a aftershock activity from that, it is however difficult to know for sure. I am expecting more earthquakes in this area in next few weeks to months.

Earthquake swarm on Reykjanes Ridge on 19th of May, increased volcano monitoring in Iceland and more

I am sorry for lack of blog posts for the past few days, the reasons for this lack of blog post is that it has been quiet in Iceland for past two weeks. Money issues have also been heavy on me for the past few months and it drains you slowly, but it does drain you in the long run. This has affected my writing in the short term, both here on this blog and what I am creating in my short stories and books, so this have become self feeding circle that is hard to break out of, I just hope to break out of it soon. I did get a large donation this month, it has helped me greatly in paying down some of my debt and in the progress lower my monthly payments down a little. I also got a help from people I know here locally (this was before I got the donation and was expecting to survive on €30 for the rest of this month).

Some of my loans are also going to be paid up soon, I for instance only have three payments left on my washing machine. With the last payment due to take place in August. This is going to make my life a bit more easy, since it lowers my payment threshold a bit. I still have some big debt to pay down and it is going to take some time to pay it down. Since my social welfare from Iceland is low and I do not expect it to improve any time soon. I am going to pay down my debt faster as my income increases, but it might take a while until that happens.

Getting into money issues have been a bit of a drag for me, not surprising since often I have had no money for food in the past several months (8 months as it now stands). Some months have been worse then others, this is not a budget issue as such. I am currently having stripped budget and not spending anything extra if I can avoid it. This is going to be a temporary measure for me, I am going to end it once my income has increased to such levels that I am no longer poor. When that is going to be I do not know, it depends on how my books and short stories are going to be doing in the book market, the book market is not a easy market to work with. Since there are many writers out there and a lot of publishing taking place every day of the year.

As for moving again, it is not going to happen for the next few years. Since I am going to stay here in Bov, Padborg for the next few years, I might in the end just stay here for the rest of my life. I am not sure what I am going to do in the long run. I often change my mind, since I sometimes have issues with figuring my self out. I am bit open about it, and that bother some people who do not like my sudden change of heart.

Earthquake swarm deep on Reykjanes Ridge on 19th of May

During late night on 19th of May a magnitude 4.2 earthquake too place deep on the Reykjanes Ridge, a total of three to four earthquakes where detected on my geophone network at the time. I do not have exact magnitude for those earthquakes, I am guessing there magnitude was around 2.9 to 3.5 at least, it is not confirmed as is and it might never be confirmed. EMSC has more information on the magnitude 4.2 earthquake here.

Increased volcano monitoring in Iceland

BBC News has interesting news article about increased volcano monitoring in Iceland, due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in the year 2010. There is a ongoing project in Iceland with BGS and IMO to increase the monitoring of Iceland volcanoes, I do not know what volcanoes they are going to increase the monitoring. It can be assumed it is going to be the most active ones, Katla, Hekla, Grímsfjall and so on. I do not know what they are going to do about less active volcanoes like Snæfellsjökull and other volcanoes in that area, currently Snæfellsjökull volcano is not being monitored at all, or other volcanoes on the Snæfells peninsula. This increased monitoring of volcanoes in Iceland is going help detect when volcanoes are ready to erupt, or just play a simple bluff on the monitoring system.

The BBC News can be found here below. I recommend watching the video that is with this news article.

Volcano project scours Iceland for early warning signals (BBC News)