Category: Reykjanes Ridge

During the night (29-September-2019) a small swarm of earthquake took place not far from Eldeyjarboði on Reykjanes ridge. Largest earthquakes had the magnitude of Mw3,1 and Mw3,3. This earthquake swarm is far from Iceland and recording of this earthquake swarm is poor because due to distance from the SIL network.

The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake swarm seems to be over and no earthquakes have been recorded for the last few hours. Detection is smaller earthquakes is limited and that might be giving the wrong impressions about this activity.

During the night of 30-August-2019 an earthquake swarm took place on Reykjanes ridge. Close to 69 earthquakes took place and largest earthquake had a magnitude of 3,0. Other earthquakes were smaller in magnitude.

The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake swarms are common in this area. This might result in a bigger earthquake swarm later or a new one at nearby location, that is also happens sometimes in this part of the Reykjanes ridge. This earthquake activity doesn’t appear to be connected to any volcano activity.

On Saturday (13-July-2019) earthquake swarm started off the coast of Reykjanes peninsula on Reykjanes ridge. The earthquake swarm is located 2 – 4 km south-west of Geirfulgadrangur rock. It is unclear if this earthquake swarm is over. Largest earthquakes in this swarm had a magnitude 3,1. Other earthquakes had smaller magnitude.

Earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Activity in this area has the pattern of stopping and then starting again few hours to week later. This might result in stronger earthquake swarm next time this activity starts up again. There is a volcano in this area that last erupted in 18th or 19th of century. This volcano is not listed in Global Volcanism Program I think. I do not think this earthquake activity is volcano related but that is difficult to know fore sure due to how remote this area is and poorly known as such.

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Today (10-March-2019) strong earthquake swarm started deep on the Reykjanes ridge. The distance from Reykjavík is around 840 km. Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of Mw5,8 (EMSC information here). Only three earthquakes where detected and all of them where large than magnitude 5,0. There is a good chance this earthquake swarm is currently ongoing. It is not possible to know if an eruption is happening this far from the coastline. Depth at this location is 3 to 6 km. There is a good chance more earthquake are going to appear on this location in next few hours to days because of the large Mw5,8 earthquake.

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During the week there has been a small earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge, mostly close to the coastline. The first earthquake swarm is closer to the coastline and largest earthquake so far had a magnitude of 3,0 at 14:31 UTC just 7,6 km off Eldey Island (its more of a rock standing up from the ocean). The second earthquake swarm had a magnitude 3,0 earthquake at 04:32 UTC and was 17,5 km away from Geirfugladrangi (also a rock that just stands up from the ocean). All other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.

Two earthquake swarms on the Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Both earthquake swarms appear to be ongoing when this article is written.

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Yesterday (14-July-2018) and during the night (15-July-2018) an earthquake swarm took place deep on the Reykjanes ridge. This appears to be been a minor earthquake swarm and largest earthquake only had a magnitude of 3,0. This earthquake swarm took place good distance from the SIL network so locations and magnitudes have larger error margins.

Earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake swarm appears to be over. If any smaller earthquakes are happening in the area were the earthquake swarm took place they are not being detected by the SIL network due to distance. This earthquake swarm can start again without warning.

Yesterday (28-June-2018) and today (29-June-2018) during the night a short but strong earthquake activity took place on the Reykjanes ridge. Strongest earthquake had a magnitude of 3,2 or 4,1. It is unclear (to me) at the moment what magnitude is correct. Since I did get a signal on Dellukot geophone station that was considerable larger than for magnitude 3,2 earthquake (given distance from the station). Böðvarshólar geophone station remains down due to a broken computer (that I can’t fix).

Green stars show the location of this earthquake activity. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is unclear at the moment if this earthquake activity is going to continue. At the moment it appears to have stopped, but distance from land makes it impossible to detect smaller earthquakes in this area.

During the night of 26-May-2018 a minor earthquake swarm took place on the Reykjanes ridge. This earthquake swarm looks tectonic in nature. Only few earthquakes happened this time around and overall this earthquake swarm was small in number of earthquakes.

The earthquake swarm on Reykjanes ridge (yellow dots). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The largest earthquakes in this swarm had a magnitude of 3,0. Other earthquakes had a magnitude of 2,0 – 2,8. Due to distance from the SIL network there is a good chance that more earthquake activity happened then was recorded by Icelandic Met Office. There is a good chance of more earthquake in this area on the Reykjanes ridge in next few hours to days. That has been a pattern for earthquake activity on the Reykjanes ridge in recent years. It might not happen but it remains a possibility.

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