Category: Volcano

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Sharp earthquake activity in Katla volcano – Update 1

Tonight (20-June-2017) there has been a sharp increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Largest earthquake so far had the magnitude of 3,6. At the moment I’m not sure about other earthquakes magnitudes. I’ll update this article once I have them. The current situation seems be less stable than it appears (based on IMO notice earlier this evening).


Current earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The harmonic tremor plots have not yet updated for the area around Katla volcano. They update only once every 30 minutes that leaves me currently without any harmonic tremor data at the moment. I’ll post an update once I have those updates.

At the writing of this article an eruption has not yet started. That might change without warning.

This article is going to get update or a new written as this situation develops.

Update 1

Activity in Katla volcano has gone back to background levels in the last few hours. This is the second earthquake swarm in Katla volcano in the last two days, the last one being on the 19-June-2017. Nothing unusual is appearing on the harmonic tremor plots at the moment.


The earthquake activity in Katla volcano at 21:35 UTC. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.


The main earthquake so far with magnitude 3,6. This image is filtered at 1Hz due to wind noise. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see CC Licence page for more details.


The second earthquake activity. It is strange to look at on this plot. Seems to be one long continuous earthquake until it drops off. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see CC Licence page for more details.

Currently there are strong wind in south Iceland making it difficult for me to monitor Katla volcano due to wind and ocean wave noise.

This article was updated at 21:45 UTC.

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Earthquake swarm in Katla volcano (18-June-2017)

Today (18-June-2017) an earthquake swarm took place in Katla volcano. Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 3,2 and the second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 2,8 (two earthquakes). Depth was registered at 0,0 km. That means it was below the error margin Icelandic Met Office has, that error margin is around 300 meters +-.


Earthquake activity in Katla volcano today. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake swarm was close to being directly in north-south direction. At the moment the earthquake activity has gone back to background levels and no other activity appears to be taking place at the moment. I don’t know yet if this earthquake swarm activity is part of the normal summer earthquake activity or something else happening. Only time is going to make that clear.

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Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano (13-June-2017)

Today (13-June-2017) a magnitude 2.6 earthquake took place in Öræfajökull volcano. This is the largest earthquake in this volcano for a long time now and it is worth noting that Öræfajökull volcano normally doesn’t have any earthquake activity. This suggests that something might be up if it doesn’t start to quiet down in next few years. Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano is not high as can be seen in this science paper that covers the years 1994 – 2007 in earthquake activity in Iceland.


Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano (to the south on this image). Some of the activity might be glacier quakes due to summer heat or rain. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Tectonic settings in this area don’t allow for a lot of crustal-tension earthquakes and that suggests that the source of current earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano can be explained by magma movements. If this is going to end in a eruption remains to be seen. At the moment current low level activity rules that out, since a lot more and stronger earthquake activity needs to happen before magma can reach the surface.

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Sharp increase in earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano

During the last few days there has been a sharp increase in earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. Since there has been no eruptions in the last 12.000 years it is not possible to know for sure what is going on. The earthquake activity suggests that this is a mixture of magma connected earthquakes and stress changes due to Bárðarbunga volcano changes. Making it nearly impossible to know for sure what is going on, at least for now anyway.


Tungnafellsjökull volcano is located north of Bárðarbunga volcano. It is marked by cluster of small earthquakes (red dots) on this image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

What is different now, is that after a long period of quiet there was a sharp increase in earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. If past earthquake swarm activity is anything to go by I expect this earthquake activity to die out slowly and activity should go back to normal in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. That means no earthquake activity at all. I don’t think that anything has changed in that volcano, at least I don’t have any hard evidence of that being the case for the moment. That might change since lack of historical eruptions leaves a room for lot of speculations.

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Weekly earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano (12-June-2017)

Today (12-June-2017) a magnitude 3,6 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake activity is mostly normal for Bárðarbunga volcano, there has been slight increase in earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano during the past few days (minor earthquakes), why that increase is taking place is unclear at the moment. This increased happened at the same time as a sharp increase in earthquake activity took place in Tungnafellsjökull volcano (read the article about that for more information).


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano and Tungnafellsjökull volcano. The green star shows the magnitude 3,6 earthquake. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Currently the activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is mostly what is now considered ‘normal’ after the 2014 – 2015 eruption. I don’t know if that status is about to change, but there are clues in current activity suggesting that might be about to happen. This increased activity however might slow down again and go back to normal background levels.

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Increasing earthquake activity in Katla volcano

Over the last few days there has been increasing earthquake activity in Katla volcano. The increase is slow, but this is a increase in activity. This holds in line with increased glacier melt during the Icelandic summer. What appears to be different now is the phase the increase is happening. At the moment the earthquake activity has not yet reached last year activity levels.


Earthquake activity in Katla volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake in last 48 hours had the magnitude of 2,4 and took place in a minor earthquake swarm inside Katla volcano caldera. Since then there has been minor earthquake activity inside Katla volcano caldera, but compared to last year current activity is low. Other earthquakes that have happened have been smaller in magnitude.

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Minor earthquake activity in Hekla volcano

Today (09-June-2017) there has been earthquake activity in Hekla volcano. Largest earthquake only has the magnitude of 1,0 and greatest depth is 2,2 km.


Hekla is to the right on this image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

At the moment there are no signs that this is going to lead to an eruption. That might change without warning. The source of this earthquake activity might be gas or steam activity in the crust in Hekla volcano, at least when it comes to shallower depth. At more depth it’s slightly difficult and increases the changes the earthquakes at those depth are created either by magma or pocket of gas breaking the crust.

At the moment Hekla volcano is not showing any signs that eruption is imminent.

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Deep earthquake activity in Trölladyngja (volcano)

Today (08-June-2017) there have been deep earthquakes in Trölladyngja (volcano). This earthquake swarm was shallower than last earthquake swarm that took place in Trölladyngja. Several months ago the earthquakes in Trölladyngja where happening at 28 km depth, but now they are at the depth range of 18,6 – 23,3 km, this means that the magma under Trölladyngja is migrating upwards at fast phase, a lot faster then I thought was possible. Earthquake swarm in November-2015 where slight off to the side, those earthquakes had the depth of 15 – 18 km as I wrote about here. Since November-2015 here has been other activity in Trölladyngja, but that has been in the form of one or two earthquakes so I have not written about it (I never bother with just one or two earthquakes at location due to the amount that happens daily in Iceland).


Earthquake activity in Trölladyngja (volcano), north-east of Bárðarbunga volcano fissure swarm. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Last eruption in Trölladyngja was according to GVP (under Bárðarbunga volcano history) was 7000 years ago. Since then nothing has happened. There has been a lot more eruption in Dyngjuháls area and that area is also having deep earthquakes. That area is also covered with ~200 meters of glacier. It remains to be seen what happens next in the Bárðarbunga volcano saga.

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Minor earthquake activity in Katla volcano

Today (03-June-2017) there has been a minor earthquake activity in Katla volcano. This was a minor earthquake activity and no earthquake did reach magnitude 2,0. Based on location and depth this activity suggests that magma was on the move inside Katla volcano. Most depth in this earthquake activity was 16,1 km.


Earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It seems that for now the activity has quieted down. June is the start of earthquake season in Katla volcano and until December there is going to be increased earthquake activity taking place.

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Weekly earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano (1-June-2017)

Today (01-June-2017) a earthquake swarm took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake swarm was in the regular location at north-east part of the caldera. Two earthquakes with magnitude 3,2 took place and one magnitude 3,6 earthquake happened. Other earthquakes in this activity where smaller in magnitude.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano today (01-June-2017). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is now getting close to weekly again. This suggest that magma inflow into the volcano is increasing again. What that means in the long term is unclear at this moment. Sometimes there is just one earthquake, but in most earthquake events there are now more than one earthquake with magnitude above 3,0.

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