Volcano – Page 82 – Iceland geology

July 11, 2015July 11, 2015

Earthquake swarm in Tungnafellsjökull volcano

On Thursday 9-July-2015 an earthquake swarm started in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. So far around 50 earthquakes have been recorded in Tungnafellsjökull volcano, the earthquake swarm is currently ongoing. None of the earthquakes that have happened so far have reached magnitude 2,0 or stronger.

Earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. The yellow dots show older earthquakes. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.

It is my view that Tungnafellsjökull volcano is now preparing for eruption regardless of what Bárðarbunga volcano is going to do (it’s not over there, even if it is on a break at the moment). There is also problem with amount of time when this all started. It is clear that earthquake activity started to increase in Tungnafellsjökull volcano in the year 2012 and it has been increasing since that year. It is clear that with the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano it seems to have given Tungnafellsjökull volcano more energy and increased it’s activity, why and what the connection between the volcanoes remains unclear at the moment.

Current earthquake activity suggest that this is going to develop in similar way the weeks before the eruption in Eyjafjallajökull volcano. It is not going to be exactly the same, it is going to be close and a lot of earthquakes are going to take place once Tungnafellsjökull volcano starts to heat up for real. When that happens I do not know, this might be take several more years at the longest. There is also a good chance that nothing is going to happen at all.

Donations: Please remember to support my work here so that I can write more and monitor the volcanoes in Iceland (this takes a lot of time and doing a summer job now makes this so much more harder. Due to lack of income for me from this website). Thanks for the support. 🙂

Twitch: When I am not writing about volcanoes or just writing I spend my time playing computer games. Now I have set-up my own Twitch channel that can be viewed here. I plan on doing some test broadcast this weekend.

July 1, 2015July 1, 2015

Earthquake swarm continues on Reykjanes ridge, small chance of eruption

Today (01-July-2015) earthquake activity continued on the Reykjanes ridge, largest earthquakes so far are magnitude 5,0 (EMSC information here). Second largest earthquake had magnitude 4,8, other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude. Total of 35 earthquakes that have taken place are larger than magnitude 3,0 and total number of earthquakes when this is written is 537.

Earthquake activity on the Reykjanes ridge. Green stars are earthquakes that are magnitude 3,0 or stronger. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.

Earthquake activity has dropped but is ongoing at the moment. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.

Earthquake activity now happens in pulses, with low activity for 2 – 4 hours before it increases again. It is not clear why this is taking place. Overall earthquake activity is dropping at the moment, it might increase again without a warning.

Yellow alert for risk of eruption

The alert level for this volcano that is now making earthquake noise has been raised to yellow. The change happened during my working hours so I was unable to write about it right away. This means there is a risk of eruption at this location, last eruption in this location was in the year 1879 according to the information I have collected here.

Current warning for the volcano at Eldey is yellow. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.

I don’t know for sure at the moment what the chances are of an eruption at the moment. That should be clearer in next 24 – 48 hours (I hope).

Donations: Please remember to support my work with donations or by using Amazon. Thanks for the support. 🙂

Article updated at 23:50 UTC.

June 29, 2015June 30, 2015

Deep earthquakes in Bárðarbunga and Tungnafellsjökull volcanoes

Even if the eruption in Holuhraun and Bárðarbunga volcano is over, there is no shortage of activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. With deepest earthquake in past 48 hours having the depth of 28,6 km and earthquakes don’t get a lot deeper than this in Bárðarbunga volcano. At this depth earthquake activity happens due to magma movements rather than tectonic stresses.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano (red dots). Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.

Earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano

Since the end of the eruption and any major activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Earthquake activity in Tungafellsjökull volcano has not stopped as expected. The earthquake activity continues at low levels and at great depth. With deepest earthquake in last 48 hours at 26,2 km.

Earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano (yellow / orange dots). Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.

It is unclear what is going on in Tungnafellsjökull volcano, it is clear that dyke intrusion is taking place at depth, if and when that might result in a eruption is not clear at this moment. This might lead to an eruption or it might not. It is impossible to know at this moment since Tungnafellsjökull volcano has no recorded or documented history of volcano eruptions in historical times.

Donations: Please remember to support my work with donations or by using Amazon. Thanks for the support. 🙂

June 10, 2015

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (10-June-2015) an magnitude 3,3 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake had the depth of 6,3 km.

Magnitude 3,3 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano is shown with the green star. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

No other earthquake activity has followed the magnitude 3,3 earthquake so far. This earthquake was a long period earthquake, that means it was magnetic in nature and was created by magma at 6,3 km depth. At the moment it is impossible to know for sure what is going to happen in Bárðarbunga volcano, far as I know there hasn’t been any inflation of Bárðarbunga volcano since the eruption in Holuhraun ended, that might have happened, just not detected due to the size of the area.

Donations: Please remember to support my work with donations. I also run the risk of getting really hungry this month due the fact that Iceland is really expensive and that problem is going to get worse until I move back to Denmark (where prices are slightly higher than in Germany, but a lot lower then in Iceland). Thanks for the support. 🙂

June 7, 2015June 7, 2015

Overview of activity in Iceland in week 23

During Week 23 there hasn’t been a lot of activity taking place. Normal minor-earthquake activity has been taking place all over Iceland, some glacier earthquakes have been seen in Vatnajökull glacier. This spread out earthquake activity is normal for Iceland, it is also easily detected in Iceland due to the dense seismometer network in Iceland. Earthquake activity continues in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Normal earthquake activity in Iceland at the moment. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorologist Office.

At the moment the earthquake activity in Iceland is within normal background levels. Minor earthquake activity is almost always taking place in Iceland, there are few days when no earthquakes happen, but those days are rare and it is long between them. At the moment there is nothing to report in terms of the activity in Iceland.

Work schedule

This summer I am working Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 16:00. This means if anything happens I won’t me aware of it until I get back from work.

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. They help me work on this website and keep my alive. I have found out that food is expensive in Iceland and over the past two years that price has only gone up and it continues to do so. This means the budget I used in Denmark for food is not enough in Iceland (I have adjusted the plans, that type of living is going to be a challenge for the next 9 – 11 months when I am going to be living in Hvammstangi, Iceland). I am now close to getting completely broke. Most of my working income is going to pay up my debt (what I get of it, since I pay full tax [37,30%] of it in Iceland). I hope to be finished paying up all my debt in October. Thanks for the support.

Article updated at 20:48 UTC.
Article updated at 23:04 UTC.

June 1, 2015

Alert level for Bárðarbunga volcano lowered

Today (1-June-2015) the alert level around Bárðarbunga volcano was lowered to uncertainty level from danger level. This means there are no longer any travel restrictions in the area. Besides normal spring closure in the highlands due to the snow melting (and creating mud areas). There is a risk of snap floods in the area due to hydrothermal activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. It remains high according to the latest news. The risk area for that melt water is in Jökulsá á fjöllum glacier river, since melt water can collect under the glacier and then flood the river days to weeks later. It is also not known what is going to happen when the summer melt period starts in Jökulsá á fjöllum glacier river. A new lake might from in the area next to the glacier where the lava blocked the glacier river path, the glacier water comes from Dyngjökuli glacier.

Icelandic News about this

Frá hættustigi á óvissustig (mbl.is, Icelandic)
Ekki lengur hættustig vegna Bárðabungu (Rúv.is, Icelandic)
Viðbúnaður vegna jarðhræringa við Bárðarbungu færður niður á óvissustig (Vísir.is, Icelandic)

May 30, 2015May 30, 2015

Strong earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano

Yesterday (29-May-2015) there was a strong earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano. Largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,0, a smaller magnitude 3,1 earthquake also took place.

Green star shows the location of the magnitude 3,1 and 4,0 earthquakes. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Other earthquakes in this swarm where smaller, total of 97 earthquakes where recorded. Earthquakes swarms in this area are common, since the volcano has been inflating and deflating for the past few years. I don’t know if this earthquake swarm was related to such movements, since tectonic forces often create strong earthquake swarms in this area and along the Reykjanes peninsula and Reykjanes ridge.

The earthquakes as they appeared on my geophone in Heklubyggð. This image is under Creative Commons licence. Please see CC Licence page for more details.

On the geophone shut-down

There has been some discussion about me turning off the geophone network in Iceland. There is one station renaming in Heklubyggð and that station is going to continue to run for some time now (it doesn’t use the 3G network in Iceland). When it turns off I do not know. Besides 3G connection costs that have been going up in Iceland for the past few years, it has also become more expensive for me to fix the computers if they fail, along with 3G signal leak and other issues. It is also time consuming to run a remote network. I do help people if asked on what to buy in terms of hardware if they want to start there own geophone or seismometer. I don’t plan on stop recording earthquakes, I just plan on doing that just from my home once I am back in Denmark.

As for sensitivity of such hardware, it depends on what type of hardware is being used. Geophones are good for local earthquakes but more sensitive hardware is needed to record earthquakes at longer distance, like the magnitude 6,8 earthquake in Alaska this morning. It can be viewed here for the next few hours on long period seismometer (the top one and few others).

May 12, 2015May 13, 2015

How Bárðarbunga volcano collapsed

There is a good article about how Bárðarbunga volcano collapsed during it’s six month long eruption in Holuhraun. The most recent data (the work on Bárðarbunga volcano is far from over even there is no eruption taking place currently) show that Bárðarbunga volcano did in fact collapse. This collapse was not marked by a big explosion, but rather slow subsidence of Bárðarbunga volcano over a large area. Holuhraun eruption is the largest eruption in Iceland for the past 230 years, both in magma and size of the eruption.

More details can be found here.

Iceland’s Bárðarbunga-Holuhraun: a remarkable volcanic eruption (blogs.egu.eu)

May 11, 2015

Small glacier flood from Grímsfjall volcano caldera

Today (11-May-2015) a glacier flood started from Grísmfjall volcano caldera. This is not a dangerous glacier flood due to its small size. There is however a danger from sulphur gases and other gases that dissolve when the pressure is dropped on the water. If people get too close to the Gígukvísl glacier river where the flood comes from Vatnajökull glacier they risk a damage to there eyes and lungs due to burning effects from the gases in the air.

Increased harmonic tremor from Grímsfjall volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There is now a increased harmonic tremor from Grímsfjall volcano. It is not clear why that is, it is either the glacier flood or hydrothermal vents boiling at the bottom of the lake due to the sudden pressure release on them. There is nothing suggesting that an eruption is going to follow this glacier flood from Grímsfjall volcano. Last glacier flood took place in 2014.

Icelandic News

Lítið hlaup í Gígjukvísl (Rúv.is, Icelandic)

May 2, 2015May 2, 2015

Earthquake activity in Askja volcano

During the week there has been a swarm of minor earthquakes in Askja volcano. All of the earthquakes have been small and none have reached magnitude 2,0 far as I know.

Askja volcano is the volcano most south on this image (the volcano on the end). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There is nothing suggesting that current earthquake swarms are due to magma movements at shallow depths. This is rather hydrothermal activity changes in the volcano due the it being warmed up by new magma entering it and warming up groundwater inside the volcano. That has happened before in earlier eruptions and is documented, the time scale of such changes is not documented far as I know.

Askja volcano started for prepare for an eruption phase in 2010, so far nothing suggest that an eruption is imminent, but it remains a question if the push from Bárðarbunga volcano has changed anything in Askja volcano.

Article updated at 18:56 UTC.

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