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.
It is a common misconception that eruptions take place in Iceland every 4 to 5 years. That is the average number of years between eruptions. The actual picture of the eruption rate in Iceland is far from this simple. Eruption activity in Iceland happens in periods of 50 to 80 years. With long quiet periods between them that last up to 50 to 80 years. The period of high activity and low activity are about equally long according to scientific data. The longest period of quiet took place in the year 1720 to 1880, that is a quiet period of 160 years. The shortest period of quiet took place 1620 to 1720, this is a period of 100 years. The rate of eruptions during the active areas is 4 to 11 eruptions over a period of 40 years, but during the quiet period that number is 0 – 4 eruptions over a period of 40 years. In every case but one the eruptions where in Grímsfjall volcano.
Last peak in eruptions in Iceland took place in the years 1880 to 1900. Last eruption low took place in the year 1960 in Iceland. Before that this low in activity took place in the year 1820. The reason for this behaviour is that activity in the rift zone happens in jumps. It is not even activity with long quiet periods between them. [Speculation] If I use basic maths to figure out when next peak in activity is going to start, it puts it down in the year 2020. If that is going to happen is something that remains to be seen.
Reference material in Icelandic
Sigurður Steinþórsson. „Er eldvirkni á Íslandi sveiflukennd?“. Vísindavefurinn 19.7.2000. http://visindavefur.is/?id=672. (Skoðað 29.5.2014).
Donations: Please remember to donate to support my work. I don’t plan to use Google Adsense again. It is not worth the problems that it brings with it. If you buy something from Amazon via my banners (or this website) or my aStore (link here). I get 5 to 10% of the sale price as an advertisement fee (I don’t know the proper English for this, so this is going to have to do). Thanks for the support.
During the month of January-2014 around 1100 earthquakes where recorded according to Icelandic Meteorological Office. The largest earthquake during the month had the magnitude of 3,5 and took place on the Reykjanes peninsula. Earthquake swarm took place in Hveravellir geothermal area east of north Langjökull glacier.
The total earthquake activity in Iceland during the month of January-2014. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
Most of this earthquakes are small. Since no major earthquake activity took place in January-2014. There was however more activity in January-2014 then in December-2013 when only 800 earthquakes where detected by Icelandic Meteorological Office. More details about the earthquake activity in Iceland during the month of January-2014 can be found here, it is in Icelandic so Google Translate or such service is needed (quality of the translation is not guaranteed).
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The quiet period in Iceland continues as it has been doing for the past five months (according to my best knowledge). There is always some minor earthquake activity taking place, that is normal and should be expected. It is highly unusual if no earthquake activity was taking place for a long period of time.
All quiet in Iceland. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
This has been a unusual period of quiet in Iceland best to my knowledge. At least in terms of earthquake swarms and such activity. Volcano eruptions in Iceland only happen on average every 4 to 5 years. Last eruptions (two minor ones) took place in the year 2011. When Grímsfjall volcano erupted. Same year there was also minor eruption in Katla volcano, a week later an minor eruption took place in Hamarinn volcano. since this activity took place it has remained quiet in Iceland volcano wise. There have been earthquake swarms in this period, several strong ones. AT the moment however there is not a lot of activity taking place. That might change at any time. But watching for activity takes a lot of patents since often nothing happens for a long time.
Donation note: According to my bank account. I am going to starve rest of this month. Since I got no money for anything left and all I do spend my money on is food after paying my bills. Donations are welcomed for this reason.
If people buy from Amazon there is also an other way to support me if you shop trough Amazon (I get that paid later on, so that is no help for me at the moment). The links to my Amazon store can be found here. I get paid 5 to 10% of the sale price of what people buy on Amazon this way. Thanks for the support.
It’s been a while since I posted something here. The reason is simple. All this time nothing has happened in Iceland. It is has been quiet now since 21-January-2014 since the glacier flood took place. It appears that this quiet is set to continue for the time being. When it is going to end I do not know.
Quiet in Iceland at the moment. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
There was some deep earthquake activity on the Reykjanes Ridge during the week. The problem was it was or is poorly located. Most of the earthquakes also had less magnitude of 5,0. Earthquake swarms at this location do happen frequently, but do to location there isn’t much to tell about them.
Donation note: Please donate to help me continue this website. Please check this site for details on how to donate. Thanks for the support. 🙂
A new quiet period has started in Iceland, it is an extension of an quiet period that has been ongoing in Iceland for the past few months and is currently with no end in sight. I don’t know what is driving this quiet period at the moment, since quiet period are a bit of mystery and might always be that.
Quiet in Iceland. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
For the past two weeks just around 120 earthquakes have been recording during each week (7 days) and for Iceland that is really low amount of earthquakes. This type of quiet period has been ongoing for most of the year 2013. I just hope that new year 2014 is not going to be quite so quiet as 2013 was.
It is quiet in Iceland at the moment. There are so few earthquakes in fact that yesterday (or two days ago) no earthquake was recorded in Icelandic Meteorological Office SIL system for good 10 hours (or something like it) according to geologist that I spoke with yesterday. I am not sure why this happens in Iceland, but it does and not just Iceland. This type of quiet period happens all over the Atlantic rift zone. The weather in Iceland has also not been good, a lot of storms this year and that has been dropping chances of proper detection of earthquakes. This mostly applies to small earthquakes. I don’t know for how long this quiet period is going to last. As for the year 2013, it is one of the most quiet years that I can remember. I have been watching activity in Iceland for since the year 1994, or when I was 14 years old.
Thanks to donations I was able to buy backup power for Böðvarshólar geophone station (website here). This backup power is not meant to keep the station alive for hours, but just for 8 to 10 minutes if the power goes out. It is also meant to keep the electricity the station gets stable and without any problems. Electricity problems can and often do shorten the hardware lifespan, this is I hope going to prevent such issues and problems.
It is quiet and windy in Iceland, so here are few things that I have been thinking for the past few days.
Donations – Support
I have received a lot of donations over the years and for that I am truly thankful. For without them this site would not exist in it’s current form. I love writing and I love earthquakes and volcanoes, so it’s a good mix for me, for my fiction you can go here or buy it as e-book once it’s ready. The people who took my offer long time ago about free e-book if they supported me are going to get an e-book once I have something ready. I have not forgotten you. This is also something that I love to do. But that sadly does not pay the bills for me, for that reason I depend on donations since during quiet times in Iceland I do not have a lot of traffic when it is quiet in Iceland and that means less advertisement income. I have extremely little income from Amazon Advertisement at the moment, since it is 5 – 10% of the price of an item when people buy something from Amazon. Clicks do not count or extremely little with Amazon.
I’ve been into volcanoes and earthquakes since I was 10 years old. So I know a lot about them, since I have not been afraid to collect information and read about the volcano activity in Iceland. So my knowledge of this subject is the one of an expert, even if I am not educated by official school in Iceland in this field. So I can’t have a job in it, since hiring non-educated people in certain fields almost never happens in Iceland. It is just part of the quality standards that are in place in the world. I see nothing wrong with this, since I can and do attend to this subject in my own way.
My main income comes from social welfare in Iceland. That income is however low based on current exchange rate of ISK to DKK (~22,00 ISK = 1 DKK) so I remain poor here in Denmark. I would also remain poor in Iceland (due to higher prices on everything) if I had the slightest interest in living there (I don’t, just to be clear on that). So supporting me helps me to do my work here and keep monitoring the volcanoes and earthquakes in Iceland.
Storms – Windy
Winter storm period has started in Iceland this year. It was later this year than last year, but the strength of the storms is around the same. For this week they are predicting at least one storm tomorrow and maybe a second after that. This leads to lower detection threshold on the Icelandic Meteorological Office SIL network and my geophone network in Iceland. This also means that sometimes many of my geophone stations look like this.
Wind on Skeiðflöt geophone station. This image is under Creative Common Licence. See CC Licence page for more details (above).
The bad weather does not rule out that something might be taking place. It might however rule out technical ability to detect it on the SIL network or my geophone network. Since strong wind noise is followed by strong ocean wave noise on the SIL network and my geophone network (mostly in south Iceland). All that can be done is to wait for better weather to see what is going on in the crust.
Quiet period in Iceland
Currently there appears to be quiet period taking place in Iceland. It has already lasted for around 3 weeks now. Based on the data it is impossible to know when it ends. Bad weather is also making it difficult to know if anything interesting is taking place. Since minor earthquakes get drowned out by the wind and ocean noise on the SIL stations. Since I write mostly about current activity in Iceland this type of quiet period do not leave me with a lot to write about. But if it gets prolonged I am going to try and find something to write about in Icelandic geology.
It has been quiet in Iceland this summer, often with only 100 earthquakes during the week (7 days) taking place. This is normal for Iceland, since activity takes happens in jumps, with long quiet period between them. That quiet period can be from few days and up to thousands of years. This is normal for every rift and subduction zone on planet Earth, activity happens in short periods and during that time a lot of things can be going on during that period. Between it nothing is taking place, this applies to Iceland as any other place on Earth. Currently nothing is happening in Iceland and tension is building up while it is quiet, at some random point at some random day this tension is going to break and we are going to have either a earthquake swarm, eruption or both taking place.
All quiet in Iceland. There is currently some minor summer earthquake activity taking place in Katla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
For more information on Icelandic geology, I recommend this paper (pdf) by Páll Einarsson. It is from the year 2008, but is a good read on the tectonic settings in Iceland. It might be a surprice to many, but in Iceland there are actually 5 rift zones, they are called Western Volcanic Zone (WVZ), Central Icelandic Volcanic Zone (CIVZ), Eastern Volcanic Zone (EVZ), Northern Volcanic Zone (NVZ) and South Iceland Volcanic Zone (SIVZ). Then there is Reykjanes Peninsula Rift (RPR). This zones are not all active at the same time and there dormant time is different, some areas are just dormant for few years to decades, while others are dormant for thousands of years.
For the moment it is quiet, so I have little to write about. Since this blog mostly deals with current activity that is taking place in Iceland.
It has been quiet in Iceland, so quiet in fact that for 7-July-2013 there was only one earthquake recorded on the automatic SIL system. There were more earthquakes recorded on the manual review system that Icelandic Meteorological Office has.
All quiet in Iceland. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
I do not know how long this quiet time is going to last. Currently it is counting on around 4 weeks at the moment and it appears that the peak is today (so far). When this might change I do not know. I am using this quiet time to enjoy little bit of summer, even if I am broke (little to no money to use) at the moment.
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