Category: Monitoring

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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.

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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.

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Where has all the activity gone?

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.

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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.

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Melting of glaciers in Iceland might mean more volcano activity

In the evening news on Rúv tonight (23-July-2013) a interesting report about possible future volcano activity was being reported. A unpublished paper (according to Rúv News) reports that with more glacier melt in Iceland, more eruptions should be expected to take place. This is mostly true about areas like Vatnajökull glacier, as it holds several volcanoes that are under heavy pressure from the glacier ice. This applies mostly to volcanoes like Grímsfjall volcano, Bárðarbunga volcano and Kverkfjöll volcano, but those three volcano are the largest ones in Vatnajökull glacier.

This might also apply to areas like Mýrdalsjökull glacier. If this study is true, there might be more eruptions in Iceland in next few decades as the glacier melts away. This like so many other things, is however something that is just wait and see seranio.

At the moment, everything is quiet in Iceland when it comes to activity in volcanoes and on fault zones in Iceland.

Rúv News about this

Auknar líkur á eldvirkni með bráðnun jökla (Rúv.is, Icelandic, video)

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Minor earthquake swarm in Katla volcano

During the night (22-July-2013) a minor earthquake swarm took place in Katla volcano. Most of the earthquakes where shallow, with the depth of 1 km, one earthquake had the depth of 12 km. This earthquake swarm took place in the central area of the caldera. I am not sure what did create this earthquake swarm, it might have been a dike intrusion, or it simply might just be a pressure changes in hydro-thermal areas in this location.

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Minor earthquake swarm in Katla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This earthquake swarm is probably just part of normal summer activity in Katla volcano, at least there is nothing that suggests otherwise at present time. It is possible to watch the activity in Katla volcano here from my geophone at Skeiðflöt farm, just outside Katla volcano.

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Strong earthquake swarm north of Iceland

Since early night there has been a strong earthquake swarm north of Iceland, around 300 to 500 km away from Iceland coastline. All of the earthquakes in this swarm (that have been detected) have had the magnitude of 4.4. More smaller earthquakes appears also to have taken place, but where not properly detected by the SIL network or my geophone network.

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Magnitude 4.4 earthquake between Iceland and Jan Mayen. Copyright of this image belongs to EMSC.

More earthquakes from this swarm can be found on EMSC web site here.

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The earthquakes on Icelandic Meteorological Office earthquake map. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

I have been having connection issues with my Böðvarshólar geophone station, it can be viewed here. The reason is poor UMTS (3G) signal in the area where the station is. I am going to resolve that issue in December by installing a external antenna to the 3G modem that I am using, it should give me a stronger and more stable signal. For the moment there is little that I can do, other than just to hope the signal improves and gets more stable then it has been today.

Donations

I wanted to remind people that donations help me. Currently I have less then 60DKK to live what remains of July. That is not a good status for me to have at present time. Thanks for the support.

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All quiet in Iceland at the moment

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.

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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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Minor earthquake in Hekla volcano

A minor earthquake was detected in Hekla volcano on 21-June-2013. This earthquake was at north-east side of Hekla volcano, it had only the magnitude 0.6 and depth of 8.3 km. This is not at good detection according to Icelandic Meteorological Office person that I did speak to about this earthquake today.

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The earthquake in Hekla volcano to the north-east side. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This earthquake is just one earthquake in series of earthquakes in Hekla volcano. While this earthquake was poorly located due to almost not being detected, I am sure that the only reason this earthquake was recorded is due to more SIL stations around Hekla volcano that have been set-up in the past two years.

There are no signs of eruption is about to start in Hekla volcano.

Blog post updated at 00:22 UTC on 22-June-2013.

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Minor earthquake swarm in Katla volcano

Today (21-June-2013) there was an earthquake swarm in Katla volcano, this earthquake swarm took place in the same area where the minor eruption in the year 2011 (July) took place and created a minor glacier flood down Múlakvísl river. So far there is nothing that suggest a eruption is about to take place in Katla volcano, this activity needs to be monitored closely since things can change quickly in Katla volcano.

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Earthquake activity in Katla volcano on 21-June-2013. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This earthquake activity in Katla volcano starts around the same time as it did two years ago (2011), but then earthquake activity started on 17-June-2011 and continued until July-2011 and did not end until November-2011. This type of earthquake activity did also take place in June-2012, but no eruption did take place that summer. I expect this earthquake activity to continue in Katla volcano for the time being, sine most earthquake activity always happens during the summer in Katla volcano. It is unclear that is creating this earthquake swarm, it can be anything from pressure changes in hydro-thermal zones in this area, or magma injections at depth, I do not think any dike intrusions have taken place so far in Katla volcano.

Currently there is nothing that suggests eruption is going to take place soon in Katla volcano.

Blog post updated at 22:06 UTC on 21-June-2013.

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Fresh dike intrusion into Bárðarbunga volcano

Interesting earthquake activity continues in Bárðarbunga volcano. There is also interesting earthquake activity taking place in Hamarinn volcano. The source of this activity is magma dike activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. It is most likely not going to result in a eruption, but might be a sign of more activity in the future.

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Activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

There has also been activity in Hamarinn volcano, I do not know if it is connected with the activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. I find it unlikely to be the case, but I cannot rule it out at current time. It is unclear if this is new earthquake activity, it might be as simple as new SIL stations in the area, or this could be real activity increase in the area close to Hamarinn volcano. I am currently not clear on this detail as is. Last eruption in Hamarinn volcano was in July 2011, I did write about it here. It is worth keeping a eye on this activity in the Hamarinn volcano, it has proven to be a unpredictable volcano and it appears that magma is at shallow depth in it.

Blog post updated at 23:32 UTC on 20-June-2013.