Category: Katla / Mýrdalsjökull

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.

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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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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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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Today (19.04.2017) a strong earthquake swarm started in Katla volcano. Largest earthquake in this swarm had magnitude of 3,0 and 3,1 other earthquakes that happened where smaller in magnitude. This is the strongest earthquake activity in Katla volcano since January 2017 when a magnitude 4,3 earthquake happened. No harmonic tremor was detected following this earthquake swarm.

The earthquake swarm in Katla volcano. Green stars show the magnitude 3,0 and 3,1 earthquakes. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The earthquakes that I detected on my geophone in Heklubyggð show that the largest earthquakes was a mixed type of volcano earthquakes. This means that magma was responsible for today’s earthquake swarm. It was reported today in the news that this earthquake swarm took place away from all major hydrothermal areas inside Katla volcano caldera. The area of activity is close to eruption area of 1755 and a minor eruption close to current earthquake area in 1955 (didn’t break the glacier).

The main earthquake with the magnitude of 3,1 in Katla volcano. The trace is filtered at 4Hz due to high wind in the area. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see CC licence for more details.

This earthquake activity might just be a early signs of more activity to come. Since current pattern of activity has been going on since August-2016, with minor drop in activity between January to April. How this evolves depends on many factors that cannot be predicted due to lack properly documented earthquake history. Scientists know some details of Katla volcano eruptions behaviour, but those accounts are not fully accurate due to lack of knowledge at the time, currently the best documented eruption in Katla volcano is from 1918.

Article updated at 20:41 UTC. Correction made to the information about strongest earthquake. I recalled that detail wrongly.

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For the past few days there has been a earthquake activity in Katla volcano. This is in two forms, as earthquake swarm that are taking place and earthquakes that spread around the caldera and the volcano.

The earthquake activity in Katla volcano over the past 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

All clues suggest that an eruption is going to happen soon in Katla volcano, as it currently stands. The problem is that Katla volcano might cool down and not erupt at all, what makes this period different is the fact this earthquake activity has been ongoing since end of August-2016. At the moment the earthquake activity is just a minor activity, with most earthquakes have less magnitude of 3,0. There are no signs that suggest that this activity is slowing or stopping.

Technical problems (Iceland geology)

Yesterday I was having technical problems with Iceland geology. Turns out the source of this issue is that my server is getting too small. I started using the current dedicated server in 2015 and then it was enough (page view count for 1 day ~1100, today that is ~2100 for 1 day). Today, Iceland Geology has traffic that is too much for my current server. This means that I need to do an upgrade when I can afford it. That won’t be this month as it currently stands, moving to a new server costs $219/month, at the moment I’m paying $140/month for dedicated hosting. The new server is going to be 3,60Ghz with 16GB ram. Current server has 4GB ram and just 1,66Ghz CPU. Making this upgrade a urgent one due to the increase in traffic that Iceland geology is currently seeing.

At the moment I’m hoping that I’ll be able to move to a new server in May or June at the latest. I just hope that Katla doesn’t erupt before that, since it would result in a server issues due to lack of capability to handle all the traffic.

For the last 24 hours (15 and 16.02.2017) earthquake activity has been increasing in Katla volcano. If it follows earlier pattern, a swarm of earthquakes with magnitude 3,0 or stronger might happen in Katla volcano in next few days or next week at the latests. Please note that there is no good way to say when this might happen and time estimates are just guesses (based on current best data).

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

Current earthquake activity was not strong, the largest earthquake that happened had a magnitude of 2,0. All other earthquakes had smaller magnitude (at the moment). Earlier pattern have been that small earthquake swarm starts, a break happens for several hours for up to several days and then a swarm of activity happens with one or more earthquake with magnitude above 3,0. I’m expecting this pattern to repeat it self now, but what actually happens remains to be seen.

Today (26.01.2017) at 15:14 UTC a magnitude 4,3 earthquake took place in Katla volcano. This earthquake was felt in Vík í Mýrdal (village) and nearby area. A second earthquake with the magnitude of 3,0 took place few moments after the largest earthquake, a magnitude 2,9 earthquake (3rd largest) took place soon after the magnitude 3,0 earthquake. Other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude (at the moment).

The earthquake in Katla volcano, green star is the magnitude 4,3 earthquake. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The magnitude 4,3 earthquake in Katla volcano as it appeared on my geophone in Heklubyggð (distance ~53 km). This image is under Creative Commons licence, please see CC Licence website for more details.

No major change has happened in tremor plots around Katla volcano following this earthquake. Unclear signals on one SIL stations suggest that hydrothermal areas might have gotten exited just before the main earthquake, but that is unconfirmed and unclear if it can be confirmed at all.

This article is going to be updated as new activity happens (if there is a reason to do so).

Update 27.01.2017

Science council of the Civil protection agency in Iceland (Almannavarnir) has issued the following statement. This is a rude translation of that statement since none has been issued in English yet.

Increased risk of eruption in Katla

Earthquake activity in Katla has been unusually high since August 2016, with three earthquakes larger than magnitude 4,0 and many more earthquakes with magnitude 3,0. Earthquake activity is shallow and spread around the caldera. No harmonic tremor has been detected following this earthquake activity. Following this increase in activity small increase in geothermal heat has been observed. GPS station show that small inflation has been taking place since 2010 in the top kilometres of the crust. When activity increases in Katla, as has been the case now, the risk of eruption grows and that has to be considered by the emergency response teams.

(The rest is about Bárðarbunga, just the basic translation of it.)

Since September 2015 Bárðarbunga has been inflating slowly under the caldera. It might be many years until the next eruption, until magma pressure is at the same levels before the eruption started in 2014. It is impossible to exclude new eruptions in next few years. Limited measurements are on geothermal activity in Bárðarbunga, to the best knowledge little has changed in last few months. It is important to monitor geothermal activity due to risk of water collection in the caldera.

My note: Water collection increases the risk of sudden glacier flood from Bárðarbunga.

The news announcement in Icelandic

Fundur í Vísindaráði almannavarna
Auknar líkur á eldgosi í Kötlu (Rúv News)

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Article updated on 27.01.2017 at 18:53 UTC.

In the last 24 hours there has been a sharp increase of earthquakes in Katla volcano. This started yesterday with few minor earthquakes swarms with long quiet period between activity happening. This is what happens when magma is trying to push it self out of a volcano, but doesn’t have the energy to do so just yet. It is not fully understood why most of the earthquakes happen at 0,1 km depth, but it has been theorised (not proven) that Katla volcano is already so hot in the magma tubes that no further earthquakes are possible (for now at least). Details can be found here and here (pdf).

The earthquake activity in Katla volcano during the last 24 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake so far had the magnitude of 3,3. Other earthquakes that have happened are smaller in magnitude at the moment. Current earthquake count is 74 earthquakes, I think that number is going to increase if this earthquake activity continues. I suspect that it is going to do so, there might however be a drop in activity for few hours, days and up to several weeks at the time. Why that happens is something I don’t know. It is also worth noticing that there has been a lot of negative value earthquakes taking place. Those don’t show up on the new Icelandic Met Office website, just the old one.

There is a good chance of conductivity changes in glacier rivers from Mýrdalsjökull glacier. That data can be viewed here, just click on station to view its data. Please note that linking to a station here (in the comment) doesn’t work, I don’t know why that is.

Update 25.01.2017

On 24.01.2017 at 11:13 UTC a magnitude 3,1 earthquake took place in Katla volcano caldera. This earthquake was close to the area where considerable earthquake swarm had taken place. Since then the earthquake activity has quieted down a bit.

The earthquake activity in Katla volcano during the last 24 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Currently there is a quiet in the earthquake activity, since it happens in pulses with drop or no activity between them. The earthquakes that have been happening and I have recorded are hybrid earthquakes (details here). I don’t know if there have been any low frequency earthquakes or very low frequency earthquakes. I expect this earthquake activity to continue.

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Article updated on 25.01.2017 at 04:38 UTC.

Since Saturday 21 of January 2017 there has been unusual earthquake activity taking place in Katla volcano (for this time of the year). Small earthquake swarms have been scattered all over the caldera, largest earthquakes so far have only reached magnitude of 2,4. Other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.

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

This earthquake activity is unusual since normally Katla volcano is quiet in January and until June and often until mid-July when earthquake activity starts again. Current activity is unusual since snow has been adding on the glacier since it started snowing in Iceland this winter (November I think it was). Higher areas get snow sooner then lower areas, so it started earlier on Mýrdalsjökull glacier that is on top of Katla volcano. Currently the earthquake activity is ongoing, even if it has slowed down a little for the past few hours.

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