Category: Swarm

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Earthquake swarm in South Langjökull volcano and Krýsuvík volcano

Today has been spotted with earthquake swarms in Iceland. This earthquake swarms have not been big so far in both terms of earthquakes and size of the earthquakes. With the biggest earthquakes in South Langjökull volcano (Presthnjúkar). The biggest earthquakes in South Langjökull volcano have been around ML2.5 in size. With the average depth of 10 to 5 km. Total number of earthquakes is something around 39 and that is an small earthquake swarm.

The area in question is known for earthquake activity. Few years ago there was an earthquake swarm in this area with several ML4.0+ earthquakes. This area did also see earthquake swarm earlier this year. So far nothing suggests that an eruption is close in this area.


Map from Icelandic Met Office showing the area with the earthquake swarm. Click on the picture to get full size. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Krýsuvík volcano did also have an minor earthquake swarm today. The largest earthquake in Krýsuvík volcano was ML2.1 with the depth of 3.9 km. So far this earthquake swarm has been an minor one. With just over 32 earthquakes happening today.

Other earthquake activity in Iceland is currently not an lot. A ML3.1 earthquake took place few days ago in TFZ in an area that commonly has earthquake swarms. That area does not have any volcanoes, so earthquakes there are only connected to faults in the fault lines in that area.

Blog post updated at 23:29 UTC on 7. June 2011.
Blog post updated at 23:35 UTC on 7. June 2011.

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Earthquake swarm close to Geirfuglasker on Reykjanes Ridge

Today at 15:08 UTC a earthquake swarm did start close to Geirfuglaskeri on Reykjanes Ridge. This earthquake swarm has so far been small, with the largest earthquake having the automatic size ML2.4 with the depth of 10 km.

So far this earthquake swarm has remained small. But it is unclear if this earthquake swarm is going to continue. But there was a break in this earthquake swarm from 16:12 UTC too 18:55 UTC. But I did think that this earthquake swarm was over, until it did start again.

It is impossible to know if this earthquake swarm is over or not.

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Interesting earthquakes north of Askja volcano

There is a interesting cluster of earthquakes north of Askja volcano. What is most interesting is the fact that this earthquakes are shallow This cluster of earthquakes is most interesting for the fact that it is shallow. The depth of the earthquakes is from 8.4 km and up to 0.1 km (~100 meters). This suggests that this is a dike intrusion is making. But appears to be growing slowly (a bit unclear at the moment however). But at this time it is impossible to know if this possible dike intrusion makes it too the surface or not.

History tells that it is not unclear for Askja volcano to erupt in small fissures. But that last happened in the Askja eruption in the year 1961.

Currently it is unclear what is going on north of Askja volcano. But this is for sure evolving into something in my opinion. But the question remains how long this is going to take. But this process has already been ongoing now for about 14 months and counting.

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Earthquake swarm at Upptyppingar

I notice that there is a small, yet growing earthquake swarm taking place close to a small mountain named Upptyppingar. This mountain is within the fissure swarm of Kverkfjöll volcano but the area is in it self not active volcanically.

Few years ago (2007) there was a earthquake swarm in this area that did have something about 2000 earthquakes over a 48 hour period. The reason why there is earthquake activity in this area is due to magma being pushed up into the bedrock below. This process is something of the same that took place before the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption. But with the major difference that here is no central volcano doing this.

Earthquake pictures from IMO from that time. No map sadly as I forgot to save them or they are stuck on my main computer that holds all my geological data.

Text updated at 03:28 CET on 18.02.2011. Minor error fixes in the text.