Yesterday (01-March-2021) at 19:53 UTC an magnitude Mw3,3 earthquake took place north-east of Grímsey island. This might be a new earthquake swarm in this area since earthquake swarms in Tjörnes Fracture Zone often star slowly. Earthquake swarms are common in this part of Iceland.
Earthquake activity north-east of Grímsey island. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
There is a chance of a stronger earthquake swarm in this area. Currently the activity remains small and nothing more might happen. This earthquake activity is not connected to what is happening on the Reykjanes peninsula.
Next article about Reykjanes peninsula activity is going to be written tomorrow (2-Mars-2021) unless something major happens.
Today (1-March-2021) it was confirmed that Krýsuvík volcano is having a large magma injection from depth into the shallower layers of the crust. Resulting in the current earthquake swarm. At the writing of this article it seems that the magma is located at around 6 km depth. Detected displacement by GPS recordings is now more than 30cm according to the news and scientists.
Inflation map of Reykjanes peninsula showing displacement. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
The image above is from here on Facebook. What is also interesting is the activity in Reykjanes volcano. There have also been earthquakes in Reykjanes volcano but they have been fewer but not necessarily smaller in magnitude
Next article is going to be tomorrow (02-March-2021) if nothing major happens.
Update 2-March-2021 at 13:40 UTC
This morning it was confirmed that the volcano that is having a major dyke intrusion is the volcano Krýsuvík and not the volcano Reykjanes as I first thought since earthquake activity for the last 14 months has been most active in this volcano. This article has been corrected in light of this information. The border between the two volcanoes is little unclear on the map and even different between maps.
This is a short update on activity in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes.
There has not been a lot of change in the earthquake activity in Reykjanes volcano. There has been a slight increase in earthquake activity compared to yesterday (28-Febrary-2021) but that increase is not a lot and only from 800 earthquakes to 1000 earthquakes for a 12 hour time period according to the news. Largest earthquake in last 24 hours had a magnitude of Mw4,9 and was felt over a wide area in West Iceland and was clearly felt in Reykjanes area.
The earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
There have now been two earthquakes outside Reykjanestá out in the ocean. A swarm of earthquakes started to appear at that location few hours ago. It is unclear what this earthquake activity means for now. This earthquake activity is something that needs to be watched since it seems to be connected for some unknown reason to the main earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula.
Update at 16:57 UTC
The newest earthquake has the magnitude of Mw5,1 at 16:35 UTC. This earthquake was felt over a wide area in western Iceland and all over Reykjanes peninsula.
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Article updated at 16:58 UTC.
Article updated at 23:35 UTC.
I have now switched to daily update for the earthquake swarm in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes.
The situation in the earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula in the volcanoes Reykjanes and Krýsuvík remains the same. During the last 24 hours the largest earthquakes have had magnitude of Mw4,7 and a lot of earthquakes with magnitudes above M3,0. No magma movement has been detected so far but University of Iceland – Earth science department warned that detection of magma is only limited to the first 5 km of Earth crust and any magma movement below 5 km might not be detected by seismometer. It also issued that signs of magma might be getting lost in all this earthquake activity that is currently taking place and no clear sign of magma have been detected. The whole thing can be read on Facebook here. Text in English is provided by Eldfjallafræði og náttúruvárhópur Háskóla Íslands about this.
Current earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Some of the earthquake activity has migrated closer to the mountain Keilir. Other earthquake activity appears to be located at the same place as before. That location is close to Fagradalsfjall mountain and Krýsuvík volcano. If that changes anything when it comes to this earthquake activity I don’t know but the risk is there. Icelandic Met Office is now hoping that the earthquake swarm ends next week.
If anything major happens I’ll post new article soon as possible.
This is a short update on the activity on Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes.
Largest earthquake in the last 24 hour had a magnitude of Mw5,2 at 08:17 UTC and this earthquake was felt over a wide area in west Iceland. Over the last 48 hours there have been 95 earthquakes with magnitude above Mw3,0. GPS is showing a lot of displacement and those information can be found here. Largest displacement has been in and around Krýsuvík and other GPS stations on Reykjanes peninsula.
Earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Cracks have also formed in one road and other surface damage and other small damages have started to appear in buildings and roads on Reykjanes peninsula. There is going to be a storm in Iceland until early 2-March-2021. This storm is going to reduce the detection of smaller earthquakes in this earthquake swarm while it goes over Iceland.
All this information can change without warning.
News about cracks in the road on Reykjanes peninsula
This is a short update on activity in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes. This update is written at 19:28 UTC.
The activity today (25-February-2021) has been mostly just minor earthquakes. Largest earthquakes today had a magnitude of Mw3,5 but this number can still change. In the last 24 hours over 2500 earthquakes have been recorded by Icelandic Met Office according to the news.
Earthquake activity on the Reykjanes peninsula over the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Steam has been confirmed close the parking lot close to Keilir mountain on Reykjanes peninsula. This area did not have steam before the Mw5,7 earthquake yesterday (24-February). It is unclear that is going on in that location. There continues to be high risk for a earthquake with magnitude Mw6,0 to Mw6,8 on Reykjanes peninsula because of this earthquake activity.
I’ll post update soon as possible if anything happens.
This is a short update at 21:19 UTC about the earthquake activity in volcanoes Reykjanes and Krýsuvík.
Earthquake activity slowed little since last update at 14:41 UTC. There are now fewer larger earthquakes taking place at the writing of this article. That has the chance of changing without warning. There seems to be new areas of activity appearing on the automatic Icelandic Met Office map. It is unclear if this is a artifact of the heavy earthquake activity in the area or a real thing is difficult to know for sure at the writing of this article.
Earthquake activity on the Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.Earthquake activity on the Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Currently there are no signs of magma moving in both volcano systems. That might change without warning if there is a sudden change in activity. Because of how long it has been since last eruption took place in both volcanoes what happens before an eruption is unclear. What is only known from around 681 year old historical records that did survive to this day is that earthquake activity increases sharply before an eruption and does so a good while before the first eruption happens. Last eruption in Krýsuvík volcano was in the year 1340.
I am going to post next update tomorrow (25-February-2021) unless something major happens and then I’ll post a new article soon as possible.
According to new pictures from Icelandic Coast Guard. Steam has been seen from the area that had the strongest earthquakes this morning. This seems to be in a area that did not have an earlier any steam activity, this however depends a confirmation.
The earthquake activity on the Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Icelandic News about the steam activity that has been detected.
This is a short update at 12:28 UTC on the earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula and in Reykjanes volcano.
It is possible to see the earthquakes in my webicorder website here. This website is on limited bandwidth so it might load slowly if there is a lot of traffic to it. I am also self hosting it because of software requirement.
Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of Mw5,7 and was felt over most of Western Iceland. Minor damage has been reported in Reykjavík but it has been limited to stuff falling off shelves, walls and other such locations.
The earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.The trace of the earthquake activity in Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
I am going to post updates as I know more about this earthquake activity. The reason why I am a bit late on this is that I was sleeping and I didn’t wake up with earthquake activity.
During the night of 13-February 2021 an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,0 took place at 02:30 UTC. This earthquake is normal and is because of inflation in Bárðarbunga volcano after the eruption ended in 2015.
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
There is one of this earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano every few months and last earthquake with magnitude Mw3,9 took place on 21-December-2020 in Bárðarbunga volcano. This type of earthquake activity is going to continue in Bárðarbunga volcano for decades until next eruption happens in 20 to 100 years.
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