Category: Swarm

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano on 13-October-2017

On Friday 13 of October 2017 there was an earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest earthquake in this activity had the magnitude of 3,1. Earlier earthquake had the magnitude of 2,9.


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

This latest earthquake is at an interesting location. This earthquake happens close to or inside the hydrothermal area in the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. This area has not seen a lot of earthquake activity in recent months. Magma at this location is at shallow depth as is shown by the hydrothermal activity. Geologists are estimating that magma is at around 1 km depth at the hydrothermal location. This hydrothermal vents have melted hundreds of meters of glacier already due to how energetic they are. The magnitude 2,9 earthquake took place in the normal north-east place in the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. There is also a interesting cluster of earthquakes in the north part of the caldera happening in last few hours.

At the moment there isn’t anything that suggest that an eruption is imminent in Bárðarbunga volcano.

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Minor earthquake swarm on Kolbeinsey Island

Today (Sunday 08-October-2017) a minor earthquake swarm took place in Kolbeinsey Island. Only three earthquakes where detected, but that does not rule out that more earthquakes happened but where not detected due to distance from land and the SIL network.


The earthquake activity is marked by the green star to the north on this image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake detected had the magnitude of 3,1 and the second largest earthquake detected had a magnitude of 2,1. Since 10:33 UTC this morning, that lack of activity does not rule out more activity in next few days.

New SIL station

I did see in the news today that Icelandic Met Office has added a new SIL station at Bjarnarey Island. This increases the earthquake resolution for Vestmannaeyjar area along with improving earthquake detection in Katla volcano and making it possible to detect small earthquakes deeper south of Iceland.

Icelandic news about the new SIL station, Jarðskjálftamælir í Bjarnarey að frumkvæði Vinnslustöðvarinnar (eyjafrettir.is).

Icelandic Met Office has also moved the SIL station in Vestmanneyjar Island around. The old location was not usable any more due to cultural noise from the population in Vestmannaeyjar Island.

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Ongoing earthquake swarm in Tjörnes fracture zone (TFZ)

Currently there is an ongoing earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This earthquake swarm has been going on since 05-October-2017. Over 120 earthquakes have happened so far. Largest earthquakes have had the magnitude of 3,9 (05-October), 3,5 (06-October), 3,0 (06-October). There is a good chance that in recent hours a new magnitude 3,0 earthquake has happened or is going to happen.


The earthquake swarm in TFZ as of 23:15 UTC on 06-October-2017. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The largest earthquake are felt by the local population in Grímsey Island and the magnitude 3,5 earthquake woke up the population last night (night of 06-October). No damage has happened so far in this earthquake swarm. I don’t know how far away from the population centre this earthquake swarm is happening but the distance is not that great. A 1 – 3 km at the most from the looks of it. Any large earthquakes are going to appear clearly on my geophones and they can be viewed here, the geophone station in Böðvarshólar gives the best signal if an earthquake with magnitude above 3,0 happens in TFZ.

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Article updated at 23:53 UTC. Minor text fixes.

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Increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano

On the 01-October-2017 there was an increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano. This increase continues but bad weather is making it difficult to monitor this activity. The largest earthquakes so far had the magnitude of 2,6 (two) all other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.


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

I have also started to detect low period earthquakes that are possibly from Katla volcano. The increase in that type of activity seems to follow increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Why that happens is not known to me. For the past 48 hours the activity seems to be lower then two days ago, but the weather is bad in the area preventing good detection of small earthquakes in Katla volcano. It also seems that the bad weather has damaged Goðabunga SIL station. It might take a while until Icelandic Met Office can fix Goðabunga SIL station.

Server upgrade

In the next few days the server for this website is going to be upgraded and moved to United Kingdom since it is slightly cheaper to host it there. I don’t have the exact date on the transfer. I just hope it happens without a problem. If everything remains quiet this should happen without anyone noticing much. I expect the response of this website and everything else that I host to be quicker after the server upgrade.


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Earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone (east of Grímsey Island)

Yesterday (01-October-2017) an earthquake swarm took place in Tjörnes Fracture Zone east of Grímesy Island. Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2,6 all other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude.


The earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone yesterday. Copyright of this image belong to Icelandic Met Office.

Around 55 earthquakes happened in this swarm that appears to be over. This part of Tjörnes Fracture Zone is highly active and has several earthquake swarm every year.

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Continued earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

On 28 and 29th of September 2017 an earthquake activity took place in Öræfajökull volcano. Most of the earthquake that have happened are minor in magnitude, one magnitude 2,5 earthquake took place and on 29th September a magnitude 2,0 earthquake took place, this is automatic magnitude and might not be correct. The depth of this earthquake is the default one (1,1km).


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

It is extremely difficult to know what this earthquake activity means if it means anything at all. The reason being that this might be part of Öræfajökull volcano normal activity that is not going to result in a eruption. There currently is no way to know for sure what this means, since last eruption took place in the year 1728 and proper monitoring of Öræfajökull volcano only started few years ago. Current activity is however slightly above normal background activity that can be expected from a volcano like Öræfajökull volcano.

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Earthquake swarm west of Langjökull glacier

Yesterday (28-September-2017) a earthquake swarm has been taking place west of Langjökull glacier, it is close to a volcano named Presthnjúkar. It is the same system and inside its fissure swarm. The area in question has known faults from the modern era (12.000 years).


The earthquake activity west of Langjökull glacier. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquakes that happened had the magnitude of 2,8 and 3,1 both where felt by staff of a tourist company that operates in this area. There is no permanent population in this part of Iceland. I don’t know when this area last erupted.

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Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull and Kverkfjöll volcano

Since this volcanoes are in the same part of Iceland I am going to write about them in the same article.

Öræfajökull volcano

I don’t think this was a glacier earthquake activity happening in Öræfajökull volcano. I don’t know how many earthquakes took place this time around. Largest earthquakes had magnitude of 2,0 and 1,8 all other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude. Currently there is no GPS monitoring for Öræfajökull volcano that I know of.


The earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano and Kverlfjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is noticing how this time the earthquake swarm is all on the east side of the volcano. This earthquake activity is interesting and this also seems to signal an increase in earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano at least for the time being. It remains a question if this activity slows down again. Earthquake activity in this part of Iceland only happens due stress changes in Öræfajökull volcano. This is most likely influx of magma into Öræfajökull volcano but it might not erupt right away or at all (at least for a long time).

Kverkfjöll volcano

A minor earthquake swarm took place in Kverkfjöll volcano today (23-September-2017). Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2,1 and the second strongest earthquake had a magnitude of 1,4. The earthquake swarm was in the central part of the volcano. This is the first earthquake swarm since 2015 in Kverkfjöll volcano and the activity that year was mostly due the activity happening in Bárðarbunga volcano next to it (the dike from Bárðarbunga volcano did disturb Kverkfjöll volcano). Since this earthquake activity took place everything has been quiet in Kverkfjöll volcano.

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Two strong earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (17-September-2017) at 14:23 UTC two magnitude 3,9 earthquakes happened in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake activity was at the north-east part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera where earthquake activity has been taking place since September-2015. This earthquake activity is happening due to inflation in Bárðarbunga volcano.


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

Since September-2015 the rate of activity has been dropping. Now earthquake swarm happens every 11 – 18 days or so. Currently there are no clear signs that an eruption is imminent.

Small note on Þórðarhyrna volcano

On the map above a small earthquake with magnitude of 1,3 can be seen in a volcano named Þórðarhyrna. That volcano is part of Grímsfjall volcano system. Last confirmed eruption in Þórðarhyrna volcano was in the year 1902 (December) and it lasted until 12th January 1904. Not many earthquakes happen in Þórðarhyrna volcano and that suggests that an eruption might happen in this volcano without much warning. The eruption before 1902 – 1904 eruption was in 1887 and that eruption lasted until 1889. Suggesting that when eruption happen in Þórðarhyrna volcano they are long lasting and create a lot of damage as this volcano is completely covered with glacier. I make note of this because I suspect that Þórðarhyrna volcano might erupt without much warning in next few years.

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Sharp increase in earthquake activity in Öræafjökull volcano

There has been increasing earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano in recent months. This increase is slow but it seems to be happening at faster phase to my surprise. For the first time the earthquake activity forms a direction along a fault line (it looks like a fault line) the direction of the fault line is east-west.


The earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano (south part of Vatnajökull glacier). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This was a minor earthquake activity in terms of magnitude of earthquakes happening. With largest earthquakes only having magnitude 2,2 and all other earthquakes smaller in magnitude. Last eruption in Öræfajökull volcano took place in 1727 August 3 and ended 10 months later on 1728 May 1 +- 30 days. That eruption was a VEI=4 in size. For comparison the last eruption in Grímsvötn volcano in 2011 was also a VEI=4. I don’t know how this activity in Öræfajökull volcano is going to evolve, what seems to be clear that unlike Eyjafjallajökull volcano this change is happening a lot faster in Öræfajökull volcano then in Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Those two volcanoes are comparable of structure and volcano output (Eyjafjallajökull volcano 2010 eruption was also VEI=4). If an eruption happens in Öræfajökull volcano I would expect similar flight disruption as happened during the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano. At the moment, there doesn’t seems to be any major risk of eruption in Öræfajökull volcano.

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