Category: Swarm

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Sharp earthquake activity in Katla volcano – Update 1

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.

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Earthquake swarm in Katla volcano (18-June-2017)

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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Sharp increase in earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano

During the last few days there has been a sharp increase in earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. Since there has been no eruptions in the last 12.000 years it is not possible to know for sure what is going on. The earthquake activity suggests that this is a mixture of magma connected earthquakes and stress changes due to Bárðarbunga volcano changes. Making it nearly impossible to know for sure what is going on, at least for now anyway.


Tungnafellsjökull volcano is located north of Bárðarbunga volcano. It is marked by cluster of small earthquakes (red dots) on this image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

What is different now, is that after a long period of quiet there was a sharp increase in earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. If past earthquake swarm activity is anything to go by I expect this earthquake activity to die out slowly and activity should go back to normal in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. That means no earthquake activity at all. I don’t think that anything has changed in that volcano, at least I don’t have any hard evidence of that being the case for the moment. That might change since lack of historical eruptions leaves a room for lot of speculations.

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Weekly earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano (12-June-2017)

Today (12-June-2017) a magnitude 3,6 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake activity is mostly normal for Bárðarbunga volcano, there has been slight increase in earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano during the past few days (minor earthquakes), why that increase is taking place is unclear at the moment. This increased happened at the same time as a sharp increase in earthquake activity took place in Tungnafellsjökull volcano (read the article about that for more information).


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano and Tungnafellsjökull volcano. The green star shows the magnitude 3,6 earthquake. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Currently the activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is mostly what is now considered ‘normal’ after the 2014 – 2015 eruption. I don’t know if that status is about to change, but there are clues in current activity suggesting that might be about to happen. This increased activity however might slow down again and go back to normal background levels.

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Earthquake swarm west of Langjökull glacier

Few weeks ago an earthquake swarm started west of Langjökull glacier and is on the edge of western fracture zone. That earthquake swarm then stopped and has now started again and it appears that the magnitude of the earthquakes is increasing. The magnitude has gone from mostly 1,0 and up to mostly 2,0.


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

This earthquake swarm has all the signs of being intra-plate earthquake swarm, but due to location of it’s hard to be sure if that is the case. No fault lines are document at this location, that means no major earthquake activity has taken place there for a long time.

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Increasing earthquake activity in Katla volcano

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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Earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone east of Grímsey island

Today (09-June-2017) there has been a earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone east of Grimsey island. This was fairly large earthquake swarm in number of earthquakes that happened. Largest magnitude that happened was 2,2 and second largest was 2,1. All other earthquakes where smaller and I think around 40 earthquakes happened in this earthquake swarm.


The earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island on TFZ. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It seems that this earthquake swarm is over, at least for now. This area of Tjörnes Fracture Zone has been showing increasing earthquake activity over the last few weeks. It is difficult to know if that keeps up as it has been doing.

The earthquake swarm off Flatey island is now entering its fifth or six week. There are no signs of that earthquake activity quieting down for now at least.

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Earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano

Yesterday (08-June-2017) and today (09-June-2017) there has been a earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano. This earthquake activity doesn’t appear to be connected to the volcano, rather this is a normal rifting valley earthquake activity taking place.


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

Largest earthquake in this swarm so far had the magnitude of 2,6 and the second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 2,0. All other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude. The earthquake activity continues but has slowed down considerably from yesterday.

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Deep earthquake activity in Trölladyngja (volcano)

Today (08-June-2017) there have been deep earthquakes in Trölladyngja (volcano). This earthquake swarm was shallower than last earthquake swarm that took place in Trölladyngja. Several months ago the earthquakes in Trölladyngja where happening at 28 km depth, but now they are at the depth range of 18,6 – 23,3 km, this means that the magma under Trölladyngja is migrating upwards at fast phase, a lot faster then I thought was possible. Earthquake swarm in November-2015 where slight off to the side, those earthquakes had the depth of 15 – 18 km as I wrote about here. Since November-2015 here has been other activity in Trölladyngja, but that has been in the form of one or two earthquakes so I have not written about it (I never bother with just one or two earthquakes at location due to the amount that happens daily in Iceland).


Earthquake activity in Trölladyngja (volcano), north-east of Bárðarbunga volcano fissure swarm. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Last eruption in Trölladyngja was according to GVP (under Bárðarbunga volcano history) was 7000 years ago. Since then nothing has happened. There has been a lot more eruption in Dyngjuháls area and that area is also having deep earthquakes. That area is also covered with ~200 meters of glacier. It remains to be seen what happens next in the Bárðarbunga volcano saga.

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Minor earthquake activity in Katla volcano

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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