Category: Magma

Posted on

Update on Fagradalsfjall volcano activity on 7-March-2021 at 00:21 UTC

This is a short update on activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano. This is mostly on the activity on 6-March-2021.

Overview of current activity

  • Earthquake activity is mostly limited to small earthquakes.
  • Risk of eruption has not been reduced with current change in activity.
  • The magma dyke is at the shallowest on 2 km but it has an average depth of 5 km to 8 km depth.
  • Most of earthquake activity is closest to Fagradalsfjall mountain (north end?). The dyke is situated between Fagradalsfjall mountain and Keilir mountain.
  • Fagradalsfjall volcano has not erupted in last 12000 years.
  • There has not been any magma activity observed in Krýsuvík volcano and Reykjanes volcano (Svartsengi volcano?). All earthquake activity in those volcanoes are due to crust stress changes due to inflation from Fagradalsfjall volcano.

 

Dotted line showing the Fagradalsfjall volcano
The area of activity according to Icelandic Met Office. This might also be the Fagradalsfjall volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There remains a high risk of a strong earthquake with magnitude between Mw6,0 to Mw6,5 because of crustal stress changes that are connected to all the inflation that is now taking place in Fagradalsfjall volcano.

Dense earthquake activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano with many green stars showing earthquakes with magnitudes above Mw3,0 and many new red dots showing new smaller earthquakes
Dense earthquake activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Harmonic tremor has not been detected again since Wednesday but that might change without warning.

Current web cameras of Keilir mountain and possible eruption area

Beint vefstreymi af skjálftasvæðinu – Efstaleiti (Rúv.is)
Beint vefstreymi af skjálftasvæðinu – Vogastapi (Rúv.is)
Keilir í beinni (mbl.is)
Óróasvæðið í beinni útsendingu (Vísir.is)
Live from Iceland
Keilir og skjálftasvæðið (YouTube)
Road camera 1
Road camera 2 (night vision/infrared)

If anything major happens I’ll write a new article soon as I possibly can do so.

Posted on

Update on activity in Fagradalsfjall and Reykjanes volcanoes

This is a short update on what is going on in Reykjanes peninsula. This article is written at 16:29 UTC.

Volcanoes in this article

Fagradalsfjall
Reykjanes
Krýsuvík

  • Fagradalsfjall volcano has not erupted since Pleistocene. When last eruption took place is not listed or not known. This the first magma movement in Fagradalsfjall volcano in 11700 years.
  • Eruption risk is now in Reykjanes volcano*.
  • *This might also be a different volcano known as Svartsengi (no Global Volcanism Profile). There is no agreements between maps on this detail for now. Reykjanes volcano might only extend into Reykjanestá and then is mostly under ocean and might not extend into Reykjanes peninsula as sometimes is shown on maps.
  • Krýsuvík volcano has quieted down a little in the last 24 hours. Eruption risk is lower for now in that volcano.
  • Largest number of earthquakes detected in one day was over 3000 earthquakes.
  • In the last 24 hours 12 earthquakes with magnitude above Mw3,0 have happened. Most of them are felt in nearby populated areas.
  • No harmonic tremor has been detected since it ended during the night on 4-March-2021.
  • During the last 48 hours over 3300 earthquakes have been recorded by Icelandic Met Office.
  • New! Magma is now estimated to be at 5 to 6 km depth but might be as shallow as 2 km depth.

 

Dense earthquake activity in the volcanoes Reykjanes, Fagradalsfjall and Krýsuvík volcanoes
Heavy earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula in three volcanoes. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Maps of possible eruption areas has been made by Earth science department of University of Iceland and can be found here. University of Iceland Earth science department also made a lava flow prediction can that map can be found here. Both maps are updated daily on Facebook.

Web cameras

Beint vefstreymi af skjálftasvæðinu – Vogastapi (Rúv.is)
Keilir í beinni (mbl.is)
Óróasvæðið í beinni útsendingu (Vísir.is)
Live from Iceland
Keilir og skjálftasvæðið (YouTube)

Added at 21:12 UTC

Road camera 1
Road camera 2 (night vision/infrared)

Cameras and links might go offline without warning.

Donations

It is possible to support my work with donations. It helps me in current financial situation that has remained rather bad. You should only donate if you can. Other ways to support my website is to let people know about it if they are interested in earthquakes, volcanoes and geology in Iceland. Thanks for the support. 🙂

Article updated at 16:53 UTC.
Article updated at 21:13 UTC.

Posted on

Update on activity in Fagradalsfjall, Krýsuvík, Reykjanes volcanoes

The situation on Reykjanes peninsula is getting complicated due to activity between three volcanoes. This article is written at 15:22 UTC.

The volcanoes that are now showing activity on Reykjanes peninsula

Reykjanes volcano
Krýsuvík volcano
Fagradalsfjall volcano (added from 04-March-2021)

Fagradalsfjall volcano has no document eruption history over the last 10.000 years and the main volcano location is unknown if it exists.

Updates from the last few hours

  • Small rift valley has started to form between Keili mountain and Fagradalsfjall mountain. This is part of the rift zone that is Reykjanes peninsula.
  • Harmonic tremor stopped this morning and as Icelandic Met Office has been telling the news the origins of this harmonic tremor was earthquake activity that was so dense it created this harmonic activity. In the morning the activity dropped a little.
  • Magma continues to move in the Fagradalsfjall volcano system.
  • Earthquake activity is now between the volcanoes Reykjanes, Fagradalsfjalls and Krýsuvík. Why that is unclear but magma movement for now is only in Fagrdalsfjall volcano system.
  • Largest earthquake in last 24 hours had a magnitude of Mw4,5. Over the last 48 hours total of 72 earthquakes with magnitude over Mw3,0 have taken place. There is no sign of activity slowing down.

 

Dense earthquake activity in Reykjanes volcano, Fagradalsfjall volcano and Krýsuvík volcano. A lot of red dots showing new earthquakes and green stars showing earthquakes with magnitude above Mw3,0 on Reykjanes peninsula
Heavy earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula in several volcanoes. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is currently impossible to know for sure what happens next since this situation is extremely complicated because of all the volcanoes interactions and earthquake activity.

Live internet broadcasts of Keilir

Beint vefstreymi af skjálftasvæðinu – Efstaleiti (Rúv.is)
Keil­ir í beinni (mbl.is)
Keilir og skjálftasvæðið (YouTube)

If anything major happens I am going to post update soon as possible.

Article updated at 15:38 UTC.

Posted on

Krýsuvík volcano update at 19:56 UTC

This is a short update since this situation is developing quickly.

No eruption has started at the writing of this article. Harmonic tremor is slightly lower compared to when it started at 14:20 UTC in Krýsuvík volcano. This drop in harmonic tremor started around 16:00 UTC. This harmonic tremor is ongoing as for writing of this article. There are no signs of the rift valley formation on the surface yet, but it does show up on measurements, both GPS and satellite measurements. Earthquake activity is high at the writing of this article but most earthquakes are small in magnitude but there are few earthquakes with magnitude of Mw3,0.

Earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano. A lot of green stars and red dots showing new earthquakes.
Earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
The earthquake trace shows a dense dots of blue, yellow, orange and red dots. All are earthquakes of different magnitude
Earthquake activity trace of the earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula. Most earthquakes are in Krýsuvík volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Web cameras of the possible eruption area can be found in this locations.

Beint vefstreymi af skjálftasvæðinu (Rúv.is)
YouTube stream.

I am going to add more streams as I find them online.

I’ll update soon as possible if anything happens. This situation is changing quickly.

Posted on

Harmonic tremor confirmed in Krýsuvík volcano – Eruption might be about to start

This article is written at 16:14 UTC. This is just a short update because the situation changes quickly.

Harmonic tremor has been detected in the Krýsuvík volcano. If an eruption happens as is now expected this is the first eruption in Krýsuvík volcano since the year 1340.

Harmonic tremor detected on SIL station Vogar. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Earthquake activity in the Krýsuvík volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

A rift valley has been confirmed to have formed in the Krýsuvík close to the area where the eruption is expected. This is between Keilir and Fagradalsfjall mountains. It is possible to watch live stream from this area on YouTube here.

Update at 16:41 UTC

Second web camera that is run by Rúv can be found here.

Next update when I know more.

Posted on

Daily update on Krýsuvík volcano activity on 2-March-2021 at 20:07 UTC

This is a short update on the activity in Krýsuvík volcano. The activity has been confirmed to be only in Krýsuvík volcano and nothing is currently happening in Reykjanes volcano at the writing of this article.

Krýsuvík volcano started to show changes in late 2008 and early 2009 and that has been going on since then in low activity. Krýsuvík volcano is strange in that it does not have any shallow magma chamber in the top layers of the crust and Krýsuvík volcano size is unclear. This uncertainty shows in maps as different maps show different size and location of Krýsuvík volcano. While there is no shallow magma chamber in Krýsuvík volcano it does not rule out a deep, large magma chamber that does not show up on any seismometer since this magma chamber is located in the top layers of the mantle (10 to 30 km).

Green stars show the location of the earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano on Reykjanes peninsula. They are located on a small narrow band in almost south-west and north-east location and there is one cluster of earthquakes close to Trölladyngja tuff mountain
Earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquakes since midnight had a magnitude of Mw4,6 and since around 12:00 it has been rather quiet in Krýsuvík volcano when it comes to large earthquakes. A lot of smaller earthquakes have been taking during all this time and there is no sign of those stopping. The reason for all this earthquake activity is a magma dyke that is now breaking its path up to the surface from around 10 km depth. There are nothing to suggest that process is about to stop or slow down. Drop in activity as is now happening are common feature of this type of dyke activity and was seen just before the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano (Holuhraun) in 2014 to 2015.

Earth Science department of University of Iceland released a pictures that show how this dyke in Krýsuvík volcano works and that image can be viewed here on Facebook.

If anything major happens I am going to post an update soon as possible. Next update is tomorrow (03-March-2021) if activity remains as it currently is.

Article updated at 20:25 UTC. Fixes in the text.

Posted on

Magma injection confirmed in Krýsuvík volcano [Updated article]

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.

Rainbow map showing the displacement. Largest dispacement is more than 30cm currently
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.

Posted on

Daily update for Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes 1-March-2021 at 16:27 UTC

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.

Dense pattern of earthquakes on the Reykjanes peninsula. Green stars and a lot of red dots.
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.

PayPal button

Since I was lazy and I had not closed down my PayPal account I made a reversal in change that I had made. It is now possible to support me with PayPal donation. Donations along with advertisement income from this website help me to keep writing about earthquake and volcano activity in Iceland and try to live some type of life at the same time. Thanks for the support. 🙂

Article updated at 16:58 UTC.

Article updated at 23:35 UTC.

Posted on

Daily update for 28-February-2021 at 21:18 UTC for earthquake swarm activity in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes

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.

A lot of earthquakes close to south-west end of Reykjanes peninsula also a lot of red dots on the map showing fresh earthquake activity that has been taking place in the last hour.
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.

Posted on

Update on Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes activity at 15:13 UTC on 27-February-2021

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.

Green stars show the earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula. The green stars go from south-west and to north-east but there is also a lot of red dots showing new fresh earthquake activity.
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

Sprungur á Suðurstrandavegi vegna skjálftanna (Rúv.is, Icelandic, Pictures)