Category: Magma

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Earthquake with magnitude 4,1 in Bárðarbunga volcano

On 23-December-2017 at 23:41 UT a magnitude 4,1 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. At the moment no other earthquake activity has followed this earthquake.


Green star shows the location of the magnitude 4,1 earthquake. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

More earthquake activity cannot be ruled out in this area as the location is the normal north-east part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera that has been seeing a lot of earthquake activity since September-2015.

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Earthquake activity increasing again in Öræfajökull volcano

After quiet two weeks in Öræfajökull volcano earthquake activity has started in increase again. As before the magnitude of earthquakes happening remains small with only few earthquakes reaching magnitudes above 1,5.


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

Largest earthquakes today (23-December-2017) had magnitude of 1,4 and 1,1. All other earthquakes that happened where smaller in magnitude. It is at the moment difficult to know if this current trend continues and earthquake activity continues to increase in Öræfajökull volcano or is going to start dropping off again. Based on earlier pattern in October and November the earthquake activity is going to continue to increase, reach a peak and then start to drop off again. The fact remains is that nothing is certain when it comes to volcanoes and it is close to impossible to predict and know what is going on in Öræfajökull volcano.

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Two strong earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano

During the night of 20-December-2017 an earthquake swarm started in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake swarm started at 02:17 UTC with a magnitude 1,4 earthquake. The first magnitude 4,1 earthquake took place at 04:57 UTC and the second large earthquake took place at 05:29 UTC and had the magnitude of 4,4. All other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude and around 40 to 48 earthquakes happened.


Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Green stars show the location of the earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity was in the usual north-east part of the caldera of Bárðarbunga volcano. Currently hydrothermal activity is high and remains high in Bárðarbunga volcano. That means there is serious amount of magma inside Bárðarbunga volcano at shallow depth. That has not resulted in any small eruptions at the moment but that might change without warning (watch out for small magnitude focused earthquake activity).

Deep earthquake activity continues south-east of Bárðarbunga volcano (red dot on the image). That is magma movement but that activity doesn’t appear to be getting any shallower at the moment. That activity is focused in one location and might be high risk for an eruption in the future.

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Magnitude 3,5 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

During the night of 16-December-2017 at 02:41 UTC an earthquake took place in close to central caldera of Bárðarbunga volcano. Depth of this earthquake was 11 km and no aftershocks followed this earthquake. Both location and lack of earthquakes following this earthquake is unusual.


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

I suspect there is now coming a time period of stronger earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano, close to one that was earlier this autumn. When a earthquake with magnitude 4,7 happened.

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Magnitude 4,1 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

Early morning on 9-December-2017 a magnitude 4,1 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This type of earthquake activity is now common in Bárðarbunga volcano after the 2014 (August) – 2015 (February) eruption. The magnitude 4,1 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano was the largest earthquake in this swarm, second largest earthquake had a magnitude of 2,8 and happened several hours before.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is marked by the green star. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity is located in the south part of the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. Not far from cauldrons (at least two) that are now highly active in hydrothermal activity. If that is going to result in any glacier flood is not known at the moment, but the biggest chance is that the water levels are low at this locations at least for now. After the magnitude 4,1 the earthquake activity has stopped for now.

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Dyke intrusion in Öræfajökull volcano confirmed

Recent measurement of Öræfajökull volcano have confirmed a dyke intrusion, the dyke intrusion is located in south part of Öræfajökull volcano and that area is showing inflation. At the moment the amount of magma is now estimated at being close to the total of what erupted in 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano. At the moment the dyke is at depth of 2 – 6 km and that explains current hydrothermal activity in Öræfajökull volcano and why it is increasing. How long this is going to go on is not known at the moment. Öræfajökull volcano is a stratovolcano with everything that comes with it (information about this type of voclano can be found here and here).


The earthquake activity in Örfæajökull volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Last week total of 160 earthquakes where recorded in Öræfajökull volcano and that is a first time record for Öræfajökull volcano having this many earthquakes since recording of earthquakes started in Öræfajökull volcano (~1995?). Earthquake activity seems to be stable at the moment, when that changes is impossible to know at the moment.

Web cameras

There are now two web cameras. The websites are based on non-dynamic folder settings so this links are going to expire rather quickly.

Fagurhólsmýri web camera (only valid for now)
Web camera bridge (only valid for now)

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Cauldron in Öræfajökull volcano continues to get deeper and wider

Latest news of the cauldron that has formed in Öræfajökull volcano is not good. According to the news on mbl.is the cauldron got larger by 20 meters over a 9 day time period. Current shape of the cauldron now is close to the one of water droplet (according to the news). The hydrothermal activity is expanding to the south at the moment.


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

Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano is constant, sometimes bad weather is preventing detection of earthquakes. There has been a small increase in magnitude of earthquakes being detected at the moment that change is not large as most earthquakes are below magnitude 1,0.

Icelandic News (in English)

Öræfajökull caldera has deepened considerably (mbl.is)

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Continued earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

Earthquake activity continues in Öræfajökull volcano. There is a small drop in earthquake activity every few hours just before it increases again. This seems to be normal for earthquake like Öræfajökull volcano. The magma in Öræfajökull volcano is expected to be rhyolitic in nature. That explains the nature of the earthquakes swarms that are now taking place.


The earthquake activity in Öræfajökull 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 1,7. At the moment larger earthquakes have not yet happened in last few weeks (since the magnitude 3,5 earthquake took place). The earthquakes at the outline and some distance from Öræfajökull volcano seems to be fault lines that move as Öræfajökull volcano continues to inflate. There is some risk of earthquakes at those locations, it is my view that risk is mostly minimal for now at least. I don’t know how the development has been for the cauldron in Öræfajökull volcano caldera since I haven’t seen any news about the development of that area.

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Slow increase in earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

There seems to be a slow increase in earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. For the last 48 hours the number seems to be rising. This is how it looks on this graph from Icelandic Met Office.


Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano from 2005 – today. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This increase in earthquake activity suggest that more magma is pushing up the volcano at faster rate. The main idea now is that the magma that is pushing up Öræfajökull volcano is rhyolite in nature and that seems to be confirmed to an extent by the earthquake activity as it now appearing.


Last 48 hours of earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. The volcano is located in south part of Vatnajökull glacier. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

How this develops is a big question due to lack of accurate historical accounts. What is known about the eruption in 1362 was written down up to two centuries later and when that happens lack of accuracy is passed into the written record. The written record for the eruption in 1727 – 1728 is slightly better but is far from being accurate.

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Magma movement in Askja volcano (Dyngjufjöll)

For the past few days there has been a earthquake activity in Askja volcano. All of the earthquakes so far have been small in magnitude and only few have reached magnitude above 1,0. This earthquake activity is due to magma movements and its the first time I have seen it reported at this shallow depth (above 10 km depth).


Earthquake activity in Askja volcano. North of Vatnajökull glacier. There is also activity in Herðubreið to the east, but that’s an unrelated activity and is due to tectonic forces in the area. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There are no clear signs that an eruption is about to happen in Askja volcano or in Dyngjufjöll as this area is also called. If an eruption starts in this area outside of any major water area its only going to erupt lava with minimal risk. Explosive eruption due to water is also a possibility but those are impossible to predict.