Category: Magma

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New swarm of earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano

During the night (26-November-2016) a swarm of earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest earthquake had the magnitude of 3,8 other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude.

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The magnitude 3,8 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano (green star). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

On 22-November-2016 a magnitude 3,6 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. That earthquake took place in the south-west part of the caldera, close to the place where the dyke broke out in 2014.

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The magnitude Mw3,6 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano on 22-November-2016. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This type of earthquake activity is now so common in Bárðarbunga volcano that I can’t write about them all. If I did write about them all, there would be nothing but articles about Bárðarbunga volcano on this website.

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Strong earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano

During the early hours of 19-November-2016 a strong earthquake swarm took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This is the strongest earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano for a long time now. Strongest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,0, other magnitudes where 3,5 and 3,1. All other magnitudes where smaller.

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

This earthquake activity suggests that pressure is increasing fast inside the volcano. I don’t know how much Bárðarbunga volcano has inflated since September-2015 but that must be considerable amount since a earthquake of magnitude 4,0 means a slip of few millimetres (I don’t have the information of much movement happens when a earthquake happen. I didn’t find the data about it). Over the past one year there has been a lot of earthquakes taken place in the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera, suggesting a rapid inflation of the volcano. It is not known if this is going to result in a eruption soon or sometimes later, all that is known is that magma is flowing into shallow magma chamber from deep within the volcano.

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Article updated at 22:42 UTC. Added a missing part.

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

The regular earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano continued on 18-November-2016. This activity has now been going on for 1 year plus few more weeks, at the moment it has slowed down a bit from when it was most active. I don’t know why that is, but the earthquakes are because magma is flowing into shallow magma chambers in Bárðarbunga volcano.

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

Largest earthquake in yesterdays (18-November-2016) earthquake swarm had the magnitude of 3,0. Other earthquakes so far have been smaller in magnitude. The activity appears to be mostly over by now, but it might resume at any moment since magma inflow and changes connected to it cannot be predicted.

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Earthquake swarm in Katla volcano

On 18-November-2016 a minor earthquake swarm took place in Katla volcano. This was a minor earthquake swarm with largest magnitude around 2,5. At the moment the earthquake activity appears to have ended, it might resume at later time.

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

The earthquake activity is in a area that had a minor eruption in the year 1999. There has not been a major eruption in this part of the caldera for a long time according to historical data. It is possible that last major eruption in this area took place in the year 1245, but that eruption is not properly documented due to old age of the historical documents.

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Magnitude 3,5 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (11-November-2016) a magnitude 3,5 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake, like so many before it, is due to inflation of the volcano that started in September-2015. This is going to be happening for a long time now, since last earthquake sequence that started this way started in 1973 and lasted until 1996 (science paper on it can be found here). After that it was quiet for few year until 2010-ish years before the eruption started in 2014.

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

This inflation and earthquake activity is going to lead to an eruption one day. When that is going to happen is impossible to know until it happens.

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Minor earthquake activity in Esjufjöll volcano

For the few hours (on 05-November-2016) there has been a minor earthquake activity in Esjufjöll volcano [Wikipedia information]. Esjufjöll volcano is not a volcano that gets a lot of attention because most of the time its completely quiet, with last notable activity taking place in the year 2013. Earthquake activity started to appear in Esjufjöll volcano in the year 2002 (IMO map here and here).

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Earthquake activity in Esjufjöll volcano (north east of Öræfajökull and south of Grímsvötn volcanoes). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

At the moment not many earthquakes have taken place in Esjufjöll volcano. That might maybe change, but I don’t expect it to. Maximum number of earthquakes recorded so far (in 2002 at least) is around 40 – 80 (I’m not sure to the exact number). The reason why Esjufjöll volcano is having earthquake activity is due to fresh magma pushing up the volcano from deep inside it. At the moment there isn’t anything suggesting that an eruption is about to happen and if an eruption does happen I would not expect it to be big. The chance of an eruption taking place in Eskjufjöll volcano is around ~2% at the moment in my view.

The only eruption that might have happened took place in the year 1927, at the moment it has not been confirmed. It may have only been active for around 4 days at maximum and took place on September 5. The information is not that good due to how remote this volcano is (map can be found here, Esjufjöll are located south of Grímsvötn, north-east of Öræfajökull volcano).

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano (Week 43)

On 27-Oktober-2016 at 02:08 & 02:09 UTC an magnitude 3,5 and 3,3 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. During the day several smaller earthquakes happened in the same place in the Bárðarbunga volcano (close to North-East of the caldera).

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

Currently Bárðarbunga volcano is inflating with fresh magma from deep mantle. This process started in September-2015 and is going to continue until a new eruption starts from Bárðarbunga volcano (or in Bárðarbunga volcano).

Italy earthquakes

Since I’m living in Denmark I did record the earthquakes in Italy. I did record the magnitude 5,5 earthquake (poorly) and the magnitude 6,1 earthquake (clearly).

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The earthquake in Italy, this is the magnitude 6,1 earthquake. This image is under Creative Commons licence, please see CC Licence for more details.

I can record those earthquakes in Denmark since the distance is only ~1500 km. The minimum magnitude for my hardware to record earthquakes at this distance is around magnitude 5,4. Due to high background noise where I live.

Laptop and other hardware issues

Since I never got the laptop I was promised (It never showed up in the mail) I might not have any computer in December when I go to Iceland. I might resort to buying a new laptop with a loan from a store I know of. If I do that, I’ll go for a cheap laptop (that is also best, since I only use them when I travel). I also did not get a used hard drive that I promised and other hardware, the persons that told me that they wanted to donate that hardware to me just vanished and have not contacted me again over that. I have gotten hardware donations in the past and that is not a issue to get them if they are sent with the mail from within the EU.

Donations

Please remember to donate. I have to pay a high electric bill next month due to problem they had for the past six months. At least they gave me a discount (I think) since it was entirely their fault. Yet that is going to leave me rather broke in November. Thanks for the support. 🙂

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Fresh earthquake activity in Katla volcano for the past 48 hours

Today (17-October-2016) and yesterday (16-October-2016) small earthquake swarms have happened in Katla volcano. Most of the earthquakes that happened where small, with magnitude 1,0 or less. Three earthquakes had magnitude above 2,0.

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

In the news in Iceland today it was mentioned that this earthquake activity was due to heavy rain last week in south Iceland. I don’t agree with that assessment, since I recorded the strongest earthquakes and they show a clear sign of being volcano earthquake. I’m not able to record glacier quake activity at distance of 56 km (Heklubyggð geophone). The problem with volcano like Katla is the constant earthquake activity, over time there is a risk that geoscientists start to look at it as the normal pattern of the volcano and there is nothing to worry about. Current earthquake activity is of this nature and in my view its highly dangerous activity, while it has yet not resulted in a eruption there is nothing saying it is not going to do so soon. I remind people that is not possible to know when a eruption starts and it’s not known how an eruption in Katla volcano starts, besides what is know for historical recordings after the eruption has started (magma pushing towards the surface).

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Katla volcano update at 20:10 UTC

Here goes Katla volcano again.

Earthquake activity in Katla volcano has been slowly increasing today (06-October-2016). It is not yet at the levels as it was week ago, but as Katla showed last week this change can happen rapidly and without much warning. Largest earthquake since this morning had the magnitude of 2,4 at 14:11 UTC. Other earthquakes so far have been smaller in magnitude. Other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.

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The earthquake activity in Katla volcano at 18:55 UTC. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The fact that current earthquake swarm is in a really tight location suggests that a dyke intrusion is possibly trying to drill its way out up through the crust at this location. I did see something similar before Bárðarbunga volcano erupted. It is not possible to know how long this process takes, since the crust is different between volcanoes. Then there is always the question if this process stops, at this moment I find that doubtful due how long its been going already. I’m expecting the earthquake activity in Katla volcano to increase until a new peak is reached or an eruption starts. Currently no eruption has started.

This article is going to be updated as needed.

Off-line warning

Due to hurricane Matthews there is a risk of this website going off-line from tomorrow as the hurricane hits Florida and Orlando, where this website is hosted. I will take a backup of it later today just in case. At worst some comments might be lost and even some articles (if I update the website after I take my backup).

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Increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano

Today (6-October-2016) a magnitude 3,2 earthquake took place in Katla volcano. This earthquake had smaller earthquake activity before it happened and after it took place. Currently bad weather in the Katla volcano area is preventing detection of the smallest earthquakes. That bad weather is going to last at least until tomorrow and then a new storm might arrive few hours later.

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

Heavy rain in south Iceland has prevented a good reading on conductivity in Múlakvísl glacier river. Since freshwater mixing into the glacier water results in drop of conductivity with increase amount of water. This has also resulted in some glacier quake activity in Mýrdalsjökull glacier.

Off-line warning

Due to hurricane Matthews there is a risk of this website going off-line from tomorrow as the hurricane hits Florida and Orlando, where this website is hosted. I will take a backup of it later today just in case. At worst some comments might be lost and even some articles (if I update the website after I take my backup).