Category: Bárðarbunga

Today (14-June-2018) a large earthquake swarm happened in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Largest earthquake had a magnitude of 4,9 (at 15:05 UTC) and this is the strongest earthquake since January. Other magnitudes where 4,1 (at 13:04 UTC), magnitude 3,3 (at 13:25 UTC), magnitude 3,1 (at 13:36 UTC), magnitude 3,5 (at 16:35 UTC). Other earthquakes were smaller in magnitude.

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

This earthquake swarm is the strongest since January-2019 (article here). The difference is that this earthquake swarm seems to be larger then the one in January. This earthquake activity is the result of a inflation happening in Bárðarbunga volcano. There was no harmonic tremor following this earthquake activity. I don’t know how much Bárðarbunga volcano has inflated since end of the eruption in February-2015. This type of earthquake activity (swarm with large earthquakes) should be expected few times a year for next few years.

Thank you note

I’ve been having a bad time in last few days. What I did think as a solution turned into a major problem. The result of this is that I am going to move back to Denmark soon as November (it might get delayed until mid-January to February) if I have all the money issues in order and enough to pay for transport of my belongings back to Denmark (that is expensive, but I am going to sell some stuff now to lessen the amount along with stuff I’ve never transported to Denmark). This instability spilled a bit into this website, Facebook and twitter (both sites). I’ve removed the articles in question with comments and everything since I felt it was not right to keep the articles online.

I want to thank people that supported me with good and positive comments in the last few days. I decided do refund few donations that I got during this. I felt it unfair to keep them after the situation did calm down.

Work hours

I am working now 08:00 – 16:00 until September. From September until mid to end of October I am going to be working 07:00 – 18:00 (some days longer).

Today at 16:13 UTC (29-April-2018) a magnitude 3,9 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. Earlier earthquake had a magnitude at 2,8 and took place at 05:01 UTC. This was also the second largest earthquake that happened today.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano (green star). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity is normal for Bárðarbunga volcano at the moment. This earthquake activity happens since Bárðarbunga volcano is inflating after the eruption in 2014-August to 2015-February. Current rate of this type of earthquake activity is a magnitude 3,0 or larger earthquake every 2 to 4 months. This used to happen weekly in 2015 and 2016. Earthquakes are now fewer but magnitude is often larger.

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. I am going to really broke in May due to bills and that is the only issue. Thanks for the support. 🙂

Article updated at 19:37 UTC. Minor text fixes.

Yesterday (21-March-2018) at 22:56 UTC a magnitude 4,3 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake is at the usual place inside the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera, but this location that had activity now is also the place that has high energy hydrothermal hot springs. This area of hydrothermal activity is high enough to melt trough the 100 meters of glacier at this location.

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

Earthquake activity appears to be ongoing at the moment in Bárðarbunga volcano and nearby SIL station show that more smaller earthquakes are currently happening in Bárðarbunga volcano than are showing up on the map of Bárðarbunga volcano.

Donations

Please remember to support my work. My current situation doesn’t improve until I move back to Iceland and it won’t be fully good until I have finished paying everything I need to pay in Denmark after I move to Iceland (I will work in Iceland until end of October, that is going to help a lot with that issue). Thanks for the support. 🙂

Yesterday (30-January-2018) Bárðarbunga volcano had strongest earthquake since 27-October-2017. That earthquake had the magnitude of Mw4,9 (at 19:24 UTC). Two earlier earthquakes had happened but they had smaller magnitude of 3,7 (at 17:47 UTC) and magnitude 3,8 (at 18:00 UTC).

The earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano (green stars). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity seems to have stopped with last earthquake happening at 21:29 UTC. There is no change in harmonic tremor from Bárðarbunga volcano and that means no eruption. The north-east part of the Bárðarbunga volcano seems to be getting unstable with each earthquake swarm that happens. Magnitude of earthquakes happening has also increased but it is now longer between earthquake swarm. The time between earthquake swarms now can go up to several weeks. Soon after this earthquake activity started in September-2015 this type of activity happened weekly.

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Please remember to support my work with donations. Thanks for the support. 🙂

Today (15-January-2018) a earthquake swarm activity took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This is a regular event at this point and has been for some time now. Today’s earthquakes had the magnitude of 3,5 (09:39 UTC) and 3,3 (09:47 UTC). The location suggests that stronger earthquakes are going to happen soon in Bárðarbunga volcano in the north-east part of the caldera of Bárðarbunga volcano.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano (green stars). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity shows that Bárðarbunga volcano continues to inflate after the end of the eruption in Holuhrauni in Februar-2015. Currently it is clear that Bárðarbunga volcano is preparing for an eruption. When next eruption might happen is impossible to know.

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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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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.

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. Everything helps. Thanks for the support. 🙂