Category: Öræfajökull

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Strong earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano

Today (23-November-2022) at 10:04 UTC an earthquake with magnitude Mw3,1 took place in Öræfajökull volcano. According to the news and Icelandic Met Office, this is the largest earthquake in Öræfajökull volcano since the year 2018. This earthquake was felt on nearby farms. There is no town close to Öræfajökull volcano. A smaller earthquake with magnitude of Mw2,6 was also felt in the nearby area. A swarm of smaller earthquakes also took place inside Öræfajökull volcano caldera. Bad weather in south Iceland is preventing detection of all the earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano.

Red dots and a green star in Öræfajökull volcano in south part of Vatnajökull glacier. This is the most southern part of Iceland in south-east Iceland.
Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. Picture from Icelandic Met Office.

Öræfajökull volcano last time had this type of earthquake activity in the years 2018 and 2019 when it started to quiet down again. There are signs that magma is moving inside the volcano. When and if that is going to result in a eruption is impossible to know.

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Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

On Sunday (4-April-2021) a small of small earthquakes took place in Öræfajökull volcano. Most of the earthquakes that happened where deep, with most depth at 11,3 km.

Blue dots showing earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. The blue dots are on top of each other.
Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is unclear if this means anything at this point. Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano at this point has been slow to start and happens without much warning as is. This might be an early sign that more activity is ahead in Öræfajökull volcano but only time is going to make it clear if that is the case.

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Minor earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

After months of being quiet there has now been new earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. The earthquake activity that took place was all just minor earthquakes but the deepest of them had a depth of 14 km and the second deepest had a depth of 12 km. Other earthquakes where at shallower depth.


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

It is not possible to know what is going on in Öræfajökull volcano because what happens before an eruption is not documented in any details and the documents that exists today are old and the oldest documents of an eruption in Öræfajökull volcano are getting close to 660 years old. The younger documents are only 293 years old. This earthquake activity seems to be over at the writing of this article but it might resume without warning at any time.

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Öræfajökull volcano leaking gas into a glacier lake

It was announced today (8-August-2019) that gas has started to appear from Öræfajökull volcano. It is not clear from the news when this gas was discovered but it might have been just few days ago. Icelandic Met Office has already made attempts to collect the gas for analyse, last attempt failed due to how little gas is coming from the ground. That might change as this situation changes. What type of gas is leaking out is not known but there is a good chance that this is mostly CO2, SO2. It has been quiet in Öræfajökull volcano in recent weeks. It is a question if this lack of activity is what happens with some volcanoes just before an eruption as is indicated by a study that was done few years ago (information about the study can be found here).

What this means is unclear. Earthquake activity remains at minimum in Öræfajökull volcano. There is a chance this gas is a signal for more earthquake activity even if an eruption doesn’t happen. It is unclear what happens before an eruption in Öræfajökull volcano since last eruption took place in 1727 3rd of August to 1728 1st May.


Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano today. Quiet volcano at the writing of this article. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Icelandic news

Loftbólur á yfirborði Kvíárlóns (Rúv.is, Icelandic, picture, map)


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Fresh earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano (week 6)

During the night of 4-February-2019 a earthquake with the magnitude of 2,6 took place in Öræfajökull volcano. This earthquake was the start of an earthquake swarm that is currently ongoing.


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

This is normal pattern for Öræfajökull volcano in recent months. Rate of earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano appears to continue to be going up. This means that injection of magma into Öræfajökull volcano continues at what appears to be at similar rate as before.

Moving website hosting

Because of Brexit I am moving my hosting from UK to US this week. In general people should not notice this if they have their DNS setting set up correctly. But it might take up to 48 hours for them to update on slower DNS servers (that is not common today, but can happen if your router is your DNS).

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Please remember to support my work. They help me keep this website running and keeping me fed so I can continue to write and update about what is happening in Iceland when it comes to volcanoes and earthquakes. Thanks for the support. 🙂

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Fresh earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

Today (6-January-2019). Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of 2,4. Other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.


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

This earthquake swarm seems to be ongoing. There are not many earthquakes happening as is normal for Öræfajökull volcano. This activity is in the normal range of what has been happening in Öræfajökull since 2017.

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Earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano

Today (8-December-2018) there has been a fresh earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. This earthquake swarm was in the northern part of the caldera, or just outside it.


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

Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of 2,6. Other earthquakes had a magnitude of 0,2 to 0,8. This is normal for Öræfajökull volcano in its current phase.

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Two earthquake swarms in Öræfajökull volcano

Today (1-December-2018) two earthquake swarm took place in Öræfajökull volcano.


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

Largest earthquakes in this two earthquake swarms had magnitude of 1,1. All other earthquakes are smaller in magnitude. What is unusual now is that there are two earthquake swarms happening in Öræfajökull volcano. In last few months only one area has been having earthquakes at time. It is worth keeping a eye out for this change if it holds.

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New measurements confirm Öræfajökull volcano continues to inflate

This based on news from Rúv. I am not translating the news item it self. The link is at the end of this article in Icelandic.

According to latests news on Rúv. Öræfajökull volcano continues to inflate at an increased rate. This has resulted in larger earthquakes in recent months and larger energy release in those earthquakes. Deformation has been clearly detected in Öræfajökull volcano and magma is now collecting just above 5 km depth according to measurements. Earthquake activity has increase compared to 2017 and seems to be increasing at the moment.

Rúv News

Kvika að safnast saman undir Öræfajökli (Rúv.is, Icelandic)

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Earthquake activity continues in Öræfajökull volcano

Earthquake activity continues in Öræfajökull volcano as before. Earthquake swarm happen now every few days and most of them are minor in terms of magnitude and number of earthquakes that happen. Today (15-Ocotober-2018) the largest earthquake that happened in Öræfajökull volcano had a magnitude of 2,1 and 1,5. Other earthquakes are smaller in magnitude.


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

This earthquake activity is due to magma flowing into Öræfajökull volcano at depth. What that depth is unclear at the moment. This earthquake activity happens in pluses with quiet period between them.

Update on the donation for new hardware

Thanks to donations last week I almost have all the money to buy a Raspberry Shake seismometer. I am still missing around ~268€ in order to buy the Raspberry Shake station. With this new hardware I am going to be able to provide a lot better data from what I currently have. This includes I hope a spectrograph of an earthquake (I need a linux computer for this. I’ll set one up once I’ve moved to Spain). I can’t do that with my current old hardware and software. For those that have donated already. Thanks so much for the support. 🙂