Category: Öræfajökull

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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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Uncertainly level declared for Öræfajökull volcano, aviation code moved to yellow alert

Yesterday the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management declared uncertainty level for Öræfajökull volcano. Aviation colour code was also moved up to yellow alert level (can be viewed here).

Current status is that a ice cauldron has formed in the centre of the Öræfajökull volcano caldera. It is about 1 km wide and around 21 to 25 meters deep according to early measurements. This is the first time in documented history that such ice cauldrons has formed in Öræfajökull volcano. It is now believed that the ice cauldron has been emptying it self all week resulting in smell of sulphur in Kvíá glacier river. The glacier river can be viewed here on Google Maps Street View. Currently there is not a lot of earthquake activity happening in Öræfajökull volcano. This is to be expected (I guess). It is also worth noting that Öræfajökull volcano did do in few months what took Eyjafjallajökull volcano 16 years to do until an eruption happened.

There is not a lot of details on earlier eruptions from Öræfajökull volcano. Earliest eruption to our in time took place between 1727 and until 1728 (289 years). Before that an eruption took place in 1362 (655 years) and lasted for five months. Currently I don’t have a lot of information about the current status. This is due to lack of measurements as it was not expected that Öræfajökull volcano would do this even if earthquake activity was happening in the volcano. It was only from October (it seems) that it was figured out that something was going on in Öræfajökull volcano.


No earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano during the past 48 hours (blue dot in the south part of the image). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Images of the new ice cauldron can be found here on Icelandic Met Office website.

I’ll post new information in this article as needed. If anything major happens I’ll write a new article.

Article updated at 16:26 UTC. Added information that I forgot.

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Sulphur smell from Kvíá glacier river that comes from Öræfajökull volcano

Today (16-November-2017) it was reported that sulphur smell was felt from a glacier river that comes from Öræfajökull volcano. The glacier river in question is called Kvíá and is a small and short glacier rivers on the south side. Currently there are no conductivity measurements on the glacier rives that comes from Öræfajökull volcano. The plan is that such measurements are going to start soon around Öræfajökull volcano. Along with gas measurements.

This change suggests that a hydrothermal systems have opened up somewhere under the glacier in Öræfajökull volcano. This means that magma has now reached depth of 1 km or less. For the past few days the earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano has been getting lower then during the last few weeks when up to 50 earthquakes was being recorded during each week. Earthquake activity continues today, but at much lower rates than before at the moment.

I’ll post updates about this as more information is reported.

Icelandic news in Icelandic

Brennisteinslykt við Öræfajökul (Rúv.is, Icelandic, map of the area)
Rannsaka brennisteinslykt við Kvíá (Vísir.is)

Article updated at 17.11.2017 at 00:44 UTC. Minor text title fixes.

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Earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano

For the last few hours there has been a earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano. I’m not clear on how many earthquakes have so far happened in Öræfajökull volcano at the moment. Most of them have been smaller than 1,5 in magnitude and only few earthquakes with magnitude 2,0 and above have so far happened. This is a unusual earthquake swarm and possibly the largest one since the unrest started in Öræfajökull volcano few years ago.


The earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano at the south end of Vatnajökull glacier. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake swarm is on a line that is almost north-south direction and that is interesting as it crosses the crater of Öræfajökull volcano. That type of pattern appeared last month during the earthquake swarms that took place then. Between now and then there has just been few earthquakes here and there in the volcano. Old history tells (from the eruption 1362) that before the main eruption at least two earthquakes are felt nearby. How accurate that documentation is questionable due its age and possible rewrite over history. Detailed report on Öræfajökull volcano can be found here (pdf) by Icelandic Met Office. Historical data shows that eruption from Öræfajökull volcano are powerful and can lost for a short time (1326 eruption), but they can also last for few months like the 1727 eruption that started in August 3rd and ended on May 1728 (+- 30 days error margin).

Notice on Esjufjöll volcano

There has also been a minor increase in earthquake activity in Esjufjöll volcano. This seems to be a side effects of the activity in Öræfajökull volcano. Why and how that works is unknown to me. I don’t expect any eruption to take place in Esjufjöll volcano. Last eruption was possibly in the year 1920 and was short lived (few hours?). I don’t know how long this earthquake activity has been going on in Esjufjöll volcano, but it is mentioned in a Icelandic Met Office report from 2002, that report can be read here (pdf).

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Magnitude 3,4 earthquake in Öræfajökull volcano

Today (03-October-2017) a magnitude 3,4 earthquake took place in Öræfajökull volcano. So far this earthquake has not resulted in any more earthquake activity.


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

This is the strongest earthquake in Öræfajökll volcano since the year 2005. This earthquake was felt on nearby farms and tourist areas.

Article updated at 00:41 UTC on 4-October-2017. Magnitude of the earthquake has been updated by Icelandic Met Office.

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Continued earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

On 28 and 29th of September 2017 an earthquake activity took place in Öræfajökull volcano. Most of the earthquake that have happened are minor in magnitude, one magnitude 2,5 earthquake took place and on 29th September a magnitude 2,0 earthquake took place, this is automatic magnitude and might not be correct. The depth of this earthquake is the default one (1,1km).


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

It is extremely difficult to know what this earthquake activity means if it means anything at all. The reason being that this might be part of Öræfajökull volcano normal activity that is not going to result in a eruption. There currently is no way to know for sure what this means, since last eruption took place in the year 1728 and proper monitoring of Öræfajökull volcano only started few years ago. Current activity is however slightly above normal background activity that can be expected from a volcano like Öræfajökull volcano.

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Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull and Kverkfjöll volcano

Since this volcanoes are in the same part of Iceland I am going to write about them in the same article.

Öræfajökull volcano

I don’t think this was a glacier earthquake activity happening in Öræfajökull volcano. I don’t know how many earthquakes took place this time around. Largest earthquakes had magnitude of 2,0 and 1,8 all other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude. Currently there is no GPS monitoring for Öræfajökull volcano that I know of.


The earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano and Kverlfjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is noticing how this time the earthquake swarm is all on the east side of the volcano. This earthquake activity is interesting and this also seems to signal an increase in earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano at least for the time being. It remains a question if this activity slows down again. Earthquake activity in this part of Iceland only happens due stress changes in Öræfajökull volcano. This is most likely influx of magma into Öræfajökull volcano but it might not erupt right away or at all (at least for a long time).

Kverkfjöll volcano

A minor earthquake swarm took place in Kverkfjöll volcano today (23-September-2017). Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2,1 and the second strongest earthquake had a magnitude of 1,4. The earthquake swarm was in the central part of the volcano. This is the first earthquake swarm since 2015 in Kverkfjöll volcano and the activity that year was mostly due the activity happening in Bárðarbunga volcano next to it (the dike from Bárðarbunga volcano did disturb Kverkfjöll volcano). Since this earthquake activity took place everything has been quiet in Kverkfjöll volcano.

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Sharp increase in earthquake activity in Öræafjökull volcano

There has been increasing earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano in recent months. This increase is slow but it seems to be happening at faster phase to my surprise. For the first time the earthquake activity forms a direction along a fault line (it looks like a fault line) the direction of the fault line is east-west.


The earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano (south part of Vatnajökull glacier). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This was a minor earthquake activity in terms of magnitude of earthquakes happening. With largest earthquakes only having magnitude 2,2 and all other earthquakes smaller in magnitude. Last eruption in Öræfajökull volcano took place in 1727 August 3 and ended 10 months later on 1728 May 1 +- 30 days. That eruption was a VEI=4 in size. For comparison the last eruption in Grímsvötn volcano in 2011 was also a VEI=4. I don’t know how this activity in Öræfajökull volcano is going to evolve, what seems to be clear that unlike Eyjafjallajökull volcano this change is happening a lot faster in Öræfajökull volcano then in Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Those two volcanoes are comparable of structure and volcano output (Eyjafjallajökull volcano 2010 eruption was also VEI=4). If an eruption happens in Öræfajökull volcano I would expect similar flight disruption as happened during the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano. At the moment, there doesn’t seems to be any major risk of eruption in Öræfajökull volcano.

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