Posted on by Jón Frímann

Earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano

Earlier today a earthquake swarm did start in Krýsvík volcano. This earthquake appears tectonic in nature from what I can tell on my geophone. This type of earthquake swarm is common in this area in Krýsuvík volcano. It does not mean that a eruption is about to start. But this area is a rift zone and it has many earthquake swarms during the year. This is just one of them so far. It is impossible to know how large this earthquake swarm is going to be or how long it is going to last.

The first earthquake swarm did start at 15:42 UTC, the second earthquake swarm did start at 21:53 UTC. That earthquake swarm is currently ongoing with several earthquakes every 2 min or so.

The current area of activity is a lake named Kleifarvatn lake. But that lake is on top of Krísuvík volcano.


Current activity in Krýsuvík volcano. This is a tectonic earthquake activity, not volcanic. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.

I think that this earthquake activity is going to continue something into the night and next few days at the longest.

290 Replies to “Earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano”

      1. Thing is Jón, it shows up on all other nearby stations as well – Vogsosar, Grindavik, Nylenda, Vogar and Sandskeid. Although they don’t show exactly the same pattern/response, they certainly record an actual event.

        Look at the blue line at Sandskeid! Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays between approxiamtely 07.00 and 18.00, the good people of Reykjavik industriously work. Saturdays and Sundays, they don’t. But just before midnight on the 6th, there’s a nice, large spike which – unless you’d like to invoke a local Rock concert 😉 – must be related to the earthquake swarm at Krísuvík.

      2. It is not broken and the undercurrent shows on Jóns webicorder at Hekla from 16 o’clock yesterday for over an hour.

  3. This is offtopic, but someone asked in previous post and I would answer it here as it’s more likely to be seen. The question was about how to record video streams with VLC player. There are several ways. There is a pretty good wiki page for VLC that has much more documentation than I could cover here. But I will give you a quick answer.

    The simplest way is to choose the ‘View -> Advanced Controls’ option and then you will see a record button. If you press this button then it will automatically start recording and save it to some typical place on your hard disk such My Documents or My Videos on Windows.

    A better way is to instead choose ‘Media -> Convert/Save’ menu. This will give you many options for output format and location. You can also choose to display the stream as you are recording. But on my computer if I am recording and also displaying the stream it doesn’t work well and often the audio will be out of sync or missing from the saved stream. But I don’t think the volcano webcam include audio in the stream so it might not be a problem.

    1. Hi Seattleite,

      Many thanks for this info on VLC. I had it already but had no idea how powerful it is.

      Thanks again :O)

    2. Seattleite, thank you very much for this information. Making video recordings from the webcams may get very interesting if something happens. And so much easier to make clear to others what one have seen.

  4. Surely the depth on this earthquake is in serious error?

    Tuesday 06.09.2011 22:44:06 63.874 -23.388 50.8 km 1.9 52.95 21.6 km NNW of Geirfuglasker

    1. Yes, this is a error. The earthquake is also poorly located. But I also think that this is a ghost earthquake in the SIL system. But that happens sometimes when large earthquake swarms happen.

    1. I cannot understand this behaviour. Yet another shallow earthquake, this time outside the caldera and the icecap. So this ain’t an icequake.

  6. Jón, I think we should expect a larger hlaup from these tremor spikes and swarms, shouldn’t we?

    1. Ah, Renato, I love your late night updates! And it seems like something interesting always happens when the Europeans are sleeping. What time is it in Rio?

      1. @Denise-Marie:
        (Love your name) I am in between time zones. It is half past midnight here.
        Ever since I got back from work, I can’t take my eyes off the tremor and EQs graphs. 🙂

      2. I am being unfair to Jón asking silly questions, but I can’t help. Hope he is having a sound sleep.
        I don’t think he will have any more such leisure time hereafter… 🙂

      3. Silly questions are fine. I’ve asked a few and had very good answers that have increased my understanding. They also don’t mind being challenged… but with respect. They do get tired of saying the webcams can only be trusted on clear days. Otherwise they always look like eruptions, which are just clouds… or occasionally steam. The wembams are the last sign of an eruption.

        With respect!

      4. Me too, it’s hard to go to sleep when Katla is acting up. Here in the Midwest I’m two hours earlier than you. But shouldn’t Lady Katla be sleeping along with her compatriots?

        At least with all the action I am finally starting to be able to read those pesky tremor charts, especially when someone points them out 🙂 .

      5. I think Lady K has a long fight ahead, in order to get all that magma up to the surface.
        And I wouldn’t sleep soundly if I were anywhere near her. 🙂

  8. Very interesting emplacement of those tectonic earthquake swarms, they and the assumed fault lines bracket both Lake Kleifarvatn and the Krísuvík volcanic system. I’d love to have an eyeball report from Kleifarvatn by someone familiar with the area.

    PS. Evening to all West Coasties, g’nite & sweet dreams to everyone east of the Rockies & the two Rios, de Janeiro and Renato.

    1. Morning, Katla is looking stunning this morning, I’ve watched the dawn break on the webcam. Really beautiful.

  9. Seems like Katla is going back to sleep again. Water temperature, level and conductivity going down. Tremorcharts returning to background noise level.

  10. Good Morning Jon and everyone.
    Whilst we comfortably sit by our PCs around the world watching the Katla cam. At times when Katla is dozing, it is good to reflect on the communities who live in her shadow.
    I found this fairly recent paper that seems to give a good unbiased account of the local communities and their way of life and how they think about the threat of eruptions. It explains well the consequences of Glacier flood also. These consequences are severe and last for years.
    I believe that the local emergency services have done more to lessen the risks since this paper was accepted and published. Iceland seems to be far more organised to cope with possible disasters than certainly my local authority here in England !
    It also has some good maps that show the paths of the glacial floods.
    I learned a lot from this paper.

    http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/407/2010/nhess-10-407-2010.pdf

    My best wishes and thoughts go to all in Iceland.

    2. An absorbing read, thank you Diana. And I agree about the emergency response in the UK!

  11. Wow, significant inflation at Katla, upwards across the board:

    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla/gps_solheimaheidi.html
    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla/gps_godaland.html
    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla/gps_laguhvolar.html

    Based on this I would speculate that yesterdays tremoring was due, at least in parts, to inflow of a lot of new magma. Of course thus could easily set off hydrothermal effects as well, but I don’t think hydrothermal effects on their own would give this inflation

    1. There seems to be the same kind of upward tick affecting GPS stations on other volcanoes too (Hekla, Grimsvotn,etc). Maybe it’s a glitch.

      3. One should always detrend them against Austmannsbunga that is nor relative to REYK. It is an absolute station working as the local detrend station for Myrdalsjökul.

    2. Never say never. In the phlegrean fields hydrothermal activity resulted in a 3 meter uplift during two episodes of bradyseism, 1969-1971 and 1982-1984. And that has yet to erupt although it probably wont for a long time yet.
      Now this was all in all probably caused by magmatic activity below of course.

  12. It will be interesting to see if Katla produces its (near) daily harmonic tremor of the last few days in the next couple of hours.

  13. The IMO is not showing any earthquakes since 6 am UTC. Is that right? – seems a long gap.

    1. Storm winds ontop of Myrdalsjökul is hiding everything below a 1m quake. This is normal. But quakes below 1m are on the other hand totally unsignificant due to lack of energy.
      I repeat, if the energy content in 1m quake is 1, then the energy in a 2m is 32, and a 3m has the energy content of 1048 1M earthquakes.

  14. Increased risk for eruption at Hekla volcano.
    During the last five days there has been a shift in the movement pattern of both Isakot and Haukadalur.
    Isakot to the NNW of Hekla is showing normal east and north movement patterns, but with a radical sharp uplift for the last five days.
    Haukadalur to the west of Hekla shows normal east/west component, but a burst to the north followin a dip to the south. It is also showing a large lift.
    This leads me to believe there is an enhanced risk of this being a possible hyper-inflation prior to eruption. We are not talking about Campo Flegreii or Mt St Helens here with metres of uplift in a short time period. Just a few centimetres during a few days. If this uplift goes on it will most likely just need a few days of uplift like this.
    Caveat, it might stop or the uplift might “fall down” again.

    Secondly, we have during the last couple of weeks had a large shift in transient directions. Before the transient where at Búrfell which is in line with known eruptive transients of Hekla. But the last couple of weeks we have seen very large transients emanating from the Gledingaá borehole strainmeter.
    And today we have had a small, but significant transient at the HEK station. Hek is not the same as Hel. Hek is located at Hekla proper if I have understood it correctly and show strain in Hekla proper. A transient here is showing pressure buildup under the top of the volcano, and might indicate that the fissure is getting ready to rip open.

    Hek transient:
    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/hekla/borholu_thensla.html

    If current activity continues I see december as a conservative date for start of eruption. For those that are new here, I did a mathematical modell a month ago that seemed to indicate that Hekla would erupt between december 2011 and may 2012. The changes in the pattern makes me believe it will come sooner.

    1. Hekla, Katla and Krýsuvík are showing an increasing risk of eruption. What are the odds of more than one erupting at the same time? And if one erupts, does it take the pressure of the others – or increase it?

      1. I guess, and this is only a guess, that if Katla has a powerfull eruption, it could trigger Hekla into going to. This out of Hekla being on the very brink of going anyhow. There is no relation between them per see, but the quaking of Katla could be enough.
        There is nothing Krisuvik could do to either Hekla or Katla. To big a distance. But Krisuvik could quite possibly be the most destructive for Iceland of these 3 volcanos due to closeness to populationcentre and economic values.

    2. Carl, Thanks for all the work you have put in the last few weeks, I did not see in the history of Iceland to have 3 big volcano’s go in one year.

      Like people have noted, Katla is unlikey this year, but if a big EQ or something unplanned happens, Heka, as you have noted is getting ready to.

      Then you have a lake with possible cracks and a volcano under it. Does any remember that string ray music from the that old show?

      Fits my mood about now.

      1. I do not think that these 3 volcanos will go this year.
        Hekla is still the biggest possibility, I still say that Katla is anything between 3-123 months away. Reason it is that big a span is that we do not know the run-up process for her.
        Krisuvik is far away, at leasst ten years away I think, but there I could be wrong. There is no known data on that volcano, except that it is inflating. But what kind of run up process is involved, well that is up to conjecture. There is also no known data for this type of volcano in Iceland as to how it behaves before eruption.
        So I guess possibly Hekla this year and no other volcanic eruption. Next eruption though I give it an even beard between Askja and Katla. But, as usual, look out for Grimsvötn, even He can erupt before Katla.

  15. Morning Folk
    Just a “little” OT, but a supernova is supposed to be visible with binoculars – telescope better -in M101, near the ‘handle’ of the Plough in Ursa Major. Visit
    http://www.wessex-astro.org.uk/Supernova%20m101.html
    If you look at the last picture, the event is the bright spot between the galaxy centre and the top of the frame. Remember it’s 21 million light years away; 1light year =6000,000,000,000 miles.
    To find M101 trace a line from the 3rd star in the handle back through the 2nd (itself a naked eye double – Alcor and Mizar) and M101 is very roughly above the 1st star where the two imaginary lines cross.
    Something else to do tonight if it’s clear!

    1. Funny that those HAARPing prophets of doom have not started to worry about our Sun going sn. It won’t ever even if it swallowed every planet in the Solar system because that won’t put it over Chandrasekhar’s limit (1.4 solar masses), but if it did, it would shine at magnitude -47.5. Earth would be literally vaporised 8 minutes after the Sun went SN. Now THAT’s something to worry about… 😉

  16. ALF, SLY, HVU and RJU all appear to show the start of more harmonic tremors at Katla!

    To my untrained eye that is!

  17. I queried too soon; there are now three small ones showing on the IMO’s Mýrdalsjökull earthquakes map.

  19. North Iceland and TFZ traces may need an eye occasionally, no events but a steady creep upwards……..

  21. Anyone know anything about icelandic birds(!)
    What I mean is what are the small dark diving ducks seen occasionally in the foreground at Jokulsarlon!!? They’re too blurred to identify, but may be Tsfotufted Duck?

  23. Average of 8 hours with a +-1 hr deviation. We would have to see if it continued over a much longer period to see if it was ‘real’

  26. I occasionally look at the Geysers here: http://live.mila.is/geysir/
    I think someone mentioned here that they spout about every 12 minutes or so. I have just been watching; there was a double one followed by two more at 5minute intervals. Is this anything to do with the increase in general activity on Iceland?

    1. Nope, Strokkur has iregular eruptions with IBE’s of about 4-8 minutes. Strokkur is located in Langjokull/Hveradalur volcanic system which is completely unafected by the current active volcanoes.

  28. Yes, Hurricane Katia, which will be extra-tropical then, but will winds projected to be 75mph may “visit” Iceland next week. Here on the East Coast USA–we are waiting for the storm to recurve and go NE and out to sea..the N. Atantic. Expect to see limited information from stations on volcanos then. A second storm, TS Maria (if named) seems to want to take the same path later. High off the Azores is making a perfect “road” to iceland this year.

    1. It’s way to early to know where future Maria might go. Maria could hit the US go into the Caribbean sea or recurve but there is no model that goes out far enough to know where Maria will go. Even then the model error past 5 days gets very large. You are correct about Katia though could be a nasty storm for Iceland.

    2. Well we got the tail end of Irene here for the last 3 days. Torrential rain and high winds. According to NOAA Katia looks more like she want’s to see us in the UK! katla…. Katia…. Hmmmm! 🙂 Rather than share, Iceland has Katla & we’ll settle for Katia .

  29. Didn’t know Katla had a pub!!!
    Gurgle translation of part of
    http://www.islandia.is/hamfarir/jardfraedilegt/eldgos/katlamei.html#Botn%20K%C3%B6tlu
    Original
    Undir Mýrdalsjökli er gríðarlega stór askja. Askjan er 110 ferkílómetrar að stærð og afmarkast hún að sunnan af Háubungu, Goðabungu að vestan og Austmannsbunga rís upp úr norðurbarminum. Dýpst nær botn hennar um 680 metra yfir sjávarmál, en hæstir eru barmarnir í 1380 m.y.s. Askjan er því 700 m djúp, eða álíka djúp og fjallið Hengill er á hæð. Upp úr botni öskjunnar rísa nokkur stök fjöll, sem hlaðist hafa upp við gos. Þrír skriðjöklar hafa rofið skörð í öskjubarmana. Höfðabrekkujökull niður í um 900 m.y.s., Sólheimajökull niður í um 950 m og Entujökull í um 1100m. Það er merkilegt að hugsa til þess að ef jökullinn hyrfi gæti 50 ferkílómetra stórt stöðuvatn legið í öskjubotninum og rúmmál vatnsins gæti verið nærri 7 rúmkílómetrum.
    Single Malt please!!

    “”Under Mýrdalsjökull is very large caldera. The caldera is 110 square kilometers and is bounded to the south of it Háubungu, Goðabungu the west and Austmann bulge rising from the northern edge. Deepest reaches the bottom of some 680 meters above sea level, but the highest barman at 1380 m. The caldera is 700 m deep, or about as deep as the mountain Hengill is high. From the bottom of the carton rise a few isolated mountains, which have a load of soda. Three outlet glaciers have broken gaps in the caldera edge. Hofdabrekka glacier down to about 900 m, Sólheimajökull down to about 950 m and the glacier would last for about 1100. It is remarkable to think that if the ice would close 50 square miles could be a large lake lying in a box bottom and the volume of water could be close to 7 cubic kilometer.””

  30. Now this was a very funny translation from Icelandic to swedish. 😀

    “Magnus Tumi säger att det är nödvändigt att hänga med pannor.
    “

    In english: “Magnus Tumi says that it is nescessary to hang out with pots and pans”

  32. @Henrik:
    Thanks for your greeting from this morning! I was in a deep sleep then: no volcanoes would disturb it. 🙂

      2. Wonder why Giggle doesn’t give me any translation for Mr. or Don, Monsieur, Herr or Senhor in Swedish.

      3. Probably because Google Inc may think us Swedes that PC we would be offended by the use of honorifics? be that as it may, you sir are an example of a Don in both the English and Spanish sense of the word.

        PS. Even though I am a retired major (Royal Guards) and hold a couple of MAs I only use them when offended by snotty officialdom, so Henrik is just fine! 😉

  33. so called comet Elenin and the brown dwarf behind Elenin are bringing the lava to the surface of volcanoes globably

    2. I must be blind because I dont see any brown dwarf star in the sky. Right now, any body like that close to Jupiter would be visible much brighter than Jupiter on the sky. Wait, maybe it’s a black hole and that is the reason we don´t see it.

      Really, many people are going to look like crazy fools for inventing and believing in all of this Elenin stuff. Conspiracies might be right, rarely, yes, but usually insane conspiracies are just that, insane foolish inventions. So much crap in the internet!

      People nearly don’t read books (romances) nowadays, so they need crazy stories to keep their imagination alive. The internet is perfect for that.

      1. Howard Massicotte is a “troll”, which is a shame because this blog, and the work that Jón at al put into to assist with information, does help understand a very complex and sometimes anxiety producing situation, with implications for many sensible folk. (please return to 4chan or what every futile site you crawled out of Howard)…Apologies, if required for sounding mad, i know i ought not to bait.

  35. Wednesday
    07.09.2011 13:59:35 63.908 -22.069 9.5 km 2.4 99.0 2.3 km N of Krýsuvík

    Something’s still alive

  36. In addition a buch of small quake arround Katla shown up at IMO:

    Wednesday
    07.09.2011 10:30:13 63.656 -19.096 0.6 km 0.6 99.0 7.8 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Wednesday
    07.09.2011 10:13:23 63.546 -19.112 0.1 km 0.0 99.0 3.8 km S of Hábunga
    Wednesday
    07.09.2011 09:57:29 63.624 -19.202 12.2 km 0.5 99.0 3.0 km SE of Goðabunga
    Wednesday
    07.09.2011 09:57:26 63.667 -19.099 1.1 km 0.4 40.53 8.0 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Wednesday
    07.09.2011 09:33:55 63.628 -19.108 0.1 km 0.0 99.0 5.3 km N of Hábunga
    Wednesday
    07.09.2011 09:24:45 63.614 -19.116 0.1 km 0.0 99.0 3.8 km NNW of Hábunga
    Wednesday
    07.09.2011 08:31:52 63.650 -19.072 14.4 km 0.1 99.0 7.9 km N of Hábunga

  38. Wednesday
    07.09.2011 14:40:15 63.621 -19.421 21.3 km 2.3 99.0 6.9 km SSE of Básar 21Km, it’s very deep. It’s tectonic or magma movement?

    1. Could anyone explain the rectangular shape with black dots to the left of the video?

      2. Of course, a ladder!
        Thought it might be an UFO or something of the kind. LOL. A ladder… 😀

  42. @MarK:
    I was about to point that out. Have you noticed the contour is much clearer now?

    1. yes. i did make a post on my original post about it too. thanks for putting me right on it.

      1. 🙂
        We “see” stuff.
        If Katla doesn’t decide the match, we are going nuts. 🙂

      3. Today is a national holiday. If only I had less time to hang around, I would spare you guys from my stupidities.
        I think we still have a long way to go, and we need our nerves to be prepared for the journey. 🙂

  43. The Mila vans have just driven off. Iceland 4×4 vans are cool, I bet those tyres cost “a fair old packet” (a lot)
    Last three quakes now constrained 99% at Katla, one even grew a bit.

    1. Saw that.
      Do you think they were people from Mila or IMO people bringing new monitoring equipment?

      1. I would not be surprised if it is both, if one can keep a webcam going during a Eyjafjallajökull VE4 …
        They were nice vans, survival capsules too.

  44. Ok, in the space of a week, we are watching two signs that I told about a week ago we needed to observe before an eruption of Katla: more earthquakes, and steep inflation.

    We only miss the very last step before the eruption (which actually can occur only hours beforehand) which is major earthquakes, like the scale of 4 or 5. But this is my assumption (based in Eyjafjallajokull behavior before the eruption), and as you all know volcanoes don’t like to follow rules or generalizations.

    I think we are very close to an eruption of Katla. We have been for years, but this is the strongest activity we have seen for a long time, with nearly continuous swarms, some major and shallow earthquakes (which have been shallower with time), harmonic tremor (which is know very often) and now steep fast inflation.

    I cannot say 100% sure of course, but I guess we are close. Can be one week, next month, or it can be 3-6 months or even more. But I am afraid that we are all scaling down our conservative estimations of when its going to be the eruption.

    Recently the earthquakes have been forming in last days a clear fissure E-W, so I guess magma is already pushing upwards at one of those old cracks of a previous eruption. I have a feeling that its the one from 1755, because it was a E-W oriented fissure. Anyways it doesn’t matter, it really seems magma is pushing close to surface, and if it doesn’t slow now, it will erupt in soon (within weeks).

    This morning there was a long discussion about Katla and even Krisuvik on the Icelandic radio news.

    1. What did they say? not word for word, were they saying its something to continue to look at or has a weekly count down begin?

  45. Whats going on at BRE, HED, DIM etc up north, things are still climbing, or is this effect atmospheric pressure related?

      1. 990mb (sea level) according to my barometer. Yes, its typical of low pressure and bad weather, which is often in Iceland. In winter pressure can drop to very low levels, even around 950mb.

  46. This is a clear sign magma has began pushing upwards, very close to surface. So, we are getting very close to eruption.

    I dont know how long. My estimation is weeks. But if things slow down, it can still be months. See my longer comment below.

      2. You are very welcome Renato 😉 If I knew I could leave quickly it would be a great place to be when I get that feeling I would like to be a hermit!

    3. Thanks Diana, food for thought……
      Does anyone have any news of IMO’s flight of last evening to investigate things as mentioned 1800hrs yesterday?

      1. Yes, they found a new cauldron and new cracks on the ice, but they only observed the south part of the caldera because of clouds to the north. I was listening this morning to the radio (I only understand a bit of Icelandic) and there was a big talk about Katla and all these signs, but the scientists cannot answer when will Katla erupt, just that things are getting closer.

  49. Irpsit:
    I think you are close to the truth here.
    Lady K has been shaking almost constantly now. Nothing big, but steady.

    1. It is more sign of a pending eruption lots of moderate sized earthquakes for a long time, than its a couple of big earthquakes but a isolated event. Big quakes have happened in Katla but they were isolated. Now we are seeing continuous swarms, often with harmonic tremor, and now steep inflation (let’s see if it keeps). I think these are all signs…

      1. And scientists are afraid of risking time-based predictions because of the reputation of their institutions. It would be bad to spark fear and nothing happen. It is easy to play on the safe side. But I dont have any reputation to lose. So I express what I think it will happen. But that doesn’t mean I am right. I even wish I am wrong!!!!!!!! Yes, I dont want Katla to erupt when I am away travelling the next 2 months.

      2. Irpsit please can you mention to Katla not to do anything until my husband has gone on his holiday to the USA . I cannot go with him and his sisters as I am not able to fly. She can erupt whilst he is there as I have checked his insurance covers him for problems with volcanic ash clouds!!!!

  50. That’s the other camera that was moving yesterday as well as the Katla cam on RUV . I think it is the newest Mila camera but not sure how old. They are both on the same spot or mast I think, the “Eldgos í Grímsvötnum” one has a wider angle of view. Nice cones on the right of view.

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