Posted on by Jón Frímann

Two earthquake swarms during the night.

During the night there where two earthquake swarms in Iceland. One of this earthquake swarms was man made.

The larger earthquake swarm was in Hengill volcano and was man made. It happens and the hydrothermal plant pumps down cold water into the bedrock and changes the pressure and strain in the bedrock and nearby sediments that make up this area. The earthquakes only happens when cold water is being pumped down into the ground. When they are not pumping cold water into the ground, no earthquakes happens. Largest earthquakes in this man made earthquake swarm where ML2.5 and ML2.2 according to automatic measurements of Iceland Met Office. But most of the earthquakes where less then ML1.0 in size.


The man made earthquake swarm in Hengill volcano. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.

The second earthquake swarm that did happen during the night was in Katla volcano. This earthquake swarm is no surprise to people how have been watching Katla volcano activity since July. This earthquake swarm in Katla volcano was however small during the night. But there did more earthquake activity in Katla volcano around 18:00 UTC yesterday. But overall it seems that Katla volcano has slowed down a bit compared to last few days.


Earthquakes in Katla volcano during the past 48 hours. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.

For the moment it is rather quiet in Iceland, as there is currently not that much activity in Katla volcano. But that can change without any warning at all. As Iceland is highly active in both volcanoes and earthquakes.

Icelandic news about the earthquake activity in Hengill volcano.

Jarðskjálftar í boði Orkuveitunnar (Rúv.is, Icelandic)
Jarðskjálfti á Hellisheiði (Vísir.is, Icelandic)

268 Replies to “Two earthquake swarms during the night.”

  1. With regard to volcanics, tectonics and the graciousness of this blogs master and All who contribute:
    Perception;
    Every conscious person experiences their world through the filter of their perception.
    This perception is built on their current perspective limited by their prediction of what is likely.
    The prediction system is based on past experience coupled with learned predictions made by authority figures / familial environment.
    The bubble;
    What you perceive of the universe around you is the focus created by your opinions and learned values controlling what you experience.
    This approach to reality is called a bubble.
    This is the nature of common human consciousness. This is the habitual side of mental activity… consciousness on automatic pilot.
    Nature;
    Due to the limitations of learned predictions made by authority figures, nature has allowed for skepticism / uncertainty over prediction.
    In other words all opinions should be temporary and uncertain, to inhibit the development of a tunnel vision of reality.
    The bubble is meant to be pliable not fixed and unchanging.
    I trust the dust has settled. I have had the pleasure of working in soil research, what makes good earth is volcanic detritus, glacial till and jolly good old excrement.
    Hope, All are safe on this lovely day and keep up the good work.

    1. At last common sense prevails! I’ve been reading this blog for quite a while now and nothing infuriates me more than people who discard other peoples ideas. One thing i’ve learnt in my 25 years of working with earth science is it is an ever changing, evolutionizing science. Just remember those who knew better discredited Galileo’s ideas! What we know of the workings of our wondefull planet you could fit on a pin head. Until we can do an MRI scan of planet Earth most of her workings will mostly be guesswork. I don’t usually get involved in blogs, but you,ve set me off now. Thanks Jon for all the good work you do.

  2. I am very interested in the folklore of Katla and Iceland. I did not know this until recently, this new interest of mine. I love the local folklore’s of my own country already.
    The meaning of Katla in old Norse is the female form of Ketill. Old Norse ketill = ‘(sacrificial) cauldron, helmet’

    How intriguing. Any volunteers? Please only joking 😯

    Just as intriguing is Katlas stop start ways. Mr Irpsit says Katla Burps after last nights drinking. 😆
    Makes me think there best not be a Katla hangover.

    1. Analogies and humour ! I am worried about the hydrothermal drilling. It can’t be any worse than fracking, although pins and bubbles spring to mind ?

      1. Geothermal drilling sounds dangerous, but the worst case scenario does not render the entire area uselessly radioactive like the nuclear option. Humans must learn how to utilise this power, Iceland learn for us all. Good luck.

        Katla sleeps, rest shhhhhhhhhhh. (not to you Jay to Katla) 🙂

      2. Definitively I agree!
        Geothermal energy is abundant, cheap and easy!
        And very ecological friendly.

        The worse it can happen is a big explosion of lava and steam, or a new blue lagoon (that’s exactly the way the blue lagoon was formed, in a accident! eheh, and what a good accident of drilling). But an eruption never happened because of a drilling, although it could one day. But at least that would be a natural accident, much better compared to the worse it can happen to a nuclear power station (which is a Chernobyl, Japan…).

    2. Here is old folklore of Katla: http://usuaris.tinet.cat/mrr/islandes/katla.html
      Katla eða Kötlugjá. (Austan úr Mýrdal.) Það bar til eitthvert sinn á Þykkvabæarklaustri, eptir að það var orðið múnkasetur, að ábóti, sem þar bjó, hèlt matselju eina, er Katla hèt; hún var forn í skapi og átti hún brók þá, sem hafði þá náttúru, að hver, sem í hana fór, þreyttist aldrei á hlaupum; brúkaði Katla brók þessa í viðlögum; stóð mörgum ótti af fjölkyngi hennar og skaplyndi og jafnvel ábóta sjálfum. Þar á staðnum var sauðamaður, er Barði hèt; mátti hann opt sæta hörðum ávítum af Kötlu, ef nokkuð vantaði af fènu, þegar hann smalaði. Eitt sinn um haust fór ábóti í veizlu og matselja með honum og skyldi Barði hafa rekið heim alt fèð, er þau kæmu heim, fann nú ei smalamaður fèð, sem skyldi; tekur hann því ráð, að hann fer í brók Kötlu, hleypur síðan sem aftekur og finnur alt fèð. Þegar Katla kemur heim, verður hún brátt þess vís, að Barði hefir tekið brók hennar; tekur hún því Barða leynilega og kæfir hann í sýrukeri því, er að fornum sið stóð í karldyrum og lætur hann þar liggja; vissi einginn, hvað af honum varð, en eptir því, sem leið á veturinn og sýran fór að þrotna í kerinu, heyrði fólk þessi orð til hennar: „Senn bryddir á Barða.“ En þá hún gat nærri, að vonzka hennar mundi uppkomast og gjöld þau, er við lágu, tekur hún brók sína, hleypur út úr klaustrinu og stefnir norðvestur til jökulsins og steypir sèr þar ofan í, [Pàg. 185] að menn hèldu, því hún sást hvergi framar; brá þá svo við, að rètt þar eptir kom hlaup úr jöklinum, er helzt stefndi á klaustrið og Álptaverið; komst þá sá trúnaður á, að fjölkyngi hennar hefði valdið þessu; var gjáin þaðan í frá nefnd Kötlugjá og svæðið, er hlaup þetta helzt eyddi, Kötlusandur¹.
      Use google translate at your own risk.

      1. Giggletygiggle sprouts:

        Boilers or Kötlugjá. (East of Myrdal.) It happened some time in Þykkvabæ village, after it had become múnkasetur, the abbot, who lived there, gave a cooking one, is Katla named: it was early in the mood and she breeches, those who had Nature, which, in it went, never tired of running; brúkaði Katla breeches of this First Aid; was fear of many multi-swallowing and even temper and refill itself. There was a local shepherd, named Bardi; he could opt seats hard rebuke of Katla, if anything was missing from the sheep, when he Gently herd. Once in the fall was abbot of maintenance and housekeeper with him and would Bardi have driven home alt the money when they came home, found the current rates shepherd the flock, as expected; he takes that advice, he goes into the breeches, Katla, running since the aftekur alt and find the money. When Katla came home, she soon learned that Bardi has taken breeches her: she takes the Bardi secretly and choked him in the acid pot that is the old way was to man the door and let him lie; knew No one can, what of it was but after that, as the winter and acid began to run out the tank, people heard these words to her: “Soon fletched the Bardi.” But then she could close that it would vonzka uppkomast and charges them with low, She takes his breeches, ran out of the monastery and headed northwest to the ice and turned over the cliff in [Pàg. 185] it was thought, because she was no longer; drew them so that right there along came running from the glacier, it goes summoned the monastery and Álptaverið; found that the confidentiality of that multi swallowed could cause this: the gap from from Kötlugjá committee and the area is running this goes deleted, boilers SanDisk ¹.

      2. Please! Has anybody an Icelandic – Norwegian dictionary for sale?
        Chok Guggl secretly in the acid pot 🙂

      4. Dagur Bragason and Jack @ Finland. Thank you both.
        I can see this new interest of mine is suitably difficult. More intrigued than ever, I will try and digest Katlas folklore.

      5. Crap!!! Too ridiculously funny.

        @Diana Barnes on the last post – My family’s eyes also glaze over when I go on about volcanoes. But they are relieved that any time spent pondering volcanoes is time NOT spent on my real passion: UFOs.

        What a captcha – nursing umbiliti

      6. @ Brenda lol my other passion is more down to earth… growing vegetables and encouraging wildlife! The furry & feathered sort these days lol !

  3. I don’t want wish ill on anyone, but if a Hengill eruption were to happen… I sooooo want to hear English-speaking TV news people trying to pronounce ‘Hellisheiðarvirkjun’! I’m getting a fair idea how to pronounce most Icelandic words, and I have an Icelandic au pair to coach me, and I *still* have trouble with that one!

    Eyjafjallajökull was easy by comparison.

    Mike

    1. I am with you on that one Fireman, newsreaders would even demand more money for saying it, or trying 😆 My efforts at Eyjafjallajökull were done better after Larger I must say.

      1. I believe you, I know its in there somewhere 😆
        Honestly it will create a black hole of silence on TV here.

        ” Yet another volcanic eruption in Iceland, The volcano Hell is she good Erupted today. No shit “

      2. Somehow I got the Opera, William Tell, in Italian.
        The strain of Katla watching is showing or ….
        Maybe all who enter here gets “on” something anciently Icelandic!!

    1. @ Fonix
      Way back in the 1930’s and onwards, in the UK water boreholes had the yields improved by ‘shot firing’ down the holes where explosives were lowered to the appropriate depth and detonated, the purpose being to
      a) increase the fissure permeability in the immediate vicinity
      b) clear older fissures of fines and scale
      Also boreholes in the Chalk were acidified by pumping several tons of conc hydrochloric acid down the bore and dissolving the rock to clear the fissures, also by clamping the wellhead the gas pressure created new fissures
      Shot fired boreholes also were clamped for pressure fissuring from the gasses

  5. There is also a story about Torfajökull, according to the story a man named Torfi took his people to Torfajökull in a attempt to escape the Black death plague who was killing people all over the country, he is said to have found a “Huldudalur”, or hidden valley, meaning a valley in the Elf world :), where he lived a good life with his family.
    The landscape in Torfajökull looks very unreal, like something in a different world.

    This picture shows Jökulgil, where Torfi went up and found his Elf valley.
    http://www.mbl.is/mm/gagnasafn/grein.html?grein_id=1102162

    Some pictures here also
    http://www.eldgos.is/torfajokull

    1. That lava looks so abrupt and massive, fresh almost.
      Seeing an Elf there would be a shock, but one that would be, sort of expected at such a magical place.

  6. Low frequency tremors are rising due to strong deep waves on the Atlantic, read: hurricane Katia. Katia is currently passing Iceland from the south, only to hit northern parts of Britain on Monday.

      1. Yeah! Jack we have a met Office alert here. Just in case I have taken down all my hanging planters, wind chimes and staked up my tall vegetables. Looks like the centre will be just North of Scotland.

      2. Don’t forget Maria is waiting in the wings for next weekend………..
        Katia’s pre-amble has taken most of the pears!

      2. Ah Maynard! An interesting reaction and association! It’s a good job most of us here are free thinkers and care not if we are analysed by psychologists!!

  8. If Katla went when Katia is passing, I would perhaps get some fine ash for my garden. Save Iceland from more of the stuff, I would be happy for it. Those planes on the ground for a few days would give us some piece and quiet too.

    1. Frank. That photo has put the size of the crater in perspective. I didn’t realise how big it is. Thanks for a truly amazing picture.

  11. Lovely Auroras. I wish I could see them for real, but I live too fat south in the UK, never mind the light pollution!

    As for man-made earthquakes, where do people stand with this? I remember reading some interesting news reports earlier in the year that they were doing something with drilling in to shale near Blackpool (to get oil), and they had to stop because they may have caused earthquakes. There were also videos of fire coming out of taps in America. I can’t find the links now, but it was on the BBC. Was that all media rubbish, or can us mere humans really do that much harm?

    1. Oil execs have admitted fracking has contaminated ground water in the past. The flaming water spickets were found to be methane. It was not proved to be because of fracking but operations were ongoing close by.

      1. An oil company has an ad going on TV here in the U.S. while displaying a graphic of fracking. Saying that it’s simple to see that fracking bypasses ground water through pipes and can’t possibly mess up the ground water. Sure, I believe that – NOT.

      2. Ever hear of something called a fracture gradient?

        It designates the strength that the rock/strata has against fracturing. There is a bit of math involved, but the EPA and other organizations use this value in determining just what pressures that injection wells can operate at.

        Before you get irate and condemn well operations, you might wish to take a look at the different kind of injection wells that the EPA monitors and permits.

        Trust me, hydrofracking should be the least of your worries.

        Class I wells; Industrial & Municipal Waste Disposal
        Hazardous Waste Disposal Wells.
        Non-Hazardous Industrial Waste Disposal Wells.
        Municipal Wastewater Disposal Wells
        Radioactive Waste Disposal Wells.

        Class II Wells; Oil and Gas Related Injection Wells
        Enhanced Recovery Wells Hydrofracking
        Disposal Wells Example: Clarita and Chesapeake Salt Water Disposal Wells that were shut in (for a while) due to the Guy AR quake swarm.
        Hydrocarbon Storage Wells Example: Strategic Oil Reserves

        Class III Wells
        Uranium in-situ leaching
        Salt solution mining

        Class IV ; Shallow Hazardous and Radioactive Injection Wells

        Class V Wells; non-hazardous fluids underground

        Class VI Wells; Geologic Sequestration

        And, you can find more detailed info at the EPA.

        http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/wells_class1.cfm

        BTW, the flaming water in that video was a characteristic of water in that system before any hydrofracking operations were used there.

        Based upon our review of hundreds of Colorado gas samples over many years, the COGCC is able to differentiate between biogenic and thermogenic methane using both stable isotope analysis of the methane and compositional analysis of the gas. In the Denver-Julesburg and Piceance Basins, the COGCC has consistently found that biogenic gas contains only methane and a very small amount of ethane, while thermogenic gas contains not just methane and ethane but also heavier hydrocarbons such as propane, butane, pentane, and hexanes.
        As explained below, Gasland incorrectly attributes several cases of water well contamination in Colorado to oil and gas development when our investigations determined that the wells in question contained biogenic methane that is not attributable to such development.

        http://cogcc.state.co.us/Announcements/Hot_Topics/Hydraulic_Fracturing/GASLAND%20DOC.pdf

      1. They weren’t banned.

        AOGC told them to stop for a while and they did. Additional monitoring gear was brought in and the quake swarm was watched. Last I heard the wells were back in operation (I haven’t verified this via the permits)

        If they were the cause for the swarm, you have a couple of problems.

        First and foremost, how were they able to trigger the swarm? The wells (salt water disposal wells) were operating at below the maximum permitted pressure. They had been inspected by the government about a week prior, and had passed. Operating outside of EPA guidelines results in fines and immediate cessation of operations.

        Secondly, the main body of the swarm is really deep. Far below the deepest well in Arkansas, which isn’t anywhere near this swarm. The two wells in question, operated by Clarita and Chesapeake, are bottom capped at about

        Permit 36380, Clarita Operating, LLC; Well Name: Edgmon Wayne L 1

        Drilled to 3.7 km, declared a dry hole on 08/04/83. Plugged to 2.7 and put in operation as a Class II SW disposal well.

        Permit 43266, Chesapeake Operating, Inc; Well Name: SRE 8-12

        Drilled to 2.0 km specifically for use as a SW disposal well.

        BOTH wells terminate at about 2 to 2.7 km down, yet the majority of the quakes are between 4 to 7 km deep.

        Just a couple things to make you go “hmm…”

  12. There is a harmonic tremor spike taking place on Skrokkalda SIL station. It may be from Hamarinn volcano. But I am not sure. So far this harmonic tremor spike is quite small and is only appearing on that SIL station for the moment.

    1. Jón i was just thinking aloud/off the top of my head (i know this can be dangerous at times)… Seeing Iceland as a place of great tensions and huge tectonic forces, is it possible that there are focal points ie: nodes that resonate as tension is built up in the seismic zones, relating to events quite a distance away or are these harmonics relating to magmatic movements only?

      1. The harmonics are specific to magma movement. For it to be a harmonic related to some sort of oscillatory mechanism of the crust, the wavelength would be far longer than would show up on standard seismic gear.

        But then again… I’m not a geologist.

        I’ll shut up now.

      3. That is actually possible to measure with existing equipment. You have longterm bending fluctuation at the borehole strain-meters.
        A strain-meter basically measures ultra-longwave frequency ontop of the more hasty changes that comes through the transients before or during an eruption.
        There is the normal sinusoidal wave that is roughly nine hours long that is well visible at the Hekla strainmeters. It is about the same all over the planet, varying a bit in time (not much) and also in magnitude (a lot sometimes). You can see it here:
        http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/strain/str_corr/index.html

        Then you have more local effects that relate to strain-buildup and it probably concentrates on “nodes”. You have for instance the zone between the MAR tripple-junction (Hengill) and Hekla, also known as the SIFZ (South Iceland Fracture Zone), it receives a lot of tension, that displayes as a third order harmonic banding across the zone. Ie, the quakes bunch up in clear band along the SIFZ untill they get lost in the dead zone of Hekla.
        To view the build up at SIFZ you need loooong term plotting of the strainmeters.

    1. Interesting plot, although the seismic zone appears to run obliquely to latitude and it is therefore difficult to comprehend from your illustration what you are implying. The time scale axis is intriguing on the other hand with the jumps between lat’ and density of occurrences, especially the sharp demarcation in the years 2000 and 2008. What happened then? Excuse my ignorance of the history.(revises furiously)

      1. Yes, you are correct.

        However, I miss noted it as being time vs latitude. The center latitude of the plot is 64°N and the plot is actually time vs longitude. ≈21.5°W to 18.25°W.

        As such, you are looking at it along the horizontal length of the zone.

      2. There were two large quakes (M6+) in Iceland in June 2000. They are the new more active areas that started after Hekla eruption, located roughly at 20*42′ and 20*24′.

      4. As for what happened, beats me.

        http://i52.tinypic.com/15efwpw.png

        This is the same plot but with the longitudes of Hengill and Hekla added, as well as where along the vertical axis the 26 Feb 200 Hekla eruption was at.

        Maybe Hekla relieved some pressure by eruption and allowed some movement along the SISZ that showed up in June of that year further to the west.

        Frankly, I haven’t got a clue. For all I know, some of these quakes could be the result of geothermal plants going online.

      6. Your plot would infer that Hehgill erupts and the general area is seismically very active, while Hekla erups almost without warning?

      7. See below, Capcha got the best of me.

        Hekla does erupt with little to no warning. (Hengill hasn’t erupted since AD 150 (and change) as far as we know.

        Hekla on the other hand, (in 2000) was presaged by earthquakes that didn’t cross the human perception threshold until about 20 to 30 minutes before it went.

        [NOTE: The purpose of spicy side dishes is to motivate you to drink faster.]

  14. Oooops… Haven’t had enough coffee yet, and slipped up with the senses… Meant longitude versus dates between 63.75 and 64.25N latitude. Oh dear good morning here, i will start again

    1. Not your fault, I misstated it in my original post. I just had a beer and have corrected it. (1:30 am here)

      1. 06:43 UTC here, and good point mentioned above regarding tension released due to eruptions. I surmise that tectonic movements allow upwelling magma to fill the gap as the plates shift, and magma also places pressure on the crust resulting in greater need for lateral movement or eruptions. Although what gets me is the magma intrusions are often a distance away from the main stretch ?

      2. Well… it is stated that there is no direct connection between magmatic system (volcano to volcano, SISZ to volcano etc). This is sound logic since there is no evidence for it to actually, physically exist. (I don’t differ from Jon’s point of view on this, it’s just manifest fact)

        However, I am of my own little camp that believes in stress waves. There is some theoretical work in this realm with regards to the Anatolian fault system in Turkey. This plot that I made is similar to one I did for the San Andreas/Imperial fault system from the triple junction at the Rivera microplate to the the Mendocino triple junction at the Gordo microplate/North American/Pacific plate. In that you can see rather distinctive trends in the activity as it meanders up and down the fault system. The problem is, at what point to you call a trend a trend, or just the human eyeball looking for a pattern? Some stand out, others, not so much.

        Down around mid 2008 at about 21° 18′ W (to the left of that) you can see one of these wiggles of activity back and forth along the fault line. That’s what I’m talking about.

        For Hekla, the relief of pressure idea may be far far out in left field, but it’s the only thing I can come up with. In order for this to logically make sense, one would think that the stress movement would traverse from East to West, and that evidence of this would be apparent from the eastern quake cluster to start before the west cluster. Zooming in on that time slice, it appears to be so.

        http://i54.tinypic.com/dxxlkz.png

        However, note that there is a set of activity (light) that comes into the western group from the west. This contradicts that idea.

        In my book I call that a wash. (not a valid idea that is contradicted when you take a closer look at the data)

        Do “stress waves” exist? I think they do. But it’s like the grinding of two random surfaces, some points bind and make noise as they grind, other ones don’t.

        I don’t have enough knowledge of chaos theory to worth through this one, so I sit back and gleefully watch… and enjoy my beer.

      3. I always maintain the thought, nothing exists in isolation, therefore perception requires a greater field of vision to note everything is a direct result of other factors etc…etc… (although i might be wrong)

  16. No… that is just the location of Hengill.

    SIL is good, but I don’t think they had seismic gear around in 150 AD (last radiocarbon evidence of a Hengill eruption) It would be a boon to have that sort of data, but it doesn’t exist.

    1. This was supposed to be a response to Curious at 07:14, but Capcha decided that it needed to be here on 2nd try.

      (yeah, I know there is no Capcha when you log in, but I keep getting logged out for no reason, so I just deal with it. Besides, when I log in I’m stuck at this really obnoxious user settings screen and have to figure out where the @#$ I was at to begin with.)

  17. Do the IMO/ Siesmologists take the whole weekend off…? Unchecked:
    Sunday
    11.09.2011 04:27:26 63.671 -19.138 9.7 km 2.6 46.22 6.5 km ENE of Goðabunga
    less than 50% guess work are us! Still all quiet.

      4. Oh dear… Never forget the Trolls, although the mighty sword of intellect often beats those hiding in the shadows and under bridges.
        Captcha is a shield, otherwise, register your intent.
        Personally i like the challenge

      5. was that really called for Jay? You asked for a link to the swarm, I provided it to you, after a mere 0.5 seconds of searching for it, using my ‘mighty sword’.

        I know captcha stops bots, I was simply making the point it is getting harder and harder, and people with deteriorating eyesight MUST be struggling with it. Even they deserve a chance to make their views heard, you know, even if they are ‘trolls’?

      6. I agree with this. There are times that I have to copy my post data, clear the buffer and reload the page, find the post I was going to respond to, and paste in what was going to say.

        All because the capcha is fully illegible.

        At least on the one on Tinypic I have a reload link on the capcha window so I can get a different capcha challenge.

        And even with capcha, you still get the occasional shoe or jewelery bot.

      9. Excuse expletives… Little do they know to mess with.
        Captcha=standards orgoone…
        Wilhelm Reich springs to mind

  19. mark you misunderstand and please read between lines…. No offence… Oh come on you know it’s Sunday!

  20. @ Lurking “For it to be a harmonic related to some sort of oscillatory mechanism of the crust, the wavelength would be far longer than would show up on standard seismic gear.”
    Yes because the standard gear has not been invented long enough.
    This is where one, the solar effect argument stands strongest. There will be many interlaced wavelengths besides solar, that is for sure. The solar magnetic effect will be so small, yet vital. Over a long period (millions/years) massive in total effect. The wavelengths you think you see, are there, I state the obvious, just try and find them, or find their traces.

    I would be interested to hear a sound graph of the noise of http://i53.tinypic.com/vfb7v4.png The human ear has a lot to contribute in helping one think, especially outside the box.

    Katla sleeps, lovely days all is well in the world.

    The wave length of these *$$:!!!88$ captchas is strangely connected to us all, artificial intelligence 😆

    1. NaNu… Nanu Rustynailer… All in connect, damn those sycophantic individuals.
      Am i burning bridges here?

    2. Sorry, but magnetic fields do not affect geological entities.

      Earths magnetic field is about 30 microTesla, i.e. 30 000 nanoTesla. The galactic magnetic field is about 5 nanoTesla (1 microTesla is 1000 nanoTesla), and the solar magnetic field at Earth’s distance is about 0.1 nanoTesla. The magnetic fields of the CMEs and other transient solar phenomena (incl. flares) is observed to be at maximum 1-10 nanoTesla .

      So at maximum, the Sun can alter only 1/10000th of the Earth magnetic field strength or direction. Volcanoes or any other geological entities do not give a shit about that kind of flies’ farts.

      And, please do not come to tell me it adds up. If magnetic fields add up over time, so does Earth magnetic field, too! In reality, they are not cumulative. But, they do add up over area. But so does gravity, too, which is about 100 000 times stronger force, compared to magnetic forces.

      So, do not try to make fools of yourselves again talking about this solar-geological connection…

      For Lurking and others interested in photographic effects (incl. me), it is certainly & gladly allowed!

      1. Jack @ Finland…I would beg to differ, all in all systems influence.
        Proof otherwise is hard to obtain… More research
        “Captcha… Don’t you love it…=”freerie Top-secret”

      2. Although do you know about anomalies and flux? Nothing is in a static enclosed system, and as for the science playing around with al le harp etc… We really need to keep tabs on this

      3. Your opening statement unfortunately seals your fate…
        “Sorry, but magnetic fields do not affect geological entities.”
        As i often go to less enlightened realms i only have to say…WTF?
        What is this planet but influenced by magnetics, otherwise we would be fried to a crisp… Please understand the protection

      4. I’m fully aware of the protection, but are you aware of energetics? Solar stuff does not have enough energy to cause any quakes or eruptions!

      5. Initially perhaps not in the instance, although energy (of all forms) does have influence, as i remarked before the time scales and dynamics are rarely studied or accepted although that does not negate any validity.

      6. Laws of nature do not obey our wishes.

        The biggest problem most people nowadays have is the total lack of sense for scales.

      7. The sun creates tides in the ocean just like the moon.

        An analogy if all this was a series of 0’s and 1’s like computing, just one 0 instead of a 1, is all that it takes.

      8. Jack@Finland i’m not sure if you read the opening post on this thread, please keep an open mind at least. Unless you or all of us may look like bigger fools sooner or later. There’s more to reality than what acknowledged science knows so far, that is why we keep studying. The more one knows the more there is to know.

      9. I read it, and it was very funny… And that’s why I do not recommend it for others.

      11. @ Jay

        Perhaps I missed it in a prior post somewhere, but do you have a description for how you propose a magnetic field exerts enough kinetic force to trigger an earthquake? Also do you have any evidence? i.e. documentation of more earthquakes during known geomagnetic storms? It seems to me, given the volume of earthquake data available, and quite a large number of geomagnetic storm data easily available, that any connection if it exists, should be quite easy to prove. Given that if there is a connection, during powerful solar events there should be a measurable increase in the number of earthquakes in the world. Also these measured increases should show a trend of more events proportionate to the strength of the solar activity. Also if there are no measurable increases in global earthquake swarms, then simple logic would suggest that solar storms do not, in fact exert a measurable influence on seismic events.

        As you hardly seem to be alone in proposing this hypothesis, surely there are other people who have done this sort of rather standard number crunching. I would be curious to see the links if there are any.

      12. I think I did those plots in the last thread.

        Solar Flux vs M4.5+ events world wide binned by day, and Solar Flare strength vs M4.5+ events world wide binned by day.

        On one of them I even ran the Pearson correlation coefficient and the Spearmans rank coefficient. (aka Spearmans Rho)

      13. Ah, I found the posts. Much appreciated. Very clearly a total lack of any sort of increase in earthquake activity around flares. Also interesting to note was the earthquake per day plot appears to be trending up slightly for most of the length of that plot.

      14. Yeah, that’s the “technology skew” thing I was talking about.

        I became aware of how to find it by reading some research on an area in Spain (I think). They had to back out the variation in the data that was caused the addition of seismic gear over time.

        Its a bit more difficult for “whole world” data, but when you look at individual areas the increased detection rate that new gear provides stands out much easier.

  21. Excuse me… All. I think there is a time delay here… I get results from the IMO at least 2 hours after the event, and as for the verification and “checking”, that may take up to 24 hours after event… Hardly real time N’est pa as le Francaise would say… Take all in stride… And as long as Lava, rocks and Pyroclastic flow don’t get you… Consider yourselves lucky

    1. There is no time delay of 2 hours. It is an automatic system which immediately passes the data.

      1. Been thinking how to explain plotting a Poincare section. It’s not difficult once you understand what it represents. I’ll use the pendulum example in the link provided below but describe what I *think* it means in my own words. 🙂

        For the driven pendulum, there are 2 graph axes …

        Y-value = velocity
        (Velocity of of the pendulum changes as it swings. Highest rate at the bottom of the swing with a negative or positive velocity depending on direction.)

        Thus the Y axis of the Poincare graph needs to represent some scalar measure ….

        (The purpose of the Poincare section is to plot the phase space … how the differential change of variables are related to each other. )

        In the pendulum example … how the velocity is related to the phase angle. … In a normal pendulum swinging, that’s simple but when the pendulum is driven … such as by attaching the fulcrum that the pendulum hangs on to an off center pin on a rotating disc in the vertical plane … the relationship between velocity and phase angle becomes chaotic … or something like that. (Ouch. … at my own poor understanding)

        earthquakes/hour, earthquake energy/hour … earthquakes/day …

        … It’s really your prerogative as to what is easiest and makes most sense.

        The X-axis of the Poincare section is ‘phase angle’

        In the earthquake situation you should use successive time lags.

        Suppose your Y axis measure is EQ/day

        Calculate all differences in EQ counts between one day and the immediate previous day

        Difference between Sept 11 and Sept 10 gives a value of n more or less quakes on Sept 11th than there were on Sept 10th

        Do this for each of the single day lags …
        … Difference between Sept 10 and Sept 9
        … Difference between Sept 9 and Sept 8
        … Difference between Sept 8 and Sept 7

        There will be as many single day lag counts as there are (Days – 1) in the entire data set. (A year’s data will have 364 “one day lag” differences in earthquake count.

        Now do the same with “two day” lags
        … Difference between eq count on Sept 10 and eq count on Sept 8 (count/day on Sept 10 minus count/day on Sept 8)

        … Difference between Sept 9 and Sept 7
        … Difference between Sept 8 and Sept 6

        A year’s data will have 363 “two day” lag differences.

        Do the same for 3 day lags, 4 day lags, 5 day lags …

        The X coordinate for the scatter plot you will build is

        (For a year’s worth of daily data)
        X= 1 = 1 day lag. There 364 values of Y which all have X = 1
        X = 2 = 2 day lag. There 363 values of Y which all have X = 2
        X = 3 = 3 day lag. There 362values of Y which all have X = 3

        Notice how the time lag makes the X-axis represent the phase angle

        The scatter plot constructed this way shows as a scatter across a column “unit x wide” and “difference in Eq count Y high” …

        … the relationship between change-of-Earthquake-frequency VERSUS lag time between earthquakes.

        Notice: There is the problem with plotting difference in Eq numbers caused by discrete counts. For example there can be five (3,8) data points (3 day lag, difference in eq count of +8)

        Add pseudo random noise -.5 dx/dy is constrained to create squiggly lines. …

        That gives you the “dynamical system”. The evolution is constrained .. or collapses to the squiggly line ( I.E. the attractor for dynamic .. the attractor (constraining line) which describes the ‘change’ (dynamic)

        See http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node51.html#f18

        My apologies for spewing this stuff. Hope it helps and doesn’t confuse.

      2. Something got corrupted in the middle unintentionally 😀

        Pasting in the correction and hoping it works …

        Add pseudo random noise -.5< y dx/dy is constrained to create squiggly lines. …

      3. Failed try again ..

        Add pseudo random noise …(SOME UNWANTED HTML CODE) to ensure that each Y value is unique and thus each data point is visible on the plot.

        Or use energy differences or … whatever you might fancy.
        ————
        The underlying assumption for this Poincare section … or phase portrait … is that a relationship exists between the Y axis variable [Eq energy, Eq count, Eq depth … etc] and X axis variable [ lag time in this example .. but how about Eq depth .. or Eq distance?]

        Essentially you are constructing by brute force, a scatterplot of every value of (X,Y) that the data set indicates exists in nature.

        The hope is that some (x,y) pairs will be more densely distributed in the scatterplot and that the density will be differentially related —> dx/dy is constrained to create squiggly lines. …

      4. Well, I have now made two of the ugliest plots I have ever made.

        When a lot of green dots and some diagonal garbage shows up… it’s pretty clear that something isn’t quite right. Tried plotting a few of the columns in xyyy format just to see if there was anything salvageable in the operation and I get what looks like a … a…

        I don’t know. Jackson Pollock wouldn’t even claim this one.

        http://i53.tinypic.com/9gzkhy.png

        (If anybody looks at this and has no clue… don’t sweat it, I don’t either, there is nothing useful in it and is provided so that Raving can see the FAIL plot for himself.

      5. Don’t know what else to contribute at this moment other than to say that I appreciate your efforts …

        … and (for me) it takes time to let understanding sink in and become integrated with other realizations. …

        … and that Jack @ Finland and Carl le Strange are doing a fine job of steering you ahead.

  24. Think it’s time to present a new color on the earthquake maps in Iceland for those manmade earthquakes. Any ideas on the color? (green is my bid)

    Greetings, WeeMad 😉

    2. Weemad Green stars are used for quakes over 3. It could cause confusion. How about a nice fetching Pink. This colour seems to be very politically correct at present. It is a shade lighter than “Natural” quakes. It could be construed as being ” blonde female” friendly and it will make Lurking’s graphs even prettier!!!

      Seriously, there could be a problem with using a different colour for the following reasons. The origin would first have to be verified which could take time (Especially at weekends). The colours of the “man made” quakes would have to be changed to denote time span and the maps could get pretty messy.
      Most importantly, we would have less to discuss on this Blog during Katla Cat-naps as someone, somewhere, will have made decisions and we would all be confused even more by Lurking’s findings in graphics.

  25. What’s going on? Big spike in godabunga graphic and a big swarm in other place… can anyone explain? Thank’s!

    1. The Godabunga tremor plot if that’s what you are referring to ie:
      http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/god.gif
      is quite normal apparently, being in such a place is often influenced by weather.
      Incidentally i have heard the name translates to “Fat Priest” although i could be wrong. I’ve learn’t not to put too much faith in that. “Swarm in other place” sounds interesting tho’? Please share source.

      1. The other place is the one you say it’s man made i think… you are shure it’s man made? I say this, because there are more earthquakes in other places, in that region. Thank’s!

      3. Yes, they only happen at the area of geothermal exploration. They are triggered by the manmade activity (water pumping). I know very well that area.

  28. @Jay:
    “Every conscious person experiences their world through the filter of their perception.”
    I like that.
    That’s why I told you that we can’t shut the door at sensible perceptions, like when I told you that it makes sense to think that gravity should, in some way, have some kind of influence over stresses taking place under Earth’s layers.
    That’s where Science begins: gathering evidence for such perceptions until they can have either statistical or empirical support for such perceptions.
    IMHO, I don’t find room for believing that there should be some kind of influence from magnetism over geological phenomena (other than atmospheric). And I don’t think that Science has yet found any sort of correlation, as far as my poor knowledge can tell.
    That’s why I believe that we’d rather bring about over this blog themes that are already being discussed in scientific forums, rather than to fly to speculations which are way too far from common sense.
    But this is only to keep a logical, scientific oriented track, since internet could be a trap for all kinds of absurdities.
    Still, doors remain open for the debate. 🙂

  30. It would be funny to hear news reporters say correctly “there is an eruption of…” and the names of Hellisheiðarvirkjun, Theistareykjarbunga, Hveravellir or Hvannadalshnúkur.

    2. Irpsit, I can almost pronounce Eyjafjallajökull thanks to a very nice Icelandic singer on you tube and listening carefully for over a year! However I still cannot quite get the pronunciation of the final ” ll “. It’s a sort of “click/suck into the side of the mouth” sound we do not use in English…. almost like the Welsh pronunciation but more difficult for us! I must admit your list of Hellisheiðarvirkjun, Theistareykjarbunga, Hveravellir and Hvannadalshnúkur is daunting in the extreme. 🙂
      Now here is an idea for Jon to make some money! Personal tuition into the pronunciation of Icelandic volcanoes and areas for News presenters plus some correct history and facts about the Ielandic volcanic system. 🙂

  31. How about OK? The glacier!
    How’s your Welsh:
    Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch!!
    It does exist, it’s a village with a railway station on Anglesey

    1. Sorry forgot, translates as
      ‘St Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave’.

      1. Wow! By the time the train arrives and the guy in charge has finished the announcement, the train is already gone. 🙂

      2. Hmmm….the train is probably still on its way. This is the UK, so the train is usually a few minutes late.

  32. How about this one now? Poorly located?
    16:33:48 64.274 -17.124 4.9 km 2.0 84.67 16.2 km SSE of Grímsfjall

    1. I don’t think it works that way. Volcanoes are not sitting there waiting to explode at the slightest provocation. People have drilled right into magma chambers before with little problems other then the loss of an otherwise perfectly good drill. A lot of things must come together for an eruption to occur.

    2. C’mon WD that site’s not fair – REALLY makes me want to go to Iceland again! Trouble is from Norfolk to get anywhere is a right pain in the **** Have to make do with the Lakes next month; no aurora just rain, but I suppose the Carrock minerals will compensate. And the Borrowdale Volcanics………
      @ Carl
      Trust you’re well, haven’t heard from you of late

      1. I know how you feel i was watching the aurora on the EarthCam Peace Tower last night, i just wanted to see them for myself again! Once saw them three times in one week a few years ago, twice in Northern Sweden & then a few days later in Iceland, how good that was! Somerset is a little better than Norfolk to get anywhere but not much. So Hengill won’t ‘go’ thru mad made drilling! http://www.earthcam.com/cams/iceland/reykjavik/#

  38. The time vs longitude plot redone, but extended all the way to just beyond the Reykjanes peninsula.

    Notable points annotated for reference.

    http://i54.tinypic.com/m7al90.png

    It seems that the large quakes in 2000 that Jack@Finland mentioned had an effect at least as far as Krýsuvík.

    Before anyone asks, Eyjafjallajökull at latitude 63.633°N is outside of this box and does not appear here.

    1. I have been having a running issue with the scaling of the Y-axis grid. At some points it denotes the end of the year and at others the beginning. Every time I set if for one year increments it defaults to 365 days… and that tosses in a leap year problem. I put the data format in “year only” to keep the plot from being overly cluttered, so the vagaries of the scaling problem showed up.

      The note of the 2000 Hekla eruption is accurate.

      If anyone needs this plot with the full date on the y axis let me know and I can redo it.

      Sorry for the inconvenience.

      1. This is a very interesting picture:

        The Iceland fault line separates two zones, on the left most energy are used for earthquake so there was less violent volcanoes and on the other side the earthquakes were less but the energy were devoted for the eruption of the big volcanoes.

        Here I assume the fault line movement contributes equal energy to both sides of plates of Iceland.

  39. Manias but mine will last Mýrdalsjökull earthquakes are a little stronger that if without a swarm.

    1. Keep in mind that a lot of smaller earthquakes are probably lost due to noise caused by heavy winds.

  40. Just one small observation: I drove through south Iceland today and crossed also a number of rivers. Múlaksvísl and the Jökulsá á Sólheimarsandi had a very strong sulphur smell, which was not noticeable last thursday.

    1. Interesting! The hydrothermals are probably still going nuts beneath the ice, and overall the seismicity is remaining rather high, as I expected it to fade out within days after the large harmonic spike.
      By the way, I love those first-hand reports, keep it up! 😀

      2. I would imagine a strong sense of sulphur would be something that people in Vik are going to identify, and so alert the authorities and media.

      3. You would expect the people in Vik to detect the smell of sulfur. But it may depends on the geography and wind direction. Did Chris notice it when he went near Vik?

        Do the authorities check this blog?

    3. The wind is blowing from the north. That helps bringing more sulphur smell I guess.

      I drove there many times, and at Solheimarsandi sometimes the sulphur smell is more intense sometimes than other times, but I only feel that in Solheimarsandi, never in Múlaksvísl! I have never felt sulphur smell in Múlaksvísl, which is where the flood happened in July (and the main drainage from Katla eruptions).

      So if you feel that smell of sulphur in Múlaksvísl, that is not a very good sign, it either means that geothermal activity is very high at the southeast of Katla (due to magma rising), or that magma has been degasing and so releases the sulphur smell. Both can indicate a near eruption, but especially the second case.

  41. Jon,

    Where can I find a map with the SIL stations (named)? Or is there a table mapping the SIL stations to the volcano(es) they are monitoring?

    Thank you,

    KarenZ

  42. Do they both feed from Mýrdalsjökull? Found Múlaksvísl on my map, but not Jökulsá á Sólheimarsandi.

      1. Thank you – found them now. They are quite a distance apart so initially appear to have difference glaciers (or parts of) as sources. Is the smell coming from the same place under the ice cap?

        Or is the weather still to blame in some way?

  44. Hey guys, I noticed something interesting today.

    I am very used to travel between Reykjavik and Hverargerdi, where Hengill is, and even hike sometimes there, but today I noticed something strange there, there was a big steam (hot spring) coming from a place where I swear I never saw it before. This is very close to the place where the earthquake swarm happened, and is also at the south flank of Hengill. I suspect that some major geothermal activity change happened there. (new hot springs often appear in nearby town of Hverargerdi after major earthquakes)

    Anyone can confirm this?

    1. I haven’t noticed anything today, but I haven’t looked for it. Can you give me a more detailed description where this is? I will have a look next week.

  45. Thanks Diana.

    Renato: it is good enough to keep a simple talk, but bad enough to not be able to talk those volcano names! Icelandic er ervitt!

    1. Yes, but it appeared only briefly as strong spike on my screen, but it dissappeared from my screen (god tremour station) some time back. The BUR strain link shows it, up around over 2 to 2,5 Ml (on mid frequency band), but only a 1,0 Ml is currently listed … seems some recalc happening.

      http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/hekla/borholu_thensla.html
      http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/skjalftar/skjlisti.html

      I agree on that Katla eruption seems near-er. So far almost all general clues HAVE appeared. Those are: “Correct” season, Inflation (not debatable over long period), Strange behavour of animals, strong smell of sulfur (by those not used to it, but might be faulty only because of this), high seismic cumulative-count, some recent harmonic tremors and noticeable “changes” in hydro-thermal-fields and melt-calderas upon the Glacier. Are there more? I have not heard of changes in local ground water levels (if applicable).

      1. I haven’t heard anything about animals reacting yet. Can you give a description, or a link to published materials?

      3. If I may be a bit of a bother, on general I agree with you, but I would like to point a few things out.
        First of all, do you have a source for the sulphur smell story? Because for a sulphur smell to be noticeable it need to come out of the ground outside of the ice-cap. If Sukphur is being pushed up down towards Vik it is probably not a good sign. And if it is coming up around Godabunga site it can be really interesting. And if it is coming out north of Myrdalsjökull we can be in for something special.
        The cumulative seismic strain is going up, but what is up enough? We simply do not know. I think we will notice when she does the final run-up before eruption by almost continous quaking and a seismic cumulative graph going pretty much straight up. But, we quite simply do not know.
        Melt calderas ontop might be caused by the masses of rain that has fallen during the summer combined with years of glacier diminishing due to warmer global weather.
        Harmonic tremor might be caused by changes in run-off due to rain, glacier-melt and so forth.
        Animals do crazy stuff all the time, a while ago a herd of horses ran into the wall of a barn from the outside again and again untilll one of the horses died. For me, anything animals do or do not do is occuring so often, that we can always find something they have done that coinciders with everything. As an example, a couple of days ago a bird hit my window and died, I see that as a precursor for me going to New York… (Not!)
        Never trust animals around cause and effect.
        The “right season” is just statistics, and that pattern might have changed now that the iceload ontop is diminishing over the last few years.

        And yes, I agree with you, but I think we soon will be much more shure.

  48. Off-topic comment.

    I hate hardware failures. My dvd drive has now stopped reading dvd and cdroms. My main hard drive on my desktop computer (where I do most of my work) is on the edge of failing, but it has started to make the click sound of death and is slowing down. But I have also had other drives on edge of failure. But thankfully replaced them in time. But for the moment, I have to turn off my main computer to prevent a major hard disk failure of my main hard drive until I get a new one hard drive to replace it.

    I have ordered replacements for both. But this hardware failures is costing me money and creating a minor issue with budget balance. So donations are welcomed. But I not know how long I am going to build up my money after this, as I am trying to save my money before I move back to Denmark (so far, it is not going so well for me on that front). But the total costs of this failures so far is (last two) is €104, or 777 DKK about. For the people in the U.S, that is $141 that this string of hardware failures has cost me already.

    I hate this type of period in my life when they happens. But this is the punishment for not taking care (or not being able to afford) my own hardware.

  50. Well that was an interestingly abrupt little episode:

    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:41:33 63.654 -19.072 1.1 km 0.2 31.98 8.3 km N of Hábunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:19:43 63.655 -19.158 0.1 km -0.0 99.0 4.8 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:12:05 63.669 -19.154 0.1 km 0.3 99.0 5.7 km NE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:10:41 63.602 -19.044 8.8 km 0.8 99.0 3.7 km NE of Hábunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:09:53 63.668 -19.134 0.4 km 0.9 99.0 6.5 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:09:19 63.653 -19.141 0.1 km 0.4 99.0 5.6 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:04:17 63.658 -19.150 2.3 km 1.4 99.0 5.3 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:03:59 63.657 -19.146 0.4 km 0.5 99.0 5.5 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 04:03:29 63.660 -19.231 7.5 km 0.4 99.0 2.5 km NNE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 03:51:57 63.659 -19.151 0.1 km 1.4 99.0 5.3 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 03:50:50 63.652 -19.158 0.1 km 1.8 99.0 4.7 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 03:50:21 63.659 -19.163 1.1 km 2.7 90.07 4.8 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Monday
    12.09.2011 03:48:44 63.724 -19.314 1.1 km 2.3 90.01 9.7 km ENE of Básar
    Monday
    12.09.2011 03:48:43 63.659 -19.150 1.3 km 2.4 99.0 5.4 km ENE of Goðabunga

    Mike

    1. It seems like the IMO got them checked really quickly. And some of them are pretty shallow. What do you think?

      1. Katla has had her days of rest after a Friday binge. She is now upset that Hengill is getting attention ! She is wanting our attention!

      2. Read last sentence as …ALL of our attention.
        @Denise Marie Katla has many shallow ‘quakes. Some may be Icequakes. If indeed Katla is going to erupt then the hot magma near the surface will start melting the ice and the glaciers and the water beneath will make movements.Water flowing under high pressure can also be powerful enough to cause seismic waves. However Katla’s quakes have been shallow in the past.

    2. Katla definately is restless the past few weeks! Problem is we don’t know what it takes before Katla erupts.. This could aswell go on for months/years..
      Only thing we can do is wait…

      Sander

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