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. We really have to congratulate Jón.

    Not only he has this ability to see harmonic tremor where no one else can see, but we was very right when a few days ago saw the inflation starting (he even wrote a post about it), when it was nearly invisible. Now 3-4 days later, it is very clear. And these events are happening faster. I dont know how long will this keep before the feared E word.

    Eyjafjallajokull had deformation and inflation about 1 month before. With Katla, this could be the same, less or more time. But I think it is safe to say it is very likely that a large eruption is going to happen there within less than 6 months. And I am being conservative. I would even say within weeks, probably within 2 months. Time will tell whether I am wrong or not.

    1. Agree Jon is doing some great work. He must have some great equipment.

      From his posts, I think I have learned to see harmonic tremors.

      Thank you.

      1. Thanks, Jón.
        Should have thought that before I spoke. It’s the nerves, you know? 🙂

  3. Sorry, I know that it has been said many times before; but what exactly should we expect before an imminent Lady K eruption (I.E: 6 hours) Or no-one entirely sure, however I do get the idea of it that there will be severe quaking etc…

    -Sam

    2. People of Vik area will feel strong quakes hours before. That is known up to now from previous eruptions.

  4. Those quakes to the left of Katla are near or on the fissure. Fimmvörðuháls is on the same line. The fissure runs across Katla’s caldera, the line was used by some of the quakes yesterday.

    When Katla finally erupts the fissure may figure in it, it may be that. Anybody?

    2. It’s not really very many earthquakes. There were many many many more in the swarms before Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Also it’s not clear how many of these might be icequakes. There has been some heavy rain and warm weather recently that makes the glaciers crack and move, which show up as quakes on the IMO site. But you can’t know what the origin is from just looking at that map as it doesn’t have any of the waveform data.

      For comparison, here is a picture from a swarm at Krýsuvík earlier this year which shows you what a large or “lighting up like a Christmas tree” swarm looks like.
      http://icelandgeology.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/110227_1500.2.png

    1. Thank you Rick. I enjoyed your site. Some good web cams of areas I have not seen. Iceland is so beautiful. I really want to visit. Good interactive graphs too.

    3. I agree, a very detailed link, thank you.

      I’m very curious about what might happen to the Mýrdalsjökull glacier if Katla erupts. Is the entire glacier likely to melt or just the part in the caldera? Or even less than that?

      I assume nobody could be sure bit I’d be interested to know what the experienced blog posters think. Many thanks!

      2. Hello Ian!

        It will be about the same melting as it was at Grimsvötn earlier this year regarding the area, but the meltwater volume will be larger due to greater icevolume being melted. It will not even be close to melting it all, that would take a very heavy VEI-6 or even a VEI-7, and that is just not going to happen. There is just not enough energy in Icelandic volcanos for that. A small VEI-6 might be possible though, but very very unlikely.

  8. Hello all – been lurking a while and finding the debates and reports most interesting.

    I have just returned from my first trip to Iceland – can’t really put into words what a fantastic place it is. It is great to be able to put mental images to all these placenames.

    Anyhow … I spent one night at a farm right on the edge of Myrdalsjokull – not quite rocked gently to sleep by quakes but very close to the glacier edge. Spent a very enlightening evening talking with the farmer about Katla. It’s not remotely scientific, I know, but he told me that the folks who work the land there have been noticing odd things for several months – and that the sheep generally behave oddly before something happens (that’s what he said, and I guess he knows sheep) . Either way, there’s a real tension in the area – a lot of people have already packed essentials into the car ready for a quick evacuation.

  11. I realise a lot of you pure science types may scoff , roll on the floor laughing and/or rage angrily at this idea: Using
    http://www.solarsystemscope.com/
    for example (because i’m simple) i have been plotting the position of the moon over the last 4 days/nights. There has been a decline of earthquake events (at Katla) as the moon passes over the western hemisphere, ie America, then an uptick as it is is over the pacific. That coupled with the position of the full moon/new moon over the preceding month+… I would graciously ask you to entertain that old controversial “argument” of gravitational pull of tides influencing geological pressure, coupled with the gravity anomaly at the North Atlantic in assisting understanding. Apologies in advance (no troll).

    1. I usually dont post in topics like this but I just have one word for you. And then Ill let you figure it out. 😉

      Viscosity!

    2. If you compare the strain rate and magnitude of tides to other geological stresses, it turns out to be something about a hundredfold times too small to have a noticeable impact (Note: Tides are a global phenomenon with very small strains on a local scale). Not to say that tides don’t have zero impact, but they have such a small influence on events that you can’t even establish any statistical correlation.

  12. That must be quite some weather if that is all that is causing this! Take a look at the tremor graphs for bja and grf stations

    1. Yes the winds are really rough up there. Around 15m/s and i would guess the gusts can reach over 20-25 m/s.

      1. The UK had the tail end ofIrene (I think) hit yesterday, so if its now adding to Icelands ‘normal’ weather pattern that would produce quite some wind. Let us hope nothing decides to erupt in winds like those… If the forecasts are correct Katia is going to arrive at some speed in the next few days, hopefully having lost most of her teeth before getting to the UK/ Iceland

      2. God likes to be funny and so we is going to make Katla erupt, when Katia is passing by. God likes to be funny, because God is a giant alien smoking weed from a remote control room over the universe. So, Katla will erupt at the end of September.

        (disclaimer: I don’t believe in God)

      3. Irpsit, your interpretation of God is kind of close to the same God that I also do not believe in. But in my case that God is also quite mean-spirited with a evil sense of humour (doing wedgies all the time) and also permanently having a bad case of PMS…

  13. Jay

    We have had this arguement several times on here and it gets very wearing.
    There is no connection between the moon and tides and volcanic or earthquake activity. Please refrain from posting this nonsense on this wonderful blog of jons, and keep to facts and not fiction.

    1. It reminds me of a riposte to those who believe that the planets have an effect on humans when they’re born (astrology) – the gravitational effect of the midwife is many millions that of Mars!

    2. “keep to facts and not fiction”.That’s what i thought the catholics said to Galileo. I am sorry, no working hypothesis then!

    3. karen, I’m not defending this nonsense, but it’s simply wrong for you to say there’s NO connection between moon, tides, and eruptions; there are well-documented instances of eruptions being strongly predisposed to occur at certain times in the lunar/tidal cycle. This is settled science.

      Mike

      3. Thanks for it. And no, it wasn’t meant rude, I just got nerved by one of our students. Sorry if it felt like it.

      5. A lot of the biggest earthquakes have happened around the full or new moon. I guess the tide effect might trigger the quake via a butterfly effect just enough to reach a threshold. And if there are published papers on that, I remain open to it. But I am not saying there is a link for sure.

      6. I can’t recall where I read this, but there is one situation where tides will have an impact: Loading/unloading of water on near-shore areas can have an impact on how much force is pressing down on a thrust fault. I don’t remember if the pressure change was significant enough to be relevant on a neap->spring tide cycle, or just on a twice-daily high-low cycle.

      7. a quick note before people jump on the previous: I’m not saying it’s a significant amount, but that it approaches the point where an effect may be statistically visible. I think the sample set of earthquakes that fit this profile may be too small to draw any reliable conclusions (ie, only consider earthquakes from near-shore thrust faults)

  14. Looking at the pattern of the earthquakes – and yes im only human so i look for patterns – there seems to be a very distinct line running through the caldera from ENE to WSW. And then of course a spot south of myrdalsjökull.

    Looks like two separate intrusions forking its way up. We might see a fissure running through the caldera and with a lot of bad luck a separate fissure on the southern part. Now that would obviously not be good for the people in Vík or nearby farms. Of course that would require a nasty amount of magma and some serious blockages in order to get two separate fissures but stranger things has happened.

    Since there is no reason to think she will NOT erupt I will hope for a smaller eruption and not a large (or several large) fissures or even a calderaforming event.

    2. I think Katla will blow big but from a single fissure E-W in the center of the caldera. This is what it seems to be developing.

      From my amateur perspective, magma is pushing also a bit to the south spot, but I guess most of it is pushing at the center of the caldera. So unless that becomes blocked, we should not see any fissure at that south spot, or if it forms it will be small. But even a small fissure there would be very problematic. I don’t think these kind of fissures have happened in past eruptions, except in Eldgjá and Holmsá fires eruptions, where lava fields are visible.

  15. And another interesting thing. Activity at the godabunga cryptodome has almost seized completely since the activity within the caldera started.
    One would think that this would connect Godabunga cryptodome to the main magmachamber of Katla. Magma is no longer beeing diverted to godabunga but rather to the caldera.

    Just thinking out loud…

    1. Daniel:
      I don’t know exactly what I am asking here, but could not the Godabunga cryptodome work as a sort of link between the caldera and this spot further South? Or is it far away to the West to work that way?
      I always think there is something weird about this cryptodome , and that it could be, somehow, just an extension of the whole chamber system. 🙂

      1. Well it could probably be an extension of the main magmachamber but i would rather think of the spot south of Myrdalsjökull as a completely new feature which has manifested just recently through some sort of intrusion. And I also think that a link between the southern spot and godabunga would be improbable. I tend to lean towards that these are both fed by the main magma chamber but through separate “tubes”. But I dont know..just speculating.

      2. When lurking showed his graph plotting spatial distribution of quakes versus depth, you could see something like a tube from above the chamber to that spot (in the south outside the glacier)

    2. Yes, its interesting. In fact earyhquakes in Godabunga decreased a lot. Maybe magma that feeds the chamber of Eyja, Katla and Godabunga comes from a same origin, probably from a deeper “mother” chamber, that feeds the 3 systems. Just my wild reasoning. But definitively the “south spot” is fed by the Katla chamber, as a side shot. I guess this could be the “Fimmvorduhals” version of Katla. But no one knows how Katla behaves, the most likely is to start erupting right from the main caldera.

      1. Iäve been contemplating something like that. But have a problem with the mother “chamber” since the MOHO is a bit to close…
        I think though, and here it is wild speculation, that there is a globule of magma sitting under the entire shit, and that globule feeds all three of them.
        But… then the magmas seem to be different. Not even Fimmvörduhals and Eyjafjallajökull had the same magma when checking isotopic modelling. So I guess no…

  16. Way OT but my thoughts go out to the families of the killed hockeyplayers in the planecrash today in Russia. One of them was a swedish goalkeeper who played for Sweden in the world championships.

    🙁

  17. Gravity is a relatively fairly weak force. The position of the Moon may have some impact on something that was already near to happenning – depends on the viscosity & location of the magma and possibly how much water is around.

    You’d need to look at a longer period – 4 days could merely be a coincidence.

    1. The tipping point was what i refer to, realising long term trends are ambiguously hard to calculate, many other factors to consider. Observations over the previous month do correlate occasionally. Thanks for some consideration.

      1. I have no knowledge to discuss this matter beyond the realm of speculation, but the idea of the moon/sun gravitation playing some role, even if a slight one, over pressure/stress relationships within the inner viscous fluids beneath the crust sounds far from being absurd to my layman’s understanding.
        So, you have my respect.
        And I wouldn’t dare compare this kind of reasoning to more ethereal ones, such as planetary alignment or astrological explanations, which clearly are way too far from good sense. Still, who am I to argue against them?
        They can have a forum of their own, can’t they?

      2. I agree Rio – cause and effect. If the moon causes the tides it is very obvious because of the viscosity and is observed by us all. I have always believed that gravitational pull affects everything on earth, just happens to be most visible in its effect on water. Why not have an effect on more solid objects. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

    1. Looks like sun reflected on the clouds. I have many photos like this from alpine holidays.

    2. The camera is south east from Mýrdalsjökull and is pointing north west, lovely sunset. I wish tho’ they had used a better mounting bracket, still windy.

      2. Thanks. It’s very beautiful. Like Jon’s Hekla webcam it looks like a watercolour painting this evening.

  19. I am now with a little bit of doubt after checking again the inflation data.

    This sudden sharp inflation also appears in others stations, like Skrokkalda (Hamarinn), Hekla stations, and even Grimsvotn. So, it might be that the earthquakes yesterday messed up things a bit. But the inflation near Katla and Hamarinn is a little bit higher, and the trend at Katla is not only from recent days, but recent weeks, so I think it is really there but now with some error.

  20. Jon, Slightly OT. There are a lot of small earthquakes in southern & eastern Europe at the moment, mainly Greece, Turkey, Czech Republic. Is this normal? Thank you.

    2. What exactly are You talking about? Look at a map, there is quite a distance between Prague and Izmir… In general it’s interesting to look at Istanbul in the next years (bog one ahead), but where should be a link to CZ? Several geological large scale structures in-between… Like looking for a link between Miami and Dallas somehow. But if You have any special idea behind Your question I’d be eager to learn.

      1. Don’t forget, southern Europe is a very active zone where there is a complex orogenic belt where African craton moving north meets Eurasia

      2. Quite aware of the alpine geology, but Turkey’s situation can’t be explained with alpine orogeny, and the Czech geology is not that closely related to the Alps. CZ is not exactly southern Europe, besides… 🙂
        Sorry, I stop here. OT. Just couldn’t resist as it’s a bit of my playground. No sense in getting precise or “know better” here. Didn’t want to start discussions about alpine and European mainland geology.

      3. There was no special concern behind my question. While I knew that there is normally a lot of activity round the Pacific rim, I was not aware that there was this level of activity in Europe. Just wondering if the there is more plate movement following the large Japanese & other earthquakes earlier this year.

      4. I see. To make it short, some places in “Europe” (in largest term) are very interesting in matters of seismic activity, look only around the Mediterranean and Aegean see.
        Concerning the consequences of big earthquakes, even if it’s difficult to proove, but I like to imagine the world as “a whole” where on one or the other scale everything is linked. I read earth’s history as a succession of events, and big events often converged. Interesting thinking about that results from studying the big mass extensions. Start with the K/T event – endless fantastic literature is easily found about that (K/T=Cretaceous/Tertiary). Earth is such a nice vessel to travel space, and so interesting to study.

  21. Katlas caldera is over 11,700 years old, the Pleistocene era. These bad eruptions in historical times are tiny compared to the VE7+ that did that 100 square Kilometer collapse. She must have been tall like Öræfajökull when the big event happened.

    Still going with the folklore on this, Katla is a “bullying housemaid” I think she is just teasing. No eruption for a while yet…

    Very sad about the Russian ice hockey team.

    1. Does the ash deposit known as “Vedde ash” originate from the big caldera-forming eruption of Katla?

      Maybe Katla is becoming old and is now struggling to perform a decent eruption. Soon the mighty volcano might degrade into a geothermal field with cute little, bubbly ponds? Surely Hekla is a lot more volcanic nowadays? 🙂

    2. She was probably a table-top mountain then… So not really as high as Öraefajökull. But yes, there has been VEI-7s in Iceland, but they are hellishly far apart.
      Vedde Ash is originating from Hekla. Almost all ashes in scandinavia comes from Hekla, she is really something when goes in a big style. And that is why I am more worried about Hekla than Katla.

      1. So look to the higher frequency 2-4 Hz energy content.

        Not sure why I continue to get this confused. ( … a confusion that lower frequency signal is what is important.)

        Head spin. X-|

  23. I see a peak at several stations SIL, it seems an earthquake of 2.5 to 3 M
    but not registered

  24. Speaking of Fimmvorduhals, there have, intriguingly, been a couple of quakes in that very area recently, one a little stinger than average – M2+

    Mike

    1. Fimmvorduhals has made an impression on our way of thinking perhaps.
      Seeing quakes that give the hint of that sort of activity, makes one keep an eye on the West of Katla and toward Fimmvorduhals.
      Hypothetically speaking , a tourist version of Katla before the real thing 🙂
      EJ could have cracked the fissure for want of a better expression.
      This is perhaps why Katla has erupted after EJ in the past. It does not matter if the magma source of Katla is different to EJ if there is a fissure, the fissure is a weak spot…

    2. I recall mention made last year(?) in a published(?) paper about the characteristic pattern of shifting tremor activity amongst Katla-Fimmvorduhals-Esjufjöll

      It is characteristic of the historical linkage between all three eruptive sites.

      2. Its wind. The wind is blowing very strong over the mountains and to the east/southeast, particularly over Vatnajokull. And this tremor doesn’t show in other nearby stations.

  28. Someone driving around Katla? Seen lights in the valley on the mid left side of the Katla webcam. Seems too far from the volcano to be any worrisome activity.

      1. Exactly. This is what I expect for the day before the eruption. With the biggest earthquake probably around a 4.0

    2. I saw it to KarenZ, sure it was a car – it disappeared on the left side of the picture.

    1. wow, i just was out in Frankfurt for 1 day, and now i see that much happens at katla.. interesting situation now..

      i better should stay on my computer and don´t leave the house for the next months, perhaps years.. haha 😉

      good lunch!!

    1. Yes. Along with watching cars, I have been watching the clouds / setting sun. But there are two tiny spots of light – one near the snow and one nearer the foreground which I presume are reflections on stones or ice (not big enough to be anything else).

  32. if not an effect of the moon or the sun, but remembered when I was in full Eyja
    eruption
    Later down some pictures

    1. Just the setting sunlight possibly reflecting on the ice, or it is the Witch Katla cooking something up in her cauldron! :). The cam is pointing towards the Northwest

  35. Thank you Diana, a bedtime story indeed! I am just waiting for Jòn’s update and then off to bed.
    Goodnight, good morning. Be safe all!

  36. I’m sorry for posting this a second time but the first time was way way up there ^^^^

    I’m very curious about what might happen to the Mýrdalsjökull glacier if Katla erupts. Is the entire glacier likely to melt or just the part in the caldera? Or even less than that?

    I assume nobody could be sure bit I’d be interested to know what the experienced blog posters think. Many thanks!

    1. Ian:
      Think of Eyjafjallajökull. That was a VEI(4) eruption and the glacier, which is by far smaller than Mýrdal glacier, was hardly disturbed. So, we won’t expect anything much different from Katla, except that the flooding, in a similar sized eruption, would be larger.

    2. Yes, the ice flows, but you can basically think of the ice behaving as if it were rock over the couple of days where you’d have most of the eruption happening. The ice over the vent would be blown out, some nearby would be melted, possibly carrying along some unmelted ice in an outburst flood. Most of the ice would remain unless we’re talking a cataclysmic eruption where the surface of the entire caldera gets blown to the ionosphere or some such
      (go ahead, accuse me of katla-mongering 🙂 )
      After the eruption, the ice around the vent would sag inwards and fill in any hole fairly quickly (maybe a year?)
      It takes a LOT of heat to melt ice…and any significant melting of ice implies a heat source that would boil the meltwater as well. I don’t remember the figures offhand, but the heat capacity of rock is significantly less than the heat of fusion/vaporization for water.

    3. Thank you Renato Rio & lifeblack for your posts.

      Ah ha, the good old latent heat of fusion! I asked because I was trying to envisage what a photographer might be able to capture. The whole caldera for the first time in 93 years! But then again, perhaps not :O)

    1. I have seen beautiful Northern lights from this cam before. Couldn’t this be the case?

      2. No. I also watched this webcam and saw this light, it’s confusing but I think it’s just a long sunset (?)

      3. Captured from the VLC application has control of image brightness and contrast a few adjustments but without image retouching

    2. The light over Eyja is moving E->W which seems to be counter to the normal movement of the sun. The moon isn’t normally that bright though when it’s cloudy.

  45. Anyone heard of Jón? Last heard, off to eat an hour and a half ago… Maybe he’s up there entertaining us, as we all got frustrated waiting!

  47. New blog post is up! 🙂

    There has not been any earthquake with the size 3,8 in Katla volcano for now. But that size of earthquakes shows clearly on my geophone, given that it is just about ~60 km away from Katla volcano (Heklubyggð geophone).

      2. as renato said – wasnt clear that this event actually didnt happen. forget about it 🙂

  48. @scuj1:
    I saw it on Jón’s helicorder and I see it in your “misterious” “… place we’re meant to keep quiet about…….”.
    Why IMO says nothing about it?

    2. Not really mysterious. The link was posted in the previous blog post 😉 .

      Possibly an error, as this would’ve definitely shown on Jón’s helicorder.

  49. I misunderstood you, Jón.
    I thought you had said there had been an earthquake. My bad. 🙂
    Where these graphs come from?

  50. OT
    Good morning Jon and fellow volcano watchers 🙂
    Just to let you know the UK and not Iceland appears to be the target for Katia the hurricane.
    (Sigh) Another few days of rain and winds. We have already had a week of it from Irene!
    http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at2+shtml/054301.shtml?5-daynl#contents
    Winds on the high lands of Iceland and North Western UK can be very fierce when there are deep low pressures passing. These will seriously affect the tremor graphs.
    Iceland is notorious for the many low pressure systems, especially in Spring and Autumn
    However I would like to thank you all on the East coast of USA for sharing!!!

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