Month: January 2011

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Glacier quakes in Vatnajökull glacier following a lot of rain

The quiet time in Iceland continues with few to no earthquakes. Besides the strong Mw6.2 earthquake in Jan Mayen Island (Belongs to Norway, regional to Iceland geological area in my personal view) there is nothing happening.

On the night of 25th of January there where ice-quakes in Vatnajökull glacier. This appears to have happened due to heavy rain in that area from the 21st of January. But that can make the glacier move suddenly and that makes the ice-quakes. Icelandic Met Office has some pictures of this activity.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site. Copyright belongs to them.

Ice-quakes in this plot appear as spikes. As can be seen a lot of ice-quakes took place in Vatnajökull glacier during the heavy rain.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site. Copyright belongs to them.

A high detail of the ice-quakes. As can be seen, the ice-quakes look different then normal earthquakes. This is because ice is not as dense then rock and is under less pressure, and therefor breaks in a different way.

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Shortage on updates while moving and other things

In the next few days or weeks there is going to be a shortage of updates on this web page. This is because I am moving to a different country and I might not always be connected to the internet (and I might have a lack of internet connection in Denmark) when something happens in Iceland. I also might be traveling when something interesting takes place in Iceland.

I am going to do my best update on events in Iceland in the case something happens. But I am sure that something is going to happen while I am mostly offline in this transit of mine.

If anything happen, please post information on that in the comments. They are going to remain open for the next 30 days as is the default rule on this blog.

With my move to Europe I am also considering starting to cover volcanoes in Europe as well, as any major earthquake that happens in Europe. As that is also not done far as I know. But other sites that cover this topic are global. But I am considering going more regional (Europe) instead of being just local to Iceland. But I feel that there are enough global volcano web sites out there. So it is not in my plans to go global. But I have few problems, for instance on how to cover Russia. A country in Europe, but also has borders in Asia and to the U.S. But I am sure that I am going to be done figuring out this problem when I am properly connected to the internet again in Denmark (but I don’t know how long that is going to take).

Ads info.

I am considering adding the other Amazon stores to this web site. But that might take some doing due to hard languages in question (Japanese, Chinese, Italian, French etc..). But at the moment this is just on the consideration stage for the moment. At the moment the store is slow according to my counter. But I am sure that traffic is going to pick up in coming weeks. At least I hope so.

Any comments and suggestions on this are welcomed!

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Fake Hekla eruption, earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

I did miss this yesterday. But apparently there where false rumours on Facebook yesterday that Hekla volcano had start erupting. While the facts where those that no eruption was taking place in Hekla people did believe this anyway and didn’t check for the facts. The reason why this did happen was that somebody did use a old news about last Hekla eruption that took place in the year 2000. But news of that eruption can still be found on the internet today.

The most serious aspect of this false rumours about Hekla volcano is that this got into the news rooms at few media station, where people asked the news reporters on why they where not covering the eruption (that didn’t exist) in the news and with breaking news on the tv. But this also got into Icelandic Met Office, but people where calling them also. According to news on this false rumours this annoyed the geologist on duty. But this takes valuable time from them for no reason.

About six thousand people fell for this prank or false rumour on Facebook.

News about this: Hekla fór að gjósa á Facebook (Vísir.is) (Icelandic) – Use Google Translate at own risk.

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A small earthquake swarm is taking place in Krísuvík volcano. This earthquake swarm is not big so far. The largest earthquakes have gone up to ML2.2 in size. The depth in this earthquake swarm is about 7 to 11 km. So far something less then 30 earthquakes have happened. Other then this small earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano, and few other small earthquake swarms taking place in Iceland or around it there isn’t a lot happening in earthquakes and volcano activity at the moment.

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People feelings about the advertisements ?

As a web site owner. I want to know what my readers feel about the advertisement plan that I am putting up here.

The reason that I ask is because I think critical and I want to know if this annoys anyone or not, or if that I am going to far with this or not. My plan from the start has been that to keep the advertisement integrated into the blog so it doesn’t annoy my readers in any way. I also want criticism if there is one on this plan that I have.

I just got approved for Amazon Deutschland (DE) Associates program. So I have started to add some small advertisement from them too on to the blog sidebar. I am going to setup the aStore tomorrow if I have the time.

I also want to thank people for the support and for reading my blog. 🙂

(I also use the quiet time for this, as there is nothing happening in earthquakes and volcanoes in Iceland at the moment)

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Wave form picture of the ML2.5 earthquake in the South Icelandic Seismic Zone (SISZ)

Here is a wave form picture of the ML2.5 earthquake that took place west of Hekla volcano. This earthquake is part of the the SISZ. Not Hekla volcano. But it remains to be seen if this is related to Hekla volcano, but Hekla volcano location appears to have some effect on SISZ. Normally during or after a eruption in Hekla volcano it is followed by a small swarms of earthquakes in SISZ. In the year 1878 there was a eruption in Hekla volcano that was pre-seeded by large earthquakes in SISZ. The eruption that followed was a fissure eruption near a peak named Krakatindur. This area also erupted in the year 1913, but that time on two new fissures.

The wave form data. This picture is released under CC licence, see the legal section for more information.

I was going to setup the location and distance data. But IMO has not released that data at present time.

Historical accounts of Hekla eruptions (Icelandic). GVP information on Hekla volcano.

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Update on Advertisement

Here is a little update on advertisement for this web site. I have removed all the Google Adsense advertisements due to difficulties in changing my home address with them. But Google sets up a technical barrier when it comes to move address on the fact that Iceland and Denmark don’t use the same currency (yea, just silly. But I am considering forwarding this issue to the EU Commission as this is against EU law far as I can tell). I was also unable to setup a new account with my new home address due some rather odd message from Google Adsense.

As people did notice I was testing out Adbrite advertisements. But as it turns out there was some bad behaviour going on there that I as a web site owner do not approve of. So they got removed. But they where also not placing ads on this web site for unknown reasons.

Because of all this I have switched back to Amazon ads. Due to the fact that most of visitors on this web site come from Europe I am going to display ads from Amazon UK and Amazon DE (in process). For others the web store is good place for people to look for volcano related stuff to buy. The Web Store is currently work in progress, but U.S and Canada is going to be added soon on that web site.

I hope that people show me understanding in regards to this issue.

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Update on the quiet time

It currently is quiet in Iceland, both in volcano and earthquakes. But it is not all without earthquakes. Few earthquakes have taken place in Krísuvík volcano, the largest being ML2.6 and in Kverkfjöll volcano. Few earthquakes have also appeared in TFZ, but all of them where small.

Besides this small activity. Everything remains quiet.

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Eyjafjallajökull volcano ash – Pictures

As it is quiet time in Iceland and I currently don’t have a lot to write about volcano activity and earthquake wise. So while that is I am going to put up two pictures that I got of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano ash from last years eruption.

Eyjafjallajökull volcano ash. I release this picture under Creative Commons Licence (see page for more details).

Eyjafjallajökull volcano ash. I release this picture under Creative Commons Licence (see page for more details).

To get full size, click on the picture.

The pictures where taken by Birgit in Austria. With many thanks to here for this great pictures of the volcano ash from Eyjafjallajökull.

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Increased geothermal activity in Grímsfjall volcano

According to a news by Morgunblaðið (mbl.is) there is a increased geothermal activity in Grímsfjall volcano. The news reports that in fields close to the houses (hud or something like that) that research and mountain group have in the area there is increased geothermal activity. There is hard to know from the news report how much increase in activity there is. But but this increase appears to be significant as it got noticed by a group that was travelling in the area few days ago.

The group that did go there few days ago where from the Icelandic glacier research society. They did agree that they never had seen so much geothermal activity in the area. The inflation in Grímsfjall volcano is now more then it was before the eruption in 2004 according to the news. There is a good chance that the ML3.5 and ML4.2 earthquakes few days ago did change pathways in the ground and allowed the hot water to rise to surface in this location.

Thanks to Fireman to find this news.

Icelandic news about this. Use Google translate at own risk.

Mikill hiti í Grímsfjalli (mbl.is) – There is a picture in this news of the new geothermal activity.

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Earthquakes between Grímsfjall and Bárðarbunga volcano. Earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

Since Week 52 in the year 2010 there have been strange earthquakes between Bárðarbunga volcano and Grímsfjall volcano. It is hard to know exactly what this means. But it is clear that tension is rising fast in Grímsfjall volcano, as is evidence by the ML4.2 and ML3.5 earthquakes in Grímsfjall volcano few days ago. But this might be something, or this might simply be nothing at all. Only time is going to tell us what this means.

Far as I know, nothing like this was recorded before the Gjálp eruption (SIL earthquake data from 1996) between Grímsfjall volcano and Bárðarbunga volcano in the year 1996. But it is a important factor that the SIL network was a lot smaller back in those days.

Krísuvík volcano

This morning there has been a micro-earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano. The largest earthquakes have gone up to ML2.0 (automatic SIL data), with the focal depth of ~4 km. So far around 20 earthquakes have been recorded by the SIL system that Icelandic Met Office runs. This morning the earthquake swarm has quieted down a bit. But it is hard to know if it is over or not. But this area of Krísuvík volcano has been having a lot of micro-earthquakes swarms over the past few weeks. This has been followed by a uplift in the volcano (inflation). But that did start early last year after a short period of deflation.

Other then this, it remains quiet in Iceland volcano and earthquake wise.