Month: March 2011

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Special report: Pre-earthquakes to the Mw8.9 earthquake in Japan

It appears that before the large earthquake that did happen today (11th March 2011) there was a sequence of a pre-earthquakes. The pre-earthquake to the large Mw8.9 earthquake was a Mw7.2 (EMSC data) that took place on the 9th March 2011 at 02:45 UTC. This pre-earthquake was followed by about dozen or so aftershocks, the largest one being Mb6.2 (EMSC data).

The problem with this type of pre-earthquakes is that you cannot know that they are pre-earthquakes until after the large earthquake takes place. Because of that fact, it is only now known that the Mw7.2 was a pre-earthquake to the Mw8.9 earthquake that did hit Japan today (11th March 2011).

Please see BBC News or CNN for more news about this earthquake.

For webicorders that show the earthquake can be found here. USGS webicorders can be found here.

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Special report: A Magnitude Mw8.9 earthquake struck Japan

At 05:46 UTC (14:46 local time) there was a Mw8.9 (or up to Mw9.1, it is hard to terminate the exact size of this large earthquakes right away) earthquake in Japan. The depth of this earthquake was registered 24 km depth. But that is the reason why this earthquake did create this big tsunami. According to news there has been great damage following this earthquake. Loss of human lives following this earthquakes is also feared. But already there have been found bodies of 300 people that died following this earthquake. After the earthquake a huge whirlpool was created according to BBC News, a video of it can be seen here.

The rupture zone is estimated to be about 500 km (EMSC). But that number might change on a later date. A lot of aftershocks have followed the main earthquake. The largest aftershock did reach Mw7.0 in size so far. But there have also been a lot of earthquakes that have magnitude Mb6.0 – Mb6.9. Many more aftershocks of size Mb5.0 – Mb5.9 have also happened. I have no information about smaller aftershocks. But I am going assume that the number of earthquakes in smaller range is in the number tens of thousands.

This earthquake was recored on all my geophones. Even the one that I have here in Denmark on the second floor where I live.

Above: The Mw8.9 earthquake in Japan on Heklubyggð (Iceland) geophone. This picture is under CC licence.

Above: The Mw8.9 earthquake in Japan on Hvammstangi (Iceland) geophone. This picture is under CC licence.

Above: The Mw8.9 earthquake in Japan on Sønderborg (Denmark) geophone. This picture is under CC licence.

I am going to post more information about this earthquake when I have them. I am also going to post more information about the aftershocks later on.

Please check all major news networks for news about this earthquake.

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New earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano

The quiet time did not last long. But it appears that a new earthquake swarm has started in Krýsuvík volcano. So far this earthquake swarm is just a minor one. But it is hard to know how this develops in the next hours. But it is worth keeping a eye on how this earthquake swarm is going to develop. This earthquake swarm has been in ongoing since 13:13 UTC today (10. Mars 2011), but this is a slow earthquake swarm and does not have had many earthquakes over the past few hours.

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Big plan changes for me

While this is completely off-topic I still find it necessary to say this (I will go back to volcanoes and earthquakes in next blog post). There have been some big plan changes to my plans. The biggest change is that I am going to move back to Iceland in August. This is so not what I had planned. But there is nothing that I can do about it as my income does not support living in Denmark for the moment. If remains to be seen if I move too a different country in the future. As of this moment all such plans have been put on a hold for undefined period of time.

I am going to move back to Iceland in August and then go back to school to learn electronics and other fields so I can get a good job or something that gives me the income to support me in setting up geophones and watching volcanoes. It is going to be costly moving to back (~200.000 ISK, ~1.236€, ~1.712$) to Iceland so all support for this is welcomed when the time comes. Until I move back to Iceland I am going to be in Denmark and I hope that I am going to have enough money for food each month and for all that I need to pay for.

Thanks for reading this blog, and thanks for the support and the donations. 🙂

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Quiet time in Iceland once again

While everyone is watching the eruption in Hawaii. Iceland earthquake activity both in volcanoes and on the fracture zones is taking a break.

So while Iceland is taking a break I am going to write about volcanoes that are never in the news. Not in Iceland and not in the international press. They are not in the news because they are quiet and have been for some time now.

I am going to start tomorrow (hopefully) with a volcano called Snæfellsjökull (wiki here) (if you did think Eyjafjallajökull volcano was hard to say, just try this one).

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The subscription button

If people are wondering what the subscription button is doing there I have a answer. This blog is not going to charge for a subscriptions and never is going too. This button (because PayPal didn’t offer any other button that I could find) is for people how want to donate ten euros every month to this blog for six months at the time. This blog is going to remain free as it has always been since I did start this blog.

I thank all my readers for the support. Both for the donations and for reading this blog. It makes my work worth doing it.

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Frost quakes in Iceland highland

At the moment there is a lot of frost quake activity in the Icelandic highlands. This happens because of the cold weather that is in Iceland at the moment.

Some of the frost quakes have decent quality in the SIL data. But this also creates the problem that it makes harder to see real earthquakes in this if they have also poor quality in the SIL data on the Icelandic Met Office web site. This frost quake activity is going to continue until the ground and the lakes are completely frozen over in the Icelandic highland. Frost quake activity might start elsewhere in Iceland also, if it gets cold enough for this to happen and if the ground supports it also.

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Earthquake activity increases again in Krýsuvík volcano

It appears that Krýsuvík volcano earthquake activity is increasing again. This time around it appears that the earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano has moved more to the west then last weeks earthquake activity.

The biggest earthquake so far is a ML2.1 earthquake with the depth of 6.9 according to automatic data on Icelandic Met Office web page.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The new earthquake area in Krýsuvík volcano. It is more to the west then the earthquake area that was making earthquakes last week. Activity appears to be picking up slowly. But it is hard to know how this develops over the next few hours or days.

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Quiet time in Iceland at the moment

Currently everything is quiet in Iceland. There is little earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano but still ongoing at really slow rate however. Nothing is going on in the volcanoes in Vatnajökull. The TFZ fracture zone is also quiet and has been for some time now. So far only few earthquakes have taken place in TFZ in the last week. But no earthquake swarms have taken place there in a long time now.

In general the activity in Iceland is really quiet. While everything is quiet in Iceland, there is a eruption ongoing in Hawaii. Please see Erik blog for more details.

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Change of my plans (off topic)

This is a off-topic to my normal earthquake and volcano topics here. There have been few others like that before this one and I apology for this off topic.

I have been reviewing my plans in last few days because of my economic situation here in Denmark. I have come down to two plans. My plan is now in two parts and it is as follows. But to make it work I might need some help from my readers how have insight into moving into this area (depends on what area I pick). I also might need some donations for the cost of the moving. But I want to say that I am not used to getting donations. So I am bit hesitant to ask for them. But last time I did so was out of pure emergency that I had in regards to my financial status. It is also in my plans that my next move (expect if to Iceland) is going to be a permanent resettlement to a new place. But I do hope that is not going to change do to some other external effects that cannot control.

Plans in the works.

Plan A: Move back to Iceland if my status does not improve. That is if I don’t get a job in Denmark or the status of the Icelandic Króna does not improve by a margin.

Plan B: Option 1: I move to Spain close the Seville city in Spain. Option 2: I move to Italy. The exact location within Italy would be somewhere close to Etna volcano in Sicily, Italy. I have sent a message to a volcanologist that works in this area and we all know. I hope that he can help me in this matter. But this is going to be a well planned move on my part. I estimate that this going to take at last 6 to 12 months to complete from start to end if everything works out properly (only one plan is going to be selected and finished). But I would have to go to Sicily at least once or twice before I move there. So I would have to travel a bit before I move to there. But I also need to find a good apartment in Sicily, Italy and they can be hard to find in this area far as I know.

This is all going to cost a lot of money (the move it self). I am yet to figure out how to pay for that at this moment. But I have started to work on a plan in regards to that. But it might involve getting a higher debt at my bank, even if I don’t like it. My debt would get higher if I have to move back to Iceland anyway. So I did figure that it would be wise to move south, where the prices are cheaper and it might be a possibly to live a decent live there.

I am considering how to deal with this topic here. I might just keep posting this off topic blog post. Even if I find it worse as it breaks up the volcano and earthquake blog posts here. As I don’t really have any other good place for this information. As I find it important to let my readers know what I am up to, as it effects the blog posts on this site. I also want to point that where ever I go. I am going to setup my geophone in order to record earthquakes in that location, or if I move to Etna. Both earthquakes and harmonic volcano tremor when Etna erupts.

The following plans of mine have been canceled for the moment. Move to Germany to watch the West Eifel Volcanic Field. But sometimes I reactive plans if it fits my plans. It is just the way I work in this matters.

Thanks for the support so far and I am sorry for this off topic. 🙂

Update: I just found out that this won’t get any easier for me. But in time I am going to loose the personal tax discount (Icelandic) in Iceland. That is going to mean a serious drop in income for me. I am going to try and figure out how this is going to work in the long run for me. But this still has not put me off my plan yet. I cannot make any sense of the explanation (icelandic) that they give on there web site. As I am unsure how to interpret what they mean by it.

I am also sorry for all this drama that I am creating with my personal problems by writing about them here.

Post updated at 02:32 CET at 6th of March 2011.