Day: September 9, 2011

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New earthquake swarm in Katla volcano during the day

Today there was a new earthquake swarm in Katla volcano. This earthquake swarm was in the caldera of Katla volcano, same as the earthquake swarms that have happened inside Katla volcano since July, when this pattern of activity did start.


Current earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.

It has been few hours since the earthquake activity did stop in Katla volcano. If the pattern that has been ongoing for the past week and longer there should be a harmonic tremor spike in few hours time. But that it currently hard to know if this pattern is going to hold up or not. But I have every reason to believe that it is going to do so. For the moment, all that can be done is to wait and see what happens next in Katla volcano. At the moment, I have not seen any harmonic tremor spike during the day or at current time when this blog post is written.

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More harmonic tremors in Katla volcano

It seems that Katla volcano is not as quiet it seems to be. For the moment the harmonic tremor seems to be small and only properly observable on one SIL station due to how weak it is at current time. So far two harmonic spikes have happened. This is most likely a hydrothermal system going crazy under the glacier close to Lágu Hvolar SIL station, rather then magma on the move (or at least that is what I think).


Harmonic tremor at Lágu Hvolar SIL station. The harmonic tremor can be seen at the end of this tremor plot. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.

There has not been a lot of earthquake activity in Katla volcano during the last 24 hours or so. But that might not mean anything, as eruption can and have started without any warning at all (example: Grímsvötn volcano May 2011). So for now, it is more wait and see and more waiting it seems.