Day: March 29, 2013

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Magnitude 3.5 earthquake south of Langjökull glacier

Today at 17:24 UTC a magnitude 3.5 earthquake took place south of Langjökull glacier. This earthquake had pre-earthquakes with the magnitudes from 2.1 and up 2.8. There where also several smaller earthquakes at the same location. This earthquake did appear clearly on my geophones in south and north Iceland. My webicorders can be viewed here.

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Langjökull earthquake activity today. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This appears to be normal tectonic earthquake swarm that are common for this area. They are not related to any volcano activity at present time. But this area often has earthquake activity with it being connected to any volcano activity. The earthquake swarm is continuing when this blog post is published. This earthquake swarm might stop at any time, or pick up at any time without a warning. If that happens. I am going to write a new blog post about it soon as possible.

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Magnitude 4.4 earthquake north of Kolbeinsey Island

Today at 17:32 UTC there was a magnitude 4.4 earthquake north of Kolbeinsey Island. I do not know if this earthquake was tectonic or volcanic in nature. I do know that there where several aftershocks following this earthquake. Since I did register them on my geophone in north Iceland. The geophone web site can be viewed here. More information about the earthquake can be found here, on EMSC web page.

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Regional view of the area where the earthquake took place. Copyright of this image belongs to EMSC.

Icelandic Meteorological Office did also detected many of this earthquakes that took place there. But detection from this location is difficult due to distance from the SIL network.

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The earthquake swarm location according to Icelandic Meteorological Office. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

For now this is just a earthquake swarm and nothing else. Regardless of what happens later. Earthquake activity has been common in this area of the rift zone for several months now. I do not know why that is. The ocean depth in this area is around 3 to 4 km where it is the deepest. So if an eruption takes place there it is not going to be noticed due to the depth of the ocean.