Month: October 2013

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Two minor earthquakes in Hekla volcano

I am sorry being late with this blog post.

On Wednesday (23-October-2013) two earthquakes took place in Hekla volcano. One earthquake took place outside the main volcano, but inside the Hekla volcano system. All earthquakes were small with the largest one having the magnitude of 1,6 km. The two earthquakes in the main Hekla volcano are shallow earthquakes, the largest one (magnitude 1,6) just having the depth of 1,3 km. What is creating this earthquake activity remains unclear at present time.

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Earthquake activity in Hekla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

So far there are no signs of an eruption going to take place soon in Hekla volcano. Web cameras of Hekla volcano can be found here (jonfr.com), here (Rúv.is) and here (livefromiceland.is). My webicorder data can be found here (jonfr.com) online. The geophone at Heklubyggð detects earthquakes down to magnitude 0,0 if the weather is good, so if an eruption starts in Hekla volcano all the signs are going to appear clearly on that geophone as the activity starts.

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Earthquake swarm on Tjörnes Fracture Zone

Yesterday (18-October-2013) an earthquake swarm started on Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This earthquake swarm has not been big, with largest earthquake only having the magnitude 2,5. This earthquake swarm is taking place at the end of an unnamed volcano that is in this area. The earthquakes appear to be only tectonic at this moment.

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The earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone yesterday and today. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

It is hard to know for sure if earthquake activity is going to continue in this area of Tjörnes Fractures Zone. Currently the activity remains low to moderate in this area, but no large earthquakes (over magnitude 4,0) have so far taken place in this area.

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New earthquake swarm on Reykjanes ridge

Today (19-October-2013) new earthquake swarm started on the Reykjanes ridge. So far this earthquake swarm has been small, with only 16 earthquakes recorded. Largest earthquake in this swarm had magnitude 3,3 at the depth of 6,1 km.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. The green star marks earthquakes with magnitude over 3,0. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

I am expecting more earthquake activity in this area of the Reykjanes ridge over the next few days and weeks. It is impossible to know when an new earthquakes swarm starts. The best way is to monitor current activity at Icelandic Metorlogical Office website and on my webicorder website.

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Possible volcano eruption in the year 2002 off the coast of north Iceland

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Few years ago there was an strong earthquake swarm 45 km north of Grímsey island, the earthquake swarm location was between Grímsey island and Kolbeinsey island. The strongest earthquake in that swarm had the magnitude of 5,5. It’s now considered a possibility that an minor eruption took place at this location when this earthquake swarm took place in the year 2002. This is according to an recent study into the volcano activity in this area. Since this part of the rift zone where volcanic activity continues where the Tjörnes Fracture Zone ends.

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Storagrunn volcano. Image from Vísir.is news, copyright belongs to Bryndís Brandsdóttir and other people connected to this work.

This volcano is located at depth at this location so any minor eruption is not going to get noticed on the surface of the ocean.

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The earthquake swarm in this area in the year 2002 (vedur.is, Icelandic, images). Earthquakes larger than 3,0 are marked by green dots. Copyright on this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Icelandic News about this. Beware Google Translate.

Við misstum af síðasta eldgosi við Norðurland (Vísir.is, Icelandic)

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New volcanoes found 900 km south of Iceland

In an recent study mission on Reykjanes ridge they did discover new volcanoes. What was discovered is that there appears to be more earthquake activity outside the main rift zone than originally thought. They also found volcanoes that are up to 2000 meters high (from the ocean floor) and have some other oddities too. At this south part of Reykjanes ridge there is an fault zone at the south end of it. According to the news the Reykjanes ridge is now about to break it soon (in the next few million years) and extend it’s reach more south. This area of the Reykjanes ridge appears to be high in volcano activity, a lot more then previously thought. All of the volcano activity at this location goes unnoticed due to how remote this area is and how deep the ocean is at this location.

I don’t know what this fault zone is named. But I think it’s this one on Google Earth.


View Larger Map

Rúv News in Icelandic. Beware of Google Translate.

Ísland teygir sig lengra suður (Rúv.is)

Blog post updated at 23:41 UTC.

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Earthquake activity continues in Eyjafjallajökull volcano

Minor earthquake activity has continued since last week in Eyjafjallajökull volcano. This earthquake activity is so small that none of the earthquake have had the magnitude of 1,0. This earthquake activity is also shallow, less than 5 km depth. So it’s clearly not magma (at least not new one) that is creating this activity. I am not sure what is creating this activity in Eyjafjallajökull volcano at this point and I might never know.

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Minor earthquake activity in Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

At current time there is no risk for an eruption from Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Since there is no new magma flowing into the volcano at present time. If you want to watch Eyjafjallajökull volcano you can do so here (jonfr.com) and here (mila.is) web cameras.

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Earthquake swarm on Tjörnes Fracture Zone

On 14-October-2013 (Monday) an earthquake swarm started in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This earthquake swarm has so far just been a minor one, with the largest earthquake being magnitude 2,5. The earthquake swarm appears to be currently ongoing.

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Earthquake swarm in the Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

It’s hard to know for sure if this earthquake swarm is going to continue, but this area of TFZ has seen earthquake activity over the past few months. So there is a chance of more earthquake activity in the next days to weeks even months in this area.

Blog post updated at 23:25 UTC on 15-October-2013.

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New earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula and Reykjanes ridge

Today (15-October-2013) at 01:43 UTC a new earthquake swarm started on Reykjanes peninsula and Reykjanes ridge. So far the largest earthquake has the magnitude of 2,5. At the moment no larger earthquakes have taken place. This earthquake swarm is currently ongoing, but the rate of earthquakes has dropped over the day and is currently low.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. It’s just off the coast. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This area of the Reykjanes has been seeing a lot of activity in recent days and its possible that more earthquake activity is going to take place at this location in next few days to months.

Blog post updated at 21:42 UTC.

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New bank account for donations

This is the new bank account for donations. If you have been using the other bank account you can continue to do so, it’s still active and can be used without any problem at all (I have no plan to change that).

New bank account:
IBAN: DK3579100001662199
BIC/SWIFT: SYBKDK22

If you want to send donation to me with Paypal you have to send it to my email address (jonfr@8930a1.talbot.shared.1984.is). If you want to donate to me every month you can use the button on this website to do so. Thanks for the support.

Update 1: I no longer have Skrill account since they did terminate it for some reason (unable to change currency or something of that nature). So please do not try to donate using skrill account at this time. It just won’t work since I currently do not have an account with them. I am looking into this situation and I plan on creating new account with skrill soon, but it’s going to be on different email address due to security reasons (at skrill) I cannot use my older email address.

Blog post updated at 15:42 UTC on 15-October-2013.

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Update on the donation/support matters

As can be seen I have added the subscription button from Paypal again to this site. The reason is that some people might not want to register on skrill.com to send me donation, the subscription button is also for people who want to support me every month. This means that I am not going to remove Paypal completely. However I cannot use the donation button as it’s not meant for websites like mine, as Paypal explains here clearly. So if you want to support me, you have to send me donation manually with Paypal to my email address at jonfr@8930a1.talbot.shared.1984.is (it’s spam protected from clear view). Currently I am not ready to use my account at skrill.com, but that is going to be a preferred way to send me donations in the future or by sending them via bank over SWIFT bank system

Support is welcomed this month since I am rather too broke this month and I am not going to see a lot of improvement (ISK is now at 22,77 ISK = 1 DKK at Visa exchange rate in Iceland or €1 = 169,23 ISK) any time soon. So far this month has been rather bad when it comes to money for me. November is also going to be like this I expect and maybe January-2014 too. After that I am not sure how my status is going to be.

Update 1: I am going to add the new bank account to the support website tomorrow.

Thanks for the support.

Blog post updated at 00:49 UTC on 14-October-2013.