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Today (01-October-2013) there has been a lot of earthquake activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Current area of activity is same as for the past week, what is now changing is the rate and magnitude of earthquakes. This morning an magnitude 3.2 earthquake took place in this area. That earthquake and at least two other smaller ones where felt in Ólafsfirði, the town closest to this earthquake swarm. Earthquake activity is currently ongoing and with no signs of stopping.
Earthquake activity in TFZ today. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
It has been reported by Rúv and other news media in Iceland that this might be an dike intrusion in this area. This is what geologist at Icelandic Meteorological Office are theorising at the moment. I do not know if this is true or not. What I do know is that at this location there is no known volcano and if there is an volcano at this location it is currently unknown and not documented at all (such things happen). If this is magma and if it finds an path to the surface we are going to see an eruption. I do not know if that would create an new island if that was the case, such speculations have to wait until an eruption started. If it ever gets that far. If this is magma then it is still at great depth, since the depth of this earthquake swarm is at the moment around 5 to 15 km and does not seem to change that much at the moment.
It is possible to watch this earthquake activity here on my webicorder website. The closest geophone station that I have to this earthquake swarm is the one named “Böðvarshólar”. It is already showing many of the strongest earthquakes in this swarm clearly. It is located in the country side far from any major traffic source.
I am going to post updates about this earthquake swarm when needed.
Blog post updated at 20:26 UTC on 01-October-2013.
Blog post updated at 23:53 UTC on 01-October-2013.