Month: April 2014

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Donations needed for May

I need donations to make it in May. Since the bills are higher than I expected and my income remains low, same as it has been since always (being on social welfare [benefits]) is not a fun thing. Donations help me keep this website up and running. Donations also help me to keep monitoring Icelandic volcanoes and earthquake activity in Iceland, this also applies for monitoring for earthquake and volcano activity in Europe on my Europe geology website.

Amazon works in that way when people buy something trough the banners or the web-store I get 5 to 10% of the price of that product. Regardless of what is being bought. My eBooks that I have written can be found here, they are sold with the eBook publisher Kobo Books.

Update: Due to some bill changes at the electronic company I am now going to have major billing issue this month. Since my income from Iceland is not nearly enough to cover all my bills and then to buy food all of May. I got some food in the freezer from last month, but that is only going to last so long. So please donate if you can. Currently I am seeing up on major money issue this month.

1/4 update: The reason why this is that in March I got the idea to buy cable subscription from Yousee (Danish cable tv company). I did enter all the numbers in the calculator and did all the maths to see if I could afford to buy the basic and smallest package from them. It turns out that I was wrong, wrong and more wrong. I got the numbers all wrong and the first bill was way higher than I expected. This is an contract that I have to pay for 6 months so I can not cancel it until end of September-2014. As I fully plan to do. I am also never going to buy a cable subscription again (if its not part of the rent, as is the case in many places in Denmark. Its not the case were I now live). I am just going to use an antenna, since its free to do so and I get what I need on it anyway.

2/4 update: The electronic company was making changes to its bill system. So now I get one higher electric bill then usual. This means more problems for me I think in the terms of not having any money to buy food. This however in returns means that my next bill in June is going to be lower as for other bills until the start of the year 2015. When the first electric bill of that year is going to be higher, since this is some extra charge of 58 DKK (58 * 12 = 696 [close the actual amount that I now pay]) (or about) that they now charge in just one go, instead of being paid each month. All this is creating major problems with my money since I just have minimal income from Iceland and all fluctuation in my bills results in problems for me.

Thanks for the support.

Updated on 01-May-2015 at 13:50 UTC.

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Minor earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano

Yesterday (26-April-2014) and today (27-April-2014) an minor earthquake swarm took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. I am not sure if this earthquake activity is due to dike intrusion or normal tectonic activity.

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Minor earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This area of Bárðarbunga volcano is well known for high earthquake activity. If this is an dike intrusion as is an possibility, it does not increase the risk of an eruption, since dike intrusion without starting an eruptions are a common feature in Icelandic volcanoes.

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Minor earthquake swarm on Tjörnes Fracture Zone (TFZ)

Yesterday (26-April-2014) and today (27-April-2014) an minor earthquake swarm took place on TFZ not far from an island named Flatey. This was a small earthquake swarm and largest earthquakes had an magnitude around 2,0.

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The minor earthquake swarm on TFZ. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

It is difficult to know if this earthquake activity is going to continue. Earthquake activity at this location is only tectonic based, this area of Iceland is volcano free.

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New earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge

Yesterday (26-April-2014) and today (27-April-2014) an earthquake swarm started on the Reykjanes Ridge (no GVP profile) in a submarine volcano south of Reykjanes volcano (I wrote about it few days ago here). This earthquake swarm was at the same location as an earthquake swarm that took place there on 13-April-2014 and I wrote about it here. There are clues pointing towards that magma might have been the reason for the earthquake swarm on the 13-April-2014. It has not been confirmed due to remote location of this volcano, observations are also limited due to depth of the ocean at this location (about 1 to 2 km depth is at this location).

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

Its difficult to know what is happening. Currently the earthquake swarm has continued, but with it stops for shorter or longer period of time at current time. I do not know why that is. So far everything has been quiet tremor wise on the closest SIL stations to this location. The closest SIL stations are some 35 to 45 km distance. I expect more earthquake activity to take place at this location in next few days to weeks. It is impossible to know if an eruption is going to take place out there in the ocean at current time.

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Earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge

Yesterday (23-April-2014) an earthquake swarm took place on the Reykjanes Ridge (GVP link here). The largest earthquake had the magnitude of 3,4 with the depth of 9,3 km. Earthquake swarm started following the magnitude 3,4 earthquake. It lasted for a two hour period and some 28 earthquakes took place during that time. The largest earthquake was felt in nearby towns and in Reykjavík (location dependent).

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

There is a possibility of more earthquake activity in this area during the next few days to weeks. Since activity in this place often starts slowly and builds up over an long period of time when it peaks and than drops off slowly, sometimes the drop off in earthquake activity is sharp. There are no signs that suggest this earthquake swarm was connected to magma movement in this volcano.

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Large landslide in east Iceland (Ímatindi, Vaðlavík)

According to Rúv News an landslide fell in East Iceland last week (best guess). This appears to be an large landslide. It did closed down an road close to two abandoned farms in the nearby area. This landslide appears to have taken place due to heavy snow and spring melt in this area. I don’t know if there is any risk of more such landslides going to take place at this area, there is an risk of new landslides in this same area for now, at least that is my best educated guess.

Pictures of this landslide can be found here on Rúv News. All the text in that news is in Icelandic.

Post updated at 23:46 UTC.
Post updated at 23:48 UTC.
Post updated at 02:32 UTC on 23-April-2014.

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Renewed earthquake activity in Hekla volcano

Today (14-April-2014) an earthquake swarm took place in south part of Hekla volcano. The earthquake swarm took place close to Vatnafjöll mountains. This area is made up of crater rows from earlier eruptions. The largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2,9 and the depth of 8,6 km. This earthquake did appear clearly on my geophone at Heklubyggð and it can be seen here.

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The earthquake swarm in SW Hekla volcano system. The swarm is marked by orange dot (they change colour as they get older). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

The largest earthquake did appear clearly on my geophone that is close to Hekla volcano. The magnitude 2,9 earthquake did appear like this on it.

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The magnitude 2,9 earthquake in Hekla volcano system. Its the earthquake at the 04:00 UTC line and is clearly visible. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. See CC Licence page for more details.

There are currently no signs of an eruption is about to start in Hekla volcano. After this earthquake swarm took place everything has remained quiet at present time. That might change, but there are currently no signs of such change. Even if there is earthquake activity taking place in Hekla volcano system.

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Earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge

Today (13-April-2014) an earthquake swarm started on the Reykjanes Ridge. The earthquake swarm is taking place not far from Geirfuladrangi that is an ocean rock in this area. It is only occupied by birds during the summer. This rock was formed in an eruption at this location some 300 to 700 years ago. I am not sure exactly what year that did happen. This is the second earthquakes swarm taking place at this location this month with last earthquake swarm taking place in this location on 4-April-2014 as can be seen here.

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

Largest earthquakes have had the magnitude around 3,0 and above. Due to distance from the SIL network there magnitude is being underestimated by the automatic calculations in the SIL network. It is possible to see the earthquake appear on my geophone network here (the two stations I still have up and running in Iceland). The earthquake swarm is currently ongoing, it however drops in activity for shorter and longer period of time. I don’t know if this is due to tectonic movements or magma movement in the volcano that is at this location. So far I have not seen any signs of eruption on nearby SIL stations.

Hard drive update: I am now up and running (mostly) since I got new hard drive earlier this week. It appears that I might have lost some data. I am not sure how much data was lost. But it might have just been an minor data loss from the looks of it. Few earthquakes pictures of activity in early April-2014. This data loss was due to bad sectors on my old hard drive and the lost data cannot be recovered.

Google Adsense: As all “good” monopoly Google Adsense has close to zero help service when it comes solving issues with Google Adsense accounts. Currently my Google Adsense account is in some type of enabled or disabled state (I don’t know and information about the problem is limited to none, even if I have asked for help on this issue). I am not sure what is going to happen with my Google Adsense account. I am not sure if I am going to try and enable it soon, since that might not work at all. I am not just sure what happens if I try again since this process at Google Adsense is about 90% automatic and done with robots rather than humans.

Amazon Advertisements: Since I don’t have Google Adsense advertisements (at the moment anyway). I am going to use Amazon Advertisements and try to earn some income from them. However there is an difference between Google and Amazon. The difference is that Amazon advertisements are not CPI advertisements or CPC/PPC advertisements.

With Amazon Advertisement I get 5 to 15% of the price of each item sold on Amazon via my banners that I have up here. Each click is valid for 90 days (it used to be like that) according to Amazon FAQ (UK. US FAQ can be found here) on the income aspect of Amazon Advertisements.

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Earthquake swarm in Hengill volcano

Today (4-April-2014) has been marked by an large earthquake swarm in Hengill volcano. For the moment this earthquake swarm is man made. This earthquake swarm is due the fact that Orkuveita Reykjavíkur is pumping down large amount of water (full of led and other hazardous things) back into the ground. This creates pressure change in the crust and that starts an earthquake swarm in the area. It is possible to monitor this earthquake swarm here on my webicorder website.

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The earthquake swarm in Hengill volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Activity has been so high in this area today that it has been creating ghost earthquakes on the earthquake map of Iceland.

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Some earthquakes on this map are ghost earthquakes due to high earthquake activity in Hengill volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This earthquake swarm in Hengill volcano is going to continue for as long as they continue to pump down water into the crust in this location. As for the magnitude of the earthquakes that appear during this time is difficult to say. Largest earthquake so far had the magnitude of 2,9, it is also possible that larger earthquakes might take place in this location or nearby location if stress changes due to this activity take place. I don’t know if that is going to happen, but it is worth monitoring for such changes just in case anything happens.

Blog post updated at 20:54 UTC.
Blog post updated at 20:57 UTC.

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Earthquake swarm on Reykjanes ridge

During the night (4-April-2014) an earthquake swarm took place on the Reykjanes Ridge. Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 3,5 and was felt on land according to information from Icelandic Meteorological Office. This earthquake swarm might still be ongoing, but it only lasted for about 1 hour last night. That is not really long period of activity for an earthquake swarm in this area. It is possible to monitor the earthquake here on my webicorder website. I am going to remove the test card images once I have my Gentoo Linux up and running in few days time.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge. Green stars mark earthquakes with magnitude larger than 3,0. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Unconfirmed information in news on Rúv.is suggest that this earthquake swarm might have its origin in magma movement at this location. Rather than tectonic activity at the same area. This area often has powerful earthquake swarms. Earthquake swarms in this area often drop in activity for few to several days at the time, before they resume at even more powerful then before. I don’t know if that is going to happen now, there is an good chance that is going to happen now or this might just be it. All that can is possible to do at the moment is to wait and see what happens next.

Update on the hard drive saga: So I did buy a new hard drive. When I did try to use it I found out that the drive I had bought was faulty from the factory. The store has already ordered an replacement hard drive and I should get it on Monday. I hope this issue is resolved by then. I have already received donations to support buying this new hard drive. But that does not mean my financial status is good this month. But it is far better now than in April or the months before it. Thankfully. Thanks for the support. I am currently using my Windows XP (normally just used to play games) hard drive to write this while my Gentoo Linux is out of commission due the hard drive failure.