On Thursday 9-July-2015 an earthquake swarm started in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. So far around 50 earthquakes have been recorded in Tungnafellsjökull volcano, the earthquake swarm is currently ongoing. None of the earthquakes that have happened so far have reached magnitude 2,0 or stronger.
Earthquake activity in Tungnafellsjökull volcano. The yellow dots show older earthquakes. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.
It is my view that Tungnafellsjökull volcano is now preparing for eruption regardless of what Bárðarbunga volcano is going to do (it’s not over there, even if it is on a break at the moment). There is also problem with amount of time when this all started. It is clear that earthquake activity started to increase in Tungnafellsjökull volcano in the year 2012 and it has been increasing since that year. It is clear that with the eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano it seems to have given Tungnafellsjökull volcano more energy and increased it’s activity, why and what the connection between the volcanoes remains unclear at the moment.
Current earthquake activity suggest that this is going to develop in similar way the weeks before the eruption in Eyjafjallajökull volcano. It is not going to be exactly the same, it is going to be close and a lot of earthquakes are going to take place once Tungnafellsjökull volcano starts to heat up for real. When that happens I do not know, this might be take several more years at the longest. There is also a good chance that nothing is going to happen at all.
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Twitch: When I am not writing about volcanoes or just writing I spend my time playing computer games. Now I have set-up my own Twitch channel that can be viewed here. I plan on doing some test broadcast this weekend.