Minor earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

Over the past few weeks there has been a slight increase in earthquakes in Öræfajökull volcano. Due to glacier quake activity I’m only using earthquakes that have confirmed depth of 1,5 km or deeper. This earthquake activity is minor and doesn’t suggest that an eruption is imminent, it however does suggest that something is going on.

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Öræfajökull volcano is to the south on this image (two red dots). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This activity has a long history, it started happening in 2012 at the earliest that I know of and has been going on slowly since then. Öræfajökull volcano did go from having no earthquakes and up to having two to five earthquakes a year. Sometimes more. There are clues in this activity that magma might be starting to push it self up into the volcano, but at the moment it doesn’t seems to be going far up into the volcano. Based on the current depth and low seismicity in Öræfajökull volcano. I don’t expect this to change any time soon. Since most of the time, at least for the moment there is little to no earthquake activity taking place in Öræfajökull volcano.

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