Minor earthquake swarm on Kolbeinsey Island

Today (Sunday 08-October-2017) a minor earthquake swarm took place in Kolbeinsey Island. Only three earthquakes where detected, but that does not rule out that more earthquakes happened but where not detected due to distance from land and the SIL network.


The earthquake activity is marked by the green star to the north on this image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake detected had the magnitude of 3,1 and the second largest earthquake detected had a magnitude of 2,1. Since 10:33 UTC this morning, that lack of activity does not rule out more activity in next few days.

New SIL station

I did see in the news today that Icelandic Met Office has added a new SIL station at Bjarnarey Island. This increases the earthquake resolution for Vestmannaeyjar area along with improving earthquake detection in Katla volcano and making it possible to detect small earthquakes deeper south of Iceland.

Icelandic news about the new SIL station, Jarðskjálftamælir í Bjarnarey að frumkvæði Vinnslustöðvarinnar (eyjafrettir.is).

Icelandic Met Office has also moved the SIL station in Vestmanneyjar Island around. The old location was not usable any more due to cultural noise from the population in Vestmannaeyjar Island.