Month: September 2020

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Grímsfjall volcano moved to yellow warning for air traffic

Today (30-September-2020) Icelandic Met Office moved Grímsfjall volcano to a yellow warning status for air traffic. This strongly suggests that Icelandic Met Office thinks that an eruption might happen in next few days to weeks. It is expected that an eruption might happen if a glacier flood happens from Grímsvötn glacier lake that is inside Grímsfjall volcano caldera.


Current status of Grímsfjöll volcano is yellow. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is difficult to know if this is going to be a large or small eruption until it happens. Best thing to do right now is to keep monitoring Grímsfjall volcano activity to see if anything is going on. Currently everything is quiet.

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Increasing hydrothermal activity and ground heat in Bárðarbunga volcano

It was reported in the news in Iceland few days ago that ground heat and hydrothermal activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is increasing and has been doing so for at least few months. Steam has been observed according to the news coming from one of the cauldron that is now in the rim of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. It has also been observed that few areas that have been active for a long time are now expanding in size.

Current risk is large glacier floods from Bárðarbunga volcano as the heat is melting large amounts of glacier in this area and possible damage and danger from those glacier floods. This increase in ground heat suggests that magma is slowly pushing its way up in the caldera rim of Bárðarbunga volcano. It is not possible to know if this is the case in the caldera since that is full of glacier that is ~600 meters thick at the most deepest end. If it wasn’t for Vatnajökull glacier and the pressure it puts in Bárðarbunga volcano there would already be an eruption going on there today. It is only when the magma gets above the pressure of the glacier an eruption can happen and in the eruption of 2014 and 2015 that didn’t happen as the magma found a easier way out by forming a dyke that travelled ~46 km away from the main volcano before an eruption started. This option for the magma might be closed now since dyke like the that formed in 2014 and 2015 eruption normally only erupt once after the magma flow stops.

Icelandic News

Jarðhiti í Bárðarbungu sífellt að aukast (Rúv.is)

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Hard drive problems

I am currently dealing with failing hard drives in my main computer and that makes it really slow. This might slow down my response until Friday when I finally get replacement hard drives. I also had hard drive problems with my main earthquake computer but that issue has been resolved with new hard drives.

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Ten years of earthquake and volcano articles

It’s been ten years since I started writing about earthquake activity in Iceland. First articles are from 27th September 2010 as can be seen here. At the beginning I used to call this website Iceland, earthquake and volcano blog if my memory is correct. I changed this to Iceland geology so I would be able to cover all aspects of Iceland if I needed too. Along with other few minor experiments over the years that failed but are recorded into this website history. Over the last 10 years I have only covered four eruptions. This are those eruptions.

Grímsfjall – May 2011 – Major eruption
Katla – July 2011 – Minor eruption
Hamarinn – July 2011 – Minor eruption (same week as Katla volcano minor eruption)
Bárðarbunga – August 2014 to February 2015 – Major eruption

Most of this website lifetime it has been a sub-domain website on my jonfr.com (Icelandic) website. This summer I made the chose to change that as that allows me to do more and to keep it separate from my main website if needed for any reason. I hope that I can continue to write about Icelandic volcanoes and earthquakes for the next ten years, just slightly less broke would also be nice for the next ten years.

I want to thank everyone that has supported my work over the last ten years. It has helped keep me working and keeping this website going for the last ten years when everything seemed impossible.

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Strong earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (27-September-2020) at 00:06 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,8 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake is the strongest earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano since April 2020 according to Icelandic Met Office.


Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office. Used with permission.

This earthquake activity suggests that magma might be pushing up at this location but no data for now confirms this. This might just be the caldera pushing up after it dropped 60 meters in 2014 to 2015 eruption of Bárðarbunga volcano. There are no signs of possible eruption and after this earthquake took place there has only been minor earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano and nearby areas.

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Increase in earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island during the night of 26-September-2020

During the night of 26-September-2020 the earthquake swarm that has been going on east of Grímsey island in area called Nafir increased. Total of six earthquakes with magnitude above Mw3,0 took place during the night and the largest earthquakes had a magnitude of Mw4,3. This area has a volcano that is unnamed but often called Nafir. There is no Global Volcanism Program profile on this and last eruption in this volcano is unknown. The largest earthquakes where felt in Grímsey island and other nearby populated areas. According to Icelandic news people of Grímsey island are tired of the constant earthquake activity that has been going on in Tjörnes Fracture Zone since 19th June 2020.


The earthquake activity east of Grímsey island in Nafir volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

In February 2018 a magnitude Mw5,2 earthquake took place in this location. There are no sign that an eruption is about to happen with this volcano but that is difficult to be sure about. All this earthquake activity currently seems to be tectonic in nature as it is happening in a rift valley in this location. Magma movement and any eruption is going to appear clearly on Grímsey SIL station and other nearby SIL stations in north Iceland. More earthquake activity is expected in this area and current earthquake swarm is ongoing at the writing of this article.

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Earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island

Today (25-September-2020) at 11:37 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,7 and this earthquake started an earthquake swarm in this location for the last several hours. At the writing of this article between 80 to 90 earthquakes have taken place at this location. There are no reports about this earthquake having been felt in Grímsey island.


The earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island. This image is used with permission and copyright belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake swarm is not connected to the earthquake activity on the western part of Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This earthquake swarm is ongoing at the writing of this article.

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Strong earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone – Flatey – Húsavík fault

Today (15-September-2020) at 14:52 UTC an earthquake with magnitude Mw4,6 took place on Flatey – Húsavík fault line. This earthquake was felt over a wide area and at the writing of this article no damage has been reported in the news.


The earthquake activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Image used with permission and copyright belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Second largest earthquake took place at 17:06 UTC and had a magnitude of Mw4,0. This earthquake was felt but less than earlier earthquake because of smaller magnitude. This earthquake activity has increased the risk of a large earthquake in this area or on nearby faults. This might result in a earthquake in the magnitude range of Mw6,0 to Mw7,1 in this part of the Tjörnes Fracture Zone. The earthquake swarm is ongoing at the writing of this article.

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Earthquake activity in Hamarinn volcano (Loki-Fögrufjöll)

During the night (15-September-2020) an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,1 took place in Hamarinn volcano (Loki-Fögrufjöll) (part of Bárðarbunga volcano). This earthquake is part of an activity that has been happening in this location for more than a week. It’s unclear what this activity means but it has been recorded that in 2011 few weeks before a minor eruption in volcano there was an increase in earthquake activity before the eruption took place. This earthquake activity is ongoing at the writing of this article.


The earthquake activity in Hamarinn volcano. Green star shows the main active area. Image used with permission and copyright belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

When this earthquake took place there was no change in harmonic tremor on nearby SIL stations. An eruption in Hamarinn volcano don’t seem to require a lot of earthquake activity before it starts. I don’t know why that is but that was the experience in the minor eruption in July 2011.

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Earthquake yesterday (14-September-2020) in Tjörnes Fracture Zone

Yesterday (14-September-2020) an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,4 took place in Tjörnes Fracture Zone, this earthquake was felt in Dalvík and Ólafsfirði towns. This is the first earthquake with magnitude above Mw3,0 in at least a month in this area. The earthquake swarm has been ongoing but all the earthquakes that have happened have been small in magnitude.


The earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This image is used with permission and copyright belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake swarm is ongoing as it has been since 19th of June 2020 when it started. I don’t expect that to change and risk of a large earthquake remains in the Tjörnes Fracture Zone.

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Earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano Saturday 12th September 2020

On Saturday 12th September 2020 an earthquake swarm started in Krýsuvík volcano. This earthquake swarm did only go on for few hours before it stopped for now.


Earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano. Image used with permission and copyright of image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake in this swarm had magnitude Mw3,0 and all other earthquakes where smaller. The magnitude Mw3,0 earthquake was felt in Reykjavík.

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. Currently I am having a little broke month and that is a problem for me. Thanks for the support.

Google Adsense

To increase my income from this website I am adding Google Adsense to it after July 2022 when I have moved back to Denmark. Doing this allows me to have income in Denmark in Danish Krona and have more stable income from my work. It is not worth the effort to get paid to Iceland just to move to Denmark, it also complicates few things for me. The other way is simpler.

Upgrades and changes

I am currently working on upgrades and changes. That means little bit of testing here and there. I try to keep it minimal as possible but it can’t be fully avoided.