Month: April 2023

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Earthquake swarm north of Grindavík town, next to Blue Lagoon

This morning (25. April 2023) an earthquake swarm started north of Grindavík town, next to the Blue Lagoon. This earthquake swarm is ongoing at the writing of this article. If this is going to result in a eruption is impossible to know. The magma has reached the depth of 2 km and that is not good news if this continues to intensify. Large earthquakes do not need to happen before an eruption starts under the correct conditions in the curst and there has been a lot of dyke activity in Reykjanes volcano in last 3 years. Without that activity resulting in a eruption.

Red dots north of Grindavík town and next to the Blue lagoon on the map (the lagoon doesn't appear on the map). Time on map 25. Apr. 14:00.
Earthquake activity north of Grindavík town. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Eruption at this location would be bad, because of the tourist infrastructure next to this location that is the Blue Lagoon. Only thing that can be done now is to monitor the situation and see if it changes from what is currently happening.

It is possible to view the earthquake swarm in high resolution on Skjálfta-Lísa and other private websites that have similar maps.

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Earthquake swarm in Grímsfjall volcano

Today (23. April 2023) at 15:!5 UTC an earthquake swarm took place in Grímsfjall volcano. Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of Mw3,3. Few other smaller earthquakes also took place.

Green star and red dots under it in Grímsfjall volcano. Also in this image is the earlier earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano, shown with a green star.
Earthquake activity in Grímsfjall volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There are no signs that Grímsfjall volcano is about erupt following this earthquake swarm. That might change without warning, but seems unlikely to happen at the moment. More earthquakes might happen in next few hours.

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Earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

During the night of 23. April 2023 at 03:34 UTC an earthquake with the magnitude of Mw3,2 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This was just a single earthquake this time around. Depth of this earthquake was 4,6 km.

Green star in Bárðarbunga volcano. Showing the location of the newest earthquake in this volcano.
Green star in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake shows that Bárðarbunga volcano continues to inflate. This is now normal earthquake activity and happens every one to three months, sometimes the time between earthquakes is longer.

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Earthquake swarm west of Grímsey island

Today (18. April 2023) at 07:59 UTC an earthquake swarm started west of Grímsey island. The distance is around 36 km west of Grímsey island. Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of Mw4,2 and was felt in Siglufjörður and Akureyri towns.

Green star, red dots and orange dots west of Grímsey island. This shows the earthquake activity in this area. Dots also across north eastern Iceland as smaller earthquakes also happen there. Time on map is 18. apr. 23. 14:05 (Icelandic time).
Earthquake swarm west of Grímsey island. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

At the writing of this article, this earthquake swarm is ongoing and there’s a risk of stronger earthquakes in this area. This area last had a major earthquake swarm in June 2020. With largest earthquake in that swarm having a magnitude of Mw5,8.

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Dangerous levels of Hydrogen sulfide nearby Múlakvísl glacier river (Mýrdalsjökull glacier / Katla volcano)

It has just been reported that (today 14. April 2023) that there is now a high levels of Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) close to Múlakvísl glacier river that comes from Mýrdalsjökull glacier, that is on top of Katla volcano. Tourists have been asked to be careful in the area. Currently the conductivity in Múlakvísl is not high, but according to Icelandic Met Office that is expected to change in next few hours.

Earthquake activity in Katla volcano at the moment is at normal background levels, that might change without warning if there is anything more happening with this sudden increase in gas levels. The gas levels changed early morning on 13. April 2023 according to Icelandic Met Office website.

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Small earthquake swarm in south part of Brennisteinsfjöll volcano

Today (13. April 2023) there has been a small earthquake swarm in south part of Brennisteinfjöll volcano. This location had an earthquake swarm few weeks ago at this same location. It also was small in magnitude. Depth of this earthquake swarm has now decreased from 7 km to around 3 km. At least that is what it seems, based on the current earthquake data.

Red dots in south of Brennisteinsfjöll volcano showing the minor earthquake activity now taking place in this volcano. Nearby volcano also have minor earthquake activity, shown in orange to red dots.
Earthquake activity in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity shows a sign of magma movement. It is my opinion that the magma is now pushing it self trough the crust at this location. That can take a while, up to several weeks before an eruption starts. I did see something similar happen before the Bárðarbunga volcano eruption in 2014. That process took good three months before the eruption and was marked by small earthquake swarm like this one. How long this is going to take is impossible to know, because what type of crust is at this location is not well understood (outside of types of rock it is made out of at the first top layers). This is in my view an earthquake activity that needs to be monitored, because of possible eruption risk at this location. This is directly north of a small lake south of the earthquake swarm. If an eruption happens and the lava flows into the lake, that might create a lot of problems.

This earthquake swarm can be viewed here in more details. The website is Skjálfta-Lísa and is only in Icelandic.

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Earthquake swarm 43 km west of Grímsey island

A minor earthquake swarm took place around 43 km west of Grímsey island. The largest earthquakes in this swarm where not felt because of distance from populated areas. This earthquake swarm took place on a north end of a rift valley that is at this location and goes all the way to Akureyri and little south of Akureyri town. Where it ends is unclear.

Green stars far west of Grímsey island on the map from Icelandic Met Office with the time at 23:00 UTC on 5. April 2023. This earthquake swarm is far north of Akureyri town.
Earthquake swarm on Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake in this small earthquake swarm had a magnitude of Mw3,5. This area had a large earthquake swarm in June 2020 with the largest earthquake in that swarm reaching magnitude of Mw5,8 that was felt over a large area in north Iceland. Large earthquake swarms happen in this rift valley regularly. I am not sure how often it does happen. More earthquakes in this area might be possible without any warning. Distance from land makes it difficult to record earthquakes at this location if they are small in magnitude.