Change in the earthquake activity in close to Herðubreið mountain

Sometime yesterday (24-October-2022) a change happened in the earthquake swarm close to Herðubreið mountain. I am not sure when that change happened and it probably took few hours to happen before I detected it. But the change seems to be that now the earthquake swarm is at two locations and not just one. The second change is that the earthquake swarm is now getting more intense. The earthquakes at the writing of this article are minor, only magnitude Mw0,0 to Mw2,7 at the strongest. Nothing above Mw3,0 so far, but that might change without warning. Depth of this earthquake swarm is around 2 to 3 km at the writing of this article.

Two swarms of red dots show the location of the earthquake swarm east of Askja volcano and south of Herðurbreiðartögl volcano. The earthquake swarm is now west and north of Herðubreið mountain
Earthquake activity close to Herðubreið mountain. Picture from Icelandic Met Office.

What is going to happen next is impossible to know. An eruption in this area has not happened for at least 12.000 years or even longer. I don’t know if stronger earthquake activity is required for this area for an eruption to happen. It already is rather fractured from older earthquake activity and rift activity, that makes it possible for magma to have easier paths to the surface without much earthquake activity. That is at least one idea on the situation in this area. I might be wrong on this, since I don’t have information on the finer details of the crust around Herðubreið mountain.

One Reply to “Change in the earthquake activity in close to Herðubreið mountain”

  1. First Grimsvotn then Herdubreid. There seems to be a link.
    Probably the fracture line that produced the 2014 Holuhraun eruption is still active.
    There are 4 magma accumulations from Grimsvotn to Herdubreid.
    Grimsvotn-Greip-Askja-Holuhraun.
    It is like planting wedges lined up in the rock.
    What do you get?
    A widening fracture.

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