Posted on by Jón Frímann

Uncertainty level for Grímsfjall volcano cancelled

According to Icelandic news it seems that Almannavaranir (Iceland Civil Authority) have cancelled the uncertainty level for Grímsfjall volcano. But the uncertainty level was put in place following the glacier flood from Grímsvötn glacier lake.

The announcement from Iceland Civil Authority in Icelandic. Please use Google Translate.

Óvissustigi aflýst vegna Grímsvatna (Icelandic)

Icelandic News. Please use Google translate.

Óvissustigi aflýst vegna Grímsvatna (Vísir.is)

126 Replies to “Uncertainty level for Grímsfjall volcano cancelled”

  1. Is there still a chance for an eruption soon? Because the tremor is still a lot higher than it was before it all started.
    And if you have the time, mayby you could make a post about what’s happening at Krysuvik, because I read the comments but I can’t really figure out if these quakes have a tectonical or volcanic origin. Thanks for your great blog!

      2. No. That is a different issue far as I know. The mud eruptions (are they that?) at Krýsuvík are connected to the geothermal activity in the area. It seems that the geothermal activity in this area is increasing for unclear reasons and has been doing so for a long time now.

        As the area warms up it is heating up gas trapped in the ground there. When it is warm enough it finds a weak spot in the crust and manages to force it’s way up to the ground. In many cases the weak spot is old drill holes in this area. Sometimes they just blow up with a big bang.

      3. Thanks a lot for your explanation! Is this warming related to rising magma? Because Krysuvik is an area which had eruptions in historic times isn’t it?

      4. I believe that this is related to magma. But it hard to know how much magma is on the move there.

        Eruptions at Reykjanes happens in cycles. The last one ended about 600 years ago. When a new one starts is a good question with no answer at present.

      5. Interesting. What kind of eruptions happened near Reykjanes? Fissure eruptions mostly?

      6. The eruption that take place on the Reykjanes are Hawaii fissure eruptions. Unless they happen in the ocean, then they are explosive while the ocean get’s into touch with the magma.

  2. @Jón:
    I have a problem with the idea of the quakes being bore-holes being blown out.
    There was a mentioning in one of the articles that when a bore-hole blew out before it produced a 45 metre deep crater. Problem is that you need Trinity to produce that one. The Trinity nuke test produced a 45 metre deep hole, or translated into a quake something between 4,5 and 4,8.
    The depth is also wrong. If it is blow out of a bore-hole it should be shallower since to my knowledge the icelandic geo-thermal bore-holes are much shallower except a couple over at Krafla that reaches down to the rhyolite.
    The current bore-hole that has cleared it’s throat might have produced a couple of really shallow 1,0 quakes, but nothing more. It is probably related, but the other way around. Something is affecting the area so that the bore-hole cleared up due to gas-emission/steam-production.
    But it seems really restricted to a tiny area and seems all to be between 1,3 and 4,9 km down and between 0,8 and 2,2 in amplitude.
    I would say it is a very localized (non-tectonic, though in a tectonic area), frequent and week. Also the trmor-graph from K is rather intriguing:
    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/kri.gif
    Also, VOGS had lifted 40mm in ten years before someone turned off the long projection in late 2008, so right now I would give my left buttock to see the entire time-sequence.

    My guess is also magmatic movements in some kind of fractured dike.

    1. The earthquakes are not old bore hole being blown out. That explosion from such events is not big enough to even be registered at great distance properly. It can register, but then just barely over the noise floor. Explosions also have different wave signatures then earthquakes.

      1. Yepp, that was my point.
        Although the one the blew out that 43 metre crater was well within being possible to see as a quake, even though the wave form was a pulse (as it would have been from an explosion), problem is just that wave-forms from bore-hole blow-outs are much longer than regular explosions.
        Remember that a M1 has the same energy as a Big Mac, ie the equivalent of 1 dynamite stick.

        I was kind of more interested in an elaboration upon the likelyhood of it being dike-filling or something such.
        But sadly I guess it is to early for the new volcano Rauðleiturhraunspringurbjórfjallið to show up 🙂
        For those even more handicaped in icelandic than I that would be Reddishlavaexplodingbeermountain.

        By the way, another bad quality 2,8 quake at Hábunga.

      3. Yeah, within a time span of 2-3 months. If it rises at a rate of 40 mm per 10 years, you’ll see only 1 mm rise in 3 months, which can not be resolved in that figure.

      4. Rauðleiturhraunspringurbjórfjallið ? My Gosh, hope this one doesn’t go into any kind of eruption. I wouldn’t be able to learn it from my former experience with Icelandic names.
        @Jón: Is Krysuvik at the Blue Lagoon area?

        OT: Captcha had me writing the word “Psilocybe”. For those who know what it refers to, and specially for a Biologist, like me, it has rather interesting connotations. Hope they know what they’re doing.

      5. Meanwhile, another small one hit Grimsvötn area. Not so shallow, though…
        04:02:11 64.286 -16.886 7.6 km 1.1 33.93 22.8 km SE of Grímsfjall

  3. Another two in about a minute:
    Wednesday
    10.11.2010 04:07:55 64.285 -16.868 8.9 km 1.7 63.93 23.6 km SE of Grímsfjall
    Wednesday
    10.11.2010 04:03:26 63.931 -22.034 1.2 km 0.8 31.65 5.1 km NNE of Krýsuvík

  4. They have upgraded the Habunga quake to 3.7, but the quality is still the same…
    Wonder if the people around could feel it.

    1. A earthquake this size would clearly have appeared on my Hekla station and many other stations around Mýrdalsjökull. It doesn’t, so it is just a error that sometimes happens in the SIL system.

  5. Phreatic activity rather than magmatic with steam explosions? If you look at the good old days of steam propulsion, boiler explosions were not uncommon. If you super-heat water and place it under pressure, then release the pressure the water flashes into steam instantly. There are several examples of this and how destructive these steam explosions could be such as this one – http://texas.i-found-it.net/1912rrdisaster.html – In 1902, the boiler of a small Swedish steam engine, “Hultenheim”, ruptured during testing which sent the 25-tonne engine through the roof to land on a knoll some 30 metres from the shed.

    These explosions, violent as they were, are nothing compared with the phreatic explosions possible in volcanic systems. The steam engines/boilers failed at about 200 – 225C and 20 – 25 AT and involved no more than a few cubic metres of pressurised water. In volcanic systems, the figures are far more impressive with temperatures in excess of 5-600C and pressures at several hundred atmospheres involving thousands of cubic metres of water possible.

    So, the 45m “maar” crater at Krysuvik is a rather small event as far as phreatic explosions go.

    1. Tcsernobyl accident involved a major steam explosion. No single evidence exists for a nuclear explosion, but evidence for a hydrogen explosion is not conclusive. There was about 1000 m3 of reactor water was at 284 degrees-C and 70 bar(abs) when it was let loose. The pressure vessel was made of 30 cm thick steel but it could not stop the “eruption”.

  6. Oh, before anyone magnifies this beyond all proportion – maars are usually between 40 and 2000 m in diameter, typically less than 250 m in diameter by 40 m deep, with the world’s largest, Alaska’s “North Devil Mountain Lake” at 5.1 km in diameter. So the Krysuvik crater is definitely at the bottom end of “small” as far as maars and phreatic cratering goes.

  7. BTW, Grimsfjäll inflation continues to north (nothing can be seen in other directions). Just forget those two large ice-bumps, and you’ll see what I mean.

    1. And it seems to me, that both Esjufjöll and Bardarbunga-Askja systems are more active (more earthquakes lately) than Grimsfjäll itself.

      1. I am getting a bit worried about Esjufjöll. As the earthquake have been moving upwards at rather fast phase in the last few weeks. They started at 28km depth and are now at 15 to 10 km depth.

        This is something that needs to be monitored carefully if the earthquakes continue at the same rate as they have been happening in the last few weeks.

      2. Well actually if you look at the EQ data from the point that the glacier flood bursted from Grimsfjall it points in a line from Esufjöll-Grimsvötn-Hamarínn almost..Is this worth mentioning?

        Lurking, do you have any graphs lying around on your computer showing the last 2-3 weeks of EQ in this “line”?

      3. That line pattern might simply just be a chance. What I am worried about is the fact the earthquakes in Esjufjöll volcano might be a pre-sequence to a eruption (big?) in Esjufjöll volcano.

        What I fear is a big eruption at this location. As it might destabilize (a unlikely event, but still possible) the glacier that is there. But under the glacier at Jökulsárlón that is below Esjufjöll volcano is a end of a 300 meter deep fjord that the glacier has created and it apparently is quite wide also. I just don’t know how wide it actually is, but it is 20 to 25 km long. Sadly I was unable to find pictures of this hidden fjord of Iceland.

        More information.

        http://www2.hornafjordur.is/ferdathjonusta/english/pearls/jokulsarlon/

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6kuls%C3%A1rl%C3%B3n

        http://www.mbl.is/mm/gagnasafn/grein.html?grein_id=89404 (Icelandic)

  8. Could it be possible, that the magma, which seems to rise beneath Esufjöll, makes its way towards Öræfajökull in a later stage? I think that there might be a possibility for that scenario, because Öræfajökull seems to have an eruption cicle around 300-400 years.

    This came to my mind because i’ve recently read the “Sharma et al. 2008 O1362 JVGR paper”, which focusses on the massive 1362 eruption of Öræfajökull. This volcano eruptet again in the years 1727-1728, but much weaker. The 1362 Eruption has eruptet about 10km3 of tephra (as far as i’ve read in the paper ).

    1. the paper has the following name: (i think the document name in my last post doesn’t realy say what the paper is about)

      “The AD 1362 Öræfajökull eruption, S.E. Iceland: Physical
      volcanology and volatile release”

      by:
      Kirti Sharma1, Stephen Self1, Stephen Blake1, Thorvaldur Thordarson2, Gudrun Larsen3

    2. The answer to that question would be no. But the magma that is going into Esjufjöll might mean that there is more active period starting in that area and that in it self might effect Öræfajökull. If that is big enough effect to start a eruption is a good question.

      1. Is Esjufjöll in the Öræfajökull-belt?
        Oh and speaking of which, I never read anything about the (extinct?) volcano of Snæfell (not the one at Snæfellness but the mountain north of Vatnajökull), coordinates: 64°47’58.73″N, 15°34’11.03″W. This volcano also appears to be in the Öræfajökull but I can’t find any information about it. Do you know something about it, Jon?

      2. Please correct me if I am wrong here, but wasn’t it the Öraefajökull-Grimsvötn-Laki that erupted 1727-8. Wouldn’t that rather imply that connection?

      3. from http://www.vatnajokulsthjodgardur.is/english/education/oraefajokull/

        “This stratovolcano has erupted twice in recorded history, in 1362 and in 1727. Geologists believe that the earlier eruption was the largest pumice eruption in the recorded history of Iceland, although there was an even larger one about 2800 years ago. In 1326, ten billion cubic metres of volcanic ash were emitted (or 10 km3, which is equivalent to 2.5 km³ of solid rock). Devastating floods followed the eruption, sweeping away a large number of farms down on the coast. In addition to the deluge, pyroclastic flows and ash fall caused the abandonment of other farms. Thick, light-coloured pumice layers from this eruption are a common feature in the surrounding district.

        The second eruption began in August 1727 and lasted for almost a year. The volcano was at its most active during the first three days. The ash fall was so great that it was impossible to distinguish night from day. However, fewer people and livestock were killed than in the earlier eruption, and no farms were destroyed. Farmhouses had been built on higher ground than previously, and the total ash fall was actually less. The main flood flowed along the courses of the Rivers Sandfell and Hof where evidence of the deluge is still visible.”

      5. Yes, The Esjufjöll is in Öræfajökull-Esjufjöll-Snæfell volcano belt that is in South-East of Vatnajökull.

        I do not think that there is a lot about Snæfell volcano at the edge of Vatnajökull. The reason being that is dormant and it has never erupted in modern history. It was once thought to be extinct. But recent research appears to have changed that, so they changed the status of that volcano from extinct to dormant. But Snæfell has not erupted in modern time far as I know. It appears to have been dormant for more then 12,000 years. Maybe even longer.

        Map of the area, http://www.vatnajokulsthjodgardur.is/thjodgardurinn/jardfraedi/eldstodvar-og-sprungureinar/

    1. I can’t say about Litlahekla but when I go walking the tops often have less snow than on the flanks because the wind is stronger on the more exposed places and clearing it as it falls.

      1. Yes, I know that, but Litlahekla is a side flank of Hekla volcano, and it’s sortof covered by Hekla from strong winds. Also Hekla itself (including the summit) was covered with snow.

      2. there is geothermal activity at top of hekla. when i was in iceland this summer we hiked there and went on the top. there you feel that heat is comming out of the ground because it melts ice and theres some steam slowly rising from the ground. and if you sit down your butt gets warmer and after some time your clothes might well get a bit wet.

        so this could be an explanation why there is no snow there – because the mountain is still warm from the last eruption or heat makes its way up from deep under the mountain. which is well possible because hekla is a rather active volcano.

  11. Thanks for the hard work Lurking! *handing over a moose-brew*
    Could I be a horrible person and ask if you could do them from a few days before the swarm up until today and kind of narrow in on Kryuvik a bit more…
    The thing I think I can see kind of get cluttered in the normal mini-quakes of the peninsula. I know I am asking a lot but I have an idea…

    1. I’ve updated my spreadsheet, and here are the quakes going back as far as I have.

      Before I do the plot, you pick the day. The two most likely break points are labled.. those are the most recent semi-strong events. (well, stronger than the reast). I’m gonna go eat… in three days I’ve had over 700 miles of service calls. Thank god the pay makes it worth it. I’ll check back afterwords and do the plot then. If not, then later this evening… depending on when you make your pick.

      http://i55.tinypic.com/359cxs1.png

      BTW, this is “Krýsuvík Area” in that the quake is annotated by SIL as “XX km from Krýsuvík.” If you want a different bounding box, gimme a Lat and Lon and I can extract just that area.

      1. Okay, I will try to explain how I am thinking, but after 4 days with 16 hour days and flights my head is moss-filled.
        What I was thinking was those marked Krisuvik för say the last 3 weeks and plotted in your normal amazing east and north plots.
        I am trying to see if there is some kind of conduit movement. You know those that are sometimes visible on your nice graphs. *keaping up the buttering for all I am worth*

        I am back in Sweden now, I was closer to your time-frame earlier (NY) this week.
        700 miles, good that you are well paid! I wouldn’t like to drive 1200km in 3 days!

      2. Okay… but they look similar to the old ones. To try and clarify things a bit, I tagged the Mag 2.0+ as stars and the Mag 3.0 as an hexagon.

        This is essentially everything there since the Mag 3.0 at 10/22/10 00:27:57.

        No terrain, it was pretty useless anyway. I need to get higher res data for it to really be of any use at tis scale.

        View North
        http://i53.tinypic.com/2it358i.jpg

        View East
        http://i53.tinypic.com/xc4oiv.png

        Ref the driving… it’s not that it’s “well paid”, it’s that it makes it worth the effort. I use petrol like it’s going out of style.

      3. Now I know that I don’t know jack-squat…
        Good to know 🙂

        If I look closely I still se the pattern of “opening of a conduit, but it is hellishly vage and might be conjecture.
        It is clearer in the west/east pic, but on the north pic it looks like 2 “conduits” opening up.
        And it looks like an ill defined 2Borised tubinged magma reservoir2 in the warren of quakes (no quake areas).

        But it is probably just conjecture. And it is very vague, I guess we need a few hundred more quakes to get a clearer pic!

        Yeah, hard times in the US now. Hope the times get better for you guys soon.

      4. Not likely, the Muni Debt Funds just went south hard. Either it’s the deal of the century or some one is gonna get taken to the cleaners.

      5. This is something that I was gonna post… but decided not to, mainly because it’s not my specialty, but more of “my take” on it all.

        The MAR is a “slow” spreading center that cuts (natch) the Atlantic. At the Reykjanes (not Rick James, that would be silly) the spreading center makes the transition from Oceanic to Continental. The two behave a bit differently.

        Iceland, being the oddity that it is, has a lot of different mechanisms going on. For one, it has multiple rift jumps throughout it’s history, where the main focus of activity leaps from one region to another, the old spreading centers leaving behind old but deep faults flanked by less deep faults along the boundaries of previous dike/sill and graben features. This makes tracking down who is who in the zoo a bit problematic.

        The Sprungar features are about the only surface manifestation between the oceanic style spreading areas and the traditional volcanic features that tend to pop up along continental style spreading areas. You can find these on the SIL quake plots west of the Hekla area.

        Now, with respect to Krýsuvík… I can’t hazard whether this is indicative of a wanna be volcano, or just another MAR style feature/event. On continental margins, the faults are usually sea ward dipping. But that’s after you have had the thing open all the way up. I think that would apply to nascent rifts and show seismically as quake patterns that leaned away form the center of the spreading area, following the faults. We don’t see that in my plots.. so that stumps me.

        Like I said earlier… I don’t’ specialize in this sort of thing, so I may be way off the mark.

      6. @Lurking below:
        Yeah, it is totally unsustainable.
        But the bigger issue is that the total US debt (national foreign debt, national internal debt, various state debts, municipial debts, corporate debts and private debts) is, since quite sometime, larger than the total gross worth of the entire US. Ie, US net value is below zero.
        The reason for US having to actually print more money now instead of borrowing is that the US is nowadays refused to borrow money from abroad in dollars. In theory you could borrow in Euro, but as the situation is now even that was refused by the Euro-fund since the federal budget is funded with 37 borrowed cents per dollar and has been like that for 20 years.

        Ie, serious problems that will take a long time to solve.
        But it is really sad to see how it hits Ordinary Joes. That will have to pay higher taxes, and even that is not enough to balance the budget. In reality it will take large tax increases and down-sizing military expenditure with 70 percent. Problem is that nobody is willing to pay that price in the US so in a few years bankcrupcy is inevitable.

        I wish I could say something positive really.

      7. I agree totally, I am at a loss even trying to figure out what is happening there. Remember the 2 large swarms that was out in Geirfuglasker/Reykjaneshryggur are during the last ten months.
        I have a gnawing feeling that it is related somehow but how eludes me. Yes, tectonically they can be, but this seems more like it is magmatic somehow.

        My guess is that this might (big might though) be a wannabee volcano, but if it is, it will calm down and we will swarms popping up now and again for years before it goes Booom.

        If somebody sees this posting when it does go Boom I would be happy if they call it Rauðleiturhraunspringurbjórfjallið just to drive all newscasters around the globe bonkers.

  12. Just calculated the mean average seismic stress index for Grimsvötn.
    Remember that this is supostion based on that Grimsvötn need an accumulated stress of almost 4.0E+14 to erupt.
    Than I did a path-integer on all possible ways it could accumulate from todays value and then took away the outlayers.
    If it needs that accumulated stress to pop it will take 254 to 509 days before it erupts.

    Reminder, this is just matstat-speculations that might have nothing with reallity to do.

    1. That would be between summer 2011 to winter 2011. Failed eruption in March, failed eruption in November, next time will be real

    2. Thanks for this. I understand that all theories are “voodoo science” until proven otherwise but new scientific discoveries are occurring every day, so who knows.

      1. Yepp, it was just some “wodoo-science” on my part. But it is speculation founded on scientific base, ie. mathematical statistics and behavious pattern analysis of Grimsfjöll. And that makes it rather more scientific than for say 2012 lunacy or lunar lunacy 🙂
        And a large difference is also that I am quite clearly stating that I am spekulating and most important, how I have speculated. And that makes into scientific speculation.

      2. Thanks, I understand all of what you say- I did read the entire topic along with all of your posts. Some people (not meaning you specifically) need to realize that at one time quantum physics would have been considered “voodoo science” too. Maybe the guy’s lunar theory fell flat but at least he dared to try, even if he did fall flat on his face.

      3. Yes he did.
        What is so sad with guys like him is that if they put it that much effort into learning basic physics and volcanology he would probably have become good at it.

        The difference between woodoo science and science is that “real” science is founded on logics and study of reality. If theory does not fit reality it falls and is superseeded with something else. And it also always is open with it speculative part. And that makes many without scientific schooling believe that it is not more valid than any other theory. They think it is just idle speculation and wild ideas.
        And… “real” science always give testable predicitons, otherwise it is called meta-science. So you can always prove that it is wrong 🙂

        I recomend a fantastic book to everyone interested in the idea of science. It was written by world renowned astronomer and presidential science advisor Carl Sagan and is called The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. To me it is a stunningly beautifull book and explains far better than I can the difference between idle belief and science. 🙂

      4. @Carl: I can recommend reading Carl Sagan and especially this book as well.
        If you are interested in this topic, then Ben Goldacre might also be interesting for you. His website can be found at http://www.badscience.net und he also wrote a book with the same title (“Bad Science”). Its more related to medical topics, but its the same: Critical thinking.

      6. “Maybe the guy’s lunar theory fell flat but at least he dared to try, even if he did fall flat on his face”

        Perhaps you could tell me why it fell flat.

  13. To clarify. Big eruptions in Iceland:
    ~934 Katla and Eldgjá
    1362 and 1727 Oraefajokull
    1783 Laki and Grimsvotn
    1477 Bardarbunga, Veidivotn and Torfajokull
    1875 Askja
    and several times Hekla and Katla

    I think the worrying thing about Esjufjoll is that it “never” erupted in recent centuries (except for something small in 1927), so the magmatic chamber might be full. The caldera is actually quite big, about half the size of Katla, so a potential for a big eruption exists there. Actually future big eruptions of Esjufjoll make sense, as the Icelandic plume centre is nearby, and moving into the east.

    1. The less glacier cover might also make it easier for Esjufjöll volcano to start erupting. As less glacier means less weight on the volcano and less weight allows magma to travel more easy up trough the volcano system and start a eruption.

      1. But this also means that ice won’t (or not as much) interact with lava, so the eruption might be less explosive than other subglacial eruptions we’ve seen?

      2. There is a lot of glacier there and it is thick. A lot more then in Eyjafjallajökull volcano for comparison. Nearly all of Esjufjöll volcano is currently under ice and if it erupts that means there is going to be a lot of glacier floods and a ash cloud if the eruption gets break out from under the ice.

      3. Is Breiðamerkurjökull the only outlet for meltmater from Esjufjöll or can it also go down to the north via Brúarjökull or to the southwest via Skeiðarárjökull? My maps do not show the bedrock topography below the glacier…

  14. Esjufjöll and Global Warming… I just looked at the new imagery over Vatnajökull on Google Earth…
    25 percent of it is just gone. Esjufjöll is not even within Vatnajökull really, it is just a crushed slush of large icebolders flowing past, a pitifull outlet that once stretched to the sea. Once? Like ten years ago.
    I thought Esjuföll was under ice, but it is just a mountain well above ice.

      1. This is correct. You can see Esjufjöll volcano from that camera. But Esjufjöll volcano is not much to look at as it rather flat due to the glacier.

    1. Seems like the winds are around 10-16m/s at the moment. Not sure if thats enough to rattle the chart like that. Maybe high wind speed gust?

  16. Ok, I would like to know what is going on at Reykjanes Peninsula. Could this be a sign of a possible volcanic eruption?

      2. But it is probably one hell of a fire, and it should have been on the news. The ash-plume visible on MODIS is after all more then 5km long.
        But for the life of me I cannot get what it is that is burning that hard out there.
        Must be the ghost of Bolli Bollasson that has his ghostly Varangi ways when dreaming of Constantinople… 🙂

      4. Could it have been a large meteor? This is really strange. If it was a UFO crash, I doubt that NASA will tell us. Is there any debris left there?

      7. No worries!
        But it would be cool if they did crash often.
        Just think about it, what would it say about a civilisation that travells amongst the stars just to crash when they arrive.
        Nah, I guess other intelligent species are intelligent enough to stay the hell away from us. And yes, I do believe they exist somewhere, but I do think they don’t have the time to go here. If we are visited I would guess it would be by nano-monitoring devices so that they can watch us and bet when we will self-destruct.

      8. I completely agree with you le Strange! How primitive and sadistic we must seem to advanced beings- especially what humans do to intelligent, innocent and defenseless animals. Btw, an aside- my fav X-Files epsiode was about the UFO that crashed off of Iceland

      10. That would be if Jón goes there, but I guess that is beyond the call of duty 🙂
        Perhap’s he finds something in the news.
        I tried my rather shoddy Icelandic but didn’t find anything.

  18. Earthquakes at Torfajökull seem to occur at more regular base these days. Might just be nothing, but do you know of any activity cycles of Torfajoökull Jón?

    2. Well, technically I don’t have an affinity for a direction. As Jón points out everything is interrelated. I’ve continued plotting those quakes in Arkansas and really nice fault plane has shown up as the data gets added in over time.

      A few posts ago, I noted that due to the way that Iceland does the spreading center thing, deep fault boundaries between the plates are straddled by old sill/dike structures. This may be in play as the different areas deal with the stresses. To the east, part way to Hekla this shows up as surface cracks in that “sprungar” area (sp?)

      So… whether what’s going on is moving any particular direction sort of depends on what point in time you start looking at it.

      Date v Latitude

      http://i54.tinypic.com/2yjuc21.png

      Date v Longitude

      http://i56.tinypic.com/rr2id3.png

      1. Thank you!
        You where right, I was seeing things that where not. That is the really good thing with your graphs. They kind of prove both if the hunches we have are right, and when we are wrong.

    1. I will be d(piip)ed.
      It is a compresion zone, but that looks a bit much.
      But on the other hand the 1904 quake at the Koster Islands outside of Gothenburg was on the compresion-zone.
      Normally though the swedish quakes are either induced by the land upheaval due to land-rise after the latest ice-age, and due to the intense mining in the Kirunawaara mine.

      1. Carl,

        For how long time this land-rise would a plausible explanation? I was just thinking…

        In west coast of Finland the land rises still about 1 cm a year. That gives 100 metres in 10 000 years! But the land features on the coast at the time when ice melted away, are nowadays – not 100 metres above sea level, but only 40 metres! So, what’s up?

      2. If not geology is totally different in Finland then in Sweden they should be a 100 meters up.
        At least they are here. But remember that it is only “The High Coast” that still has a land-rise at slightly over 1cm year.
        Actually you can in sweden follow the 100 meter line and find the first settlers as it seems they followed the then coastline.

      3. Isostatic rebound is not going to be uniform… or consistent.

        Rise here, rise more over there, pivot, shift squirt a little water rise some more, pop off a few megatons of methane hydrate etc…

        Plus it’s also possible that large chunks of land were below sea-level when the ice was sitting on top of it. Just look at Greenland’s current state.

  22. Sorry to say Brian….It doesnt matter if the conditions is as you say. It does not have any effect! You have been proven wrong before and will probably be so this time around as well.

    But ok, i can do this also..how about this:

    Last year 3 months before Eyjafjalla erupted i noticed that we had snow here in sweden. And that was exactly 3 months before she blew..TO THE DAY! Based on this I predict that the Laki fissure will reactivate and wreak havoc again. I mean..We have snow now! Beware..3 months…

    Now this theory is as probable as the planetary crap above…

    Nothing personal intended but this forum is populated by people who believes in hard science and proven facts!

    1. As in accordance to my rules that I put in place in earlier blog post. I am going to delete the parent comment. But I will not delete the answering comment.

      Please make a note of that.

      1. Good one! Keep a firm line and keep doomsday sayers and non scientifical posts out. I like it.

      2. Jón:
        Something happened when you deleted.
        The comments get placed all over now.
        When I try to post in the end, I mean at the lowest point of the page, my comments get inserted randomly higher upp on the page.

      1. So is Katla, Hekla, Rauðleiturhraunspringurbjórfjallið and Grimsvötn to.
        The rest are just playing hard to get and require to bjórs (beers) to go off.

      2. For those who believe in the little people, I highly recommend that you get them some of this lovely brew! You never know, it may please the Troll King into ceasing all of this pesky seismicity : http://www.magichat.net/hex

  23. Another small ‘ping’ near Esjufjöll? Now at 3.6 km, M1.8

    12.11.2010 18:16:08
    64.252 -16.517 3.6 km 1.8 90.01 27.5 km NNE of Hvannadalshnjúkur

  24. My knowledge of science is limited and and my ideas may be without merit, and will not waste anyone’s time any longer here with my “dripple”. I have found the board interesting and the ridicule enlightening.

    1. If your knowledge of science is limited then you go and educate your self, or go to school to educate your self.

      You don’t go and repeat some old nonsense that has been disproved by science long ago.

      1. Or do as I do..Ask questions. I have a very limited knowledge and I am too old to reschool my self. Thus I ask questions and educate myself through the answers i get. So far I have learned more about volcanic mechanisms than I ever thought possible. Much thanks to Jón who is very patient and really explains things in a way that the normal layman can understand. 🙂

      2. *asgarv* Vad var nu det här då 🙂

        Yeah, We simple-minded swedes are really to stupid to learn, that is why we have to ask questions all the time, we are also to demented to remember what poor Jón is trying to teach us, so he has to tell us again and again…

  25. Continueing the good atmosphere:

    1. Open Google Maps.
    2. Click ‘Get Directions’
    3. Type USA as start point.
    4. Type China as end point.
    5. Read direction number #27.

  28. Lite märkliga inlägg och osammanhängande trådar från flera just nu.

    I am learning lots by reading the blog posts and the comments. Thanks Jon for this blog.

  29. i would find it very nice, if lurking could do one of his 3d plotts from the vatnakökull area, from around..lets say may till now. i mean a plott similoar to the one that was made for hawaii, because i would find that for now one of the best ways to find out what is actually going on beneath esufjöll.

    i would say thanks in advance for this plott, if you could find the time to create such one.
    grettings from switzerland.
    stefan

    1. When I did delete the comment I did remove the logical order the comments. I do not know why the WordPress blog did this (a bug?) as it does. But the only way for me to fix this would be to re-insert the comment that I did remove earlier.

      3. Good to hear that it is not just me that have “the munchies” at night. Odd thing, the “funniest” I have ingested today is ice-cream…
        Must go for some more:)

  31. Katla seems to be rumbling on it’s far eastern side, outside of the caldera rim. I haven’t seen any earthquakes there at all since Eyjafjallajokull erupted….it’s most likely nothing though.

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