During the past 24 to 48 hours there has been some unusual and interesting earthquake activity in south part of Hekla volcano system. I am unsure on what this means, as normally Hekla volcano does not have any earthquakes before an eruption. However, that is not the only type Hekla volcano can and has erupted over the centuries. One of the aspect of Hekla volcano eruptions is that it can and has erupted in fissure eruptions outside the main mountain. This type of eruptions can last from few week and up to almost a year. Based on the limited historical records of such events. This type of events are always basaltic lava events that do not make a lot of volcano ash when they start.
The earthquakes in Hekla volcano during the last 48 hours. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.
There are clues that Hekla volcano might be about to have an fissure eruption some time in the future. But when and where is impossible to know for sure at current time. How that is going to manifest it self when the time comes is also impossible to know for sure. At current time there is however no eruption starting in Hekla volcano. When it might start is an good guess, with no answer to it.
But these quakes appear at some distance of Hekla? How do they compare to the quakes that happened the last time Hekla erupted?
As far as I know there are now registered a lot more earthquakes than in 2000, because there was not such a high number of SIL stations installed around the mountain by then. These mentioned earthquakes are also very very small ones (under magn. 1). Perhaps they couldn’t register very small earthquakes at the time neither.
I think so, too. Its the same for Katla.
Friday
13.01.2012 12:08:29 65.088 -16.266 8.2 km 0.7 99.0 5.2 km N of Upptyppingar
Friday
13.01.2012 12:07:31 65.093 -16.261 9.6 km 0.6 99.0 5.8 km N of Upptyppingar
Friday
13.01.2012 10:39:31 65.091 -16.263 8.1 km 0.5 99.0 5.6 km N of Upptyppingar
Friday
13.01.2012 08:15:44 65.090 -16.267 7.8 km 1.6 99.0 5.5 km N of Upptyppingar
Friday
13.01.2012 08:07:38 65.087 -16.260 12.8 km 1.8 99.0 5.2 km N of Upptyppingar
Friday
13.01.2012 07:46:04 65.086 -16.260 14.4 km 2.0 99.0 5.0 km N of Upptyppingar
Friday
13.01.2012 06:13:45 65.088 -16.265 6.0 km 1.4 99.0 5.3 km N of Upptyppingar
Might be handy for discussion.
Diagonal profile cut of Moho depth directly through the positions of Hekla and Bárðarbunga.
http://i44.tinypic.com/8yw93k.png
New blog post is up! It is about Upptyppingar tuff mountains.
For those who are not clear about the Moho and mantle, here is a fascinating post by Dr Erik Klemetti. It sort of makes the thoughts of what may be beneath Iceland more up close and friendly . Well according to Lurking’s section it’s closer to Hekla than to Grimsvotn and chums……..
On second thoughts maybe the friendly bit is pushing it a bit as far as Hekla is concerned 🙂
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/tag/moho/