Posted on by Jón Frímann

Minor magma dike intrusion into Upptyppingar tuff mountain

Yesterday (12.01.2012) there was an minor earthquake swarm in Upptyppingar tuff mountain. But they are inside Kverkfjöll volcano fissure swarm that extends several km away from the main volcano. The largest earthquake in this earthquake swarm was around ML2.0 in size, with the depth of 14.4 km. But this was also the deepest earthquake in this earthquake swarm. But most of the earthquakes had the depth of 14.4 km and up to 7.8 km. So I am sure that this was magma, rather then tectonic movements that did create this small earthquake swarm.


The earthquake activity in Upptyppingar tuff mountains. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

This might mean that there is more activity on the way in Upptyppingar tuff mountain. As this suggests that new magma has started to flow into the magma sill that has formed under the Upptyppingar tuff mountains. It is hard to know or if there is going to be an eruption there. But I find it most likely going to be the case. But it might well be good 10 to 20 years into the future until an eruption happens in that spot. But activity started in this area in the year 2007, so there already have been good 5 years since activity started in Upptyppingar tuff mountain. For the moment however, it is all wait and see and earthquakes.

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12 Replies to “Minor magma dike intrusion into Upptyppingar tuff mountain”

  1. I mentioned a while back that the Aska tremor chart was doing something unusual – but we decided it might be weather or a fault. It is still raging away in an unusual pattern. Any link with Upptyppingar? They are very close together. Shame one of the other nearby stations is not returning at the moment.

    1. That SIL station has failed due to the bad weather this winter. So it is just noise from failed hardware. Not something in nature or around any volcano in that area.

      1. OK, thanks. I expect it must be difficult to get out to those stations right now! If I can spare a donation I will but right now I’m flat broke due to teenage daughter and broken car, etc. Good luck!

  2. 2 Earthquakes around 2.1 south of Hofn?
    Why there? I think another quake happened there a few months ago.

  3. What’s going on in the Atlantic to the southeast of Iceland? Bit of a quake swarm.

    1. I am going to write an blog post about it in a short while. But I need to finish two blog posts on my other blog before I start to write about this earthquake swarm.

  5. There have been repeatedly earthquake series around the island of Grímsey. It is part of TFZ and the latter part of MAR.

  6. Strange earthquakes southeast of Vatnajokull. Could this be a spot which marks the beginning of a new jumping rift in the future? It is not the first time I see an earthquake there, it already happened once before but I can’t remember when, but it was in 2011.

    I don’t think it is a landslide, since two 99% earthquakes show depths of 4 and 9km. But at least it is on the border of the Icelandic “continental shelf”

  7. Date Time Latitude Longitude Depth Magnitude Quality Location
    Friday
    13.01.2012 20:43:44 63.460 -15.262 4.4 km 2.2 99.0 88.1 km S of Höfn í Hornafirði
    Friday
    13.01.2012 20:43:44 63.453 -15.221 9.6 km 2.3 99.0 88.7 km S of Höfn í Hornafirði

    I am not the first to comment on this one. How very interesting. I await Jon’s post with anticipation.
    This is what I like about Iceland. If there are no interesting quakes or eruptions then there are always the beautiful scenery on the web cams. If the weather is bad and nothing can be seen because of the snow and winds I just feel warm and cosy here and glad I am not having to go out in weather like that!!! It’s always a win win situation!
    Jon I will donate as soon as the money has gone in to Paypal from my sales. I haven’t forgotten.

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