Earthquake swarm north of Jan Mayen Island

This blog officially also covers Jan Mayen Island north of Iceland. But since the Jan Mayen Island is uninhabited, activity there is not on the top priority list and I do not mention the Jan Mayen area as such because of this.

Yesterday (15.01.2012) there where two earthquakes detected by EMSC north of Jan Mayen Island. This earthquakes happened in the rift zone that is in this area. The largest earthquake had the size Mb4.9 with the default depth of 10 km. The smaller earthquake had the size Mb4.2 with the default depth of 10 km.

This area has the depth of around 2 km where it is shallowest (mountain peaks) so it is impossible to what is going on. But this is most likely tectonic earthquakes rather then volcanic earthquakes that are taking place in this area. But due the distance from populated areas and any seismometer networks only the largest earthquakes are detected when they happen. Norway National Seismic Network can be found here, they have some better resolution of earthquakes in the Jan Mayen Island then EMSC.

6 Replies to “Earthquake swarm north of Jan Mayen Island”

    1. It looks very regular. Could it be man made? I know nothing about this area and what is near the helicorders.

  1. Thank you for an interesting article. The recent EQs in Iceland seem to be following, or in line with, the MAR.

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