Posted on by Jón Frímann

Minor earthquake swarm close to Herðubreið

Today a small earthquake swarm started just south-west of Herðubreið. But Herðubreið is a volcano cone formation that erupted during last ice-age. But that eruption did break up trough the glacier. Explaining its shape.


The earthquake swarm off Herðubreið. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Meteorological Office.

Largest earthquake so far had the size around ML3.1. But aftershocks have reached the size of ML2.5 according to IMO automatic magnitude estimate. This earthquake swarm is currently ongoing.

Icelandic news about this.

Grunnur skjálfti við Herðubreið (Vísir.is)
Jarðskjálfti nærri Herðubreið (Rúv.is)

Plus. Here are pictures from The Telegraph of Iceland volcanic nature.

Iceland from the air: aerial pictures of the country’s dramatic volcanic landscapes

Other: Donations help me running this blog (they also help me paying the bills, buy food and what comes with being a human being). Plus it appears that I need go the dentist. But as it is now. I can’t afford it properly. Thankfully this is not an emergency that I am dealing with in one of my tooth. But I need to get it fixed one way or the other soon. Thanks for the support! 🙂

34 Replies to “Minor earthquake swarm close to Herðubreið”

  1. Starting from a 4.0 and now downgraded to a 3.1
    How the mighty have fallen! … Lol

    Spectra at ask hasn’t changed yet. Any idea what occurred near to the 13th of May? The change in pattern shows up on various stations.

      1. These three stations show the most significant recordings, however virtually every SIL station across the board shows an increase at the same time to lesser extents.

        Undoubtedly there has been major movement or increase in pressure somewhere in the Vatnajökull/Mýrdalsjökull area. The IMO could (in my opinion) go along way to stemming supposition by being a bit more open about results. It would be most informative to see their findings on their Askja trip and any recordings from the new apparatus.

        I know they dont want to spark media frenzy, but I have a feeling they know something they aren’t telling us.

      2. This has also been bothering me.

        It’s pretty decisive, I wouldn’t call myself very familiar with the tremor graphs but I don’t remember an event like this.

      4. I think its quite common that something happens that may look significant but eventually leads to nothing, but can be a hint about what might be going on.

  3. Jon, I see a lot of quakes on the vedur.is page (that place we are not supposed to know about 🙂 ) but they are not really showing up on the list of quakes on the official page for quakes. Why is that? The “official” page shows only 3 quakes today while the “unofficial” shows 11 from 3am UTC till 5 am UTC.

    1. I am finding that is melting too, the picture has changed a lot, seems to me to watch the falling water too!

  4. Jon sorry to ask you this but is there a change in the picture of the ruv camera on Katla or is it just the light? It nearly looks as if snow has gone on some of it

    1. I have to see it to know. It is a bit hard for me to know what you are speaking about without anything to see.

      But there are often cars travelling this area. It is not volcano related.

  7. So… Is my plane trip at the end of June yet again threatened by an upcoming eruption ? Or is Katla just letting some steam off ?

    2. Last time Katla erupted no one was hurt or killed, same goes for Askja.
      The only people at risk are those who are very
      close to the eruption.

      When Eyjafjallajokull closed the European airspace, Icelandic airports remained open almost the entire time.
      So there is not much to worry about.

      1. I don’t care about the Icelandic airports, I worry about my airspace.

  8. Looking at the swarm I do get a strange gut feeling that this is going to lead to something bigger. A show which we were all waiting for. A few quakes now close to 3,0 and it does not seem to be slowing down…

    1. Think the swarm is more tectonic, so volcano wise everything propably remains quiet.. However, you never know 😛

      Sander

  9. I know Sander, but tectonic events can sometimes wake up or trigger a volcanoe, that’s a fact.
    And let us not forget that the Askja volcanic system is changing (rapidly?). Jón said a few months ago that there
    are signs of inflation, caused by the inflow of new/fresh magma.
    Another sign is the Askja lake becoming icefree in midwinter (for this strange phenomenon has not been
    given a good explanation yet, or I should have missed it.
    So maybe tectonic, but possibly leading to more.
    Like Jón always says: “all we can do now is wait and see”.
    Henk

    1. Looks very volcanic to me! I doubt, tectonic quakes would line up into a single line so nicely. Maybe to a plane, but not to a line…

      1. Maybe it is just curiosity, but 3 earthquakes in reykjane ridge.
        4.8 reykjanes ridge 2012-05-15 07:16:16 9.9
        4.7 reykjanes ridge 2012-05-15 06:45:30 10.0
        4.4 reykjanes ridge 2012-05-15 06:31:32 10.0

  13. Hello Jon,

    No need to spend a lot of money for dentist in Denmark. You can simply go to the nearest university and get the dentist students to fix what needs to be fixed. I have done that when low on cash as it only cost like 10% of what a normal dentist would charge. They usually work under supervision of their professors, so in general you are getting the same as you would get at normal dentist, but might take a bit longer time though.

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