Posted on by Jón Frímann

Sadly, no new geophone station at Thorgrimsstadir today

Due to technical and space issues. I am not going to setup a new geophone station at Thorgrimsstadir today. Currently I am looking for a new location for the new geophone station in the area of Hvammstangi with the people I know that might be interested in housing this type of hardware.

I however hope to get a geophone station at Thorgrimsstadir up and running in about one year time or so. At least I hope so.

79 Replies to “Sadly, no new geophone station at Thorgrimsstadir today”

  1. Hi all. I am one of the (many) silent viewers of this blog 🙂
    I thought it would be extremely relevant to post a link to a video from tonight news on RUV. They were covering the changes at Kleifarvatn.
    Here it is:
    http://dagskra.ruv.is/sjonvarpid/4547194/2010/12/16/5/

    The bad news is that you can not use google translate on videos 🙂

    Thanks Jon for a great blog.

    1. Takk for the video! What a bubbly enchanting underwater world you have there, seems wonderful for scuba diving.

      1. Question:
        I can not see a natural run off (river or something) of water from Kleifarvatn. So how do the water normally go from there to the ocean? Or is it a small icelandic version of the dead sea?

      3. Thanks, so since there is no river one can say safely that it is a huge drain-rate now. 50mm is way to large for it to be through water vapouring away since that would take really high temperatures.
        I would guess that the 2000 cracks have fully opened again, and that there seems to be no sign of them closing.
        So if they do not close the lake will diminish in an increasing rate as the water volume decreases.

        Whew, 1,5 metres per month.

      4. More interesting question is: Where does it go? If there is magma rising, this question becomes even more crusial to the future development of the area.

      5. Carl said, “50mm is way to large for it to be through water vapouring away since that would take really high temperatures.”

        Does it have to be evaporating for this to indicate impending eruption? About a month ago one of you guys said something about a connection between water levels (near volcanoes) decreasing usually indicates possible eruption or at least is a sign of magma chambers filling up?

      6. @Jack:
        Yes it is very interesting. If it seeps through cracks down to magma or close to it the steam explosion would probably start a very phreatic eruption.

        @Sigrún
        Ah, I meant for it to be explained by normal vapouring due to air-temperature. I did not mean that it was vapoured away due to heat in the lake.
        Yes, at least for Hekla it seems to be the case that lowered levels in water-wells is a sign of impending eruption.

      7. So could eruptions at Hekla actually be triggered by substantial amounts of water forging a path downwards, hitting the magma level, exploding to steam and shaking the volcano into eruption if it is close to eruption in the first place? Or would it take force of an entirely different magnatude to trigger an eruption. In UK we have a saying about “the last straw which broke the camel’s back”.

      8. Enough water and enough heat and you would get insane amounts of power.
        Take a look at what the Mythbusters are doing with normal water-heaters. If you can blow up a house completely with a common house water heater. Imagine then what one of the worlds most agressive volcanos can do…

  2. Short translation of the video

    The water level is 2.6 meters lower than last spring, mostly due to little rainfall last two summers & light snow last winter. For the last months it lowers 50 mm a day.

    The water level lowered 4 meters in 2000 when a rift opened due to an 6R earthquake. 2 years ago the water level had risen to former level. There are old stories of low levels of water in Kleifarvatn but as far as people recall, they can’t rembember it as low as now.

    1. Thank you to the other lurker for the translation.
      I’m another one of the many lurkers on this site. I never studied chem or physics to any degree of relevance, but I have found reading this blog fascinating and I’ve learned lots!

    2. Thanks for that. About the only languages I can speak other than English are a little bit of Perl, Php, 6502 assembly and such…

  3. It looks like Grímsey really really wants to have a >Mag 3.0 on the chart.

    Every time one gets downgraded it spits out another.

  4. This is mainly for those of you who are into that whole statistical thing. If your not, it’s sort of boring.

    Its the magnitude distributions of all quakes appearing in the SIL list for 2007 to 2010 by year. The cut-off for 2010 data is 12/17/10.

    http://i55.tinypic.com/2qa1c2f.png

  5. Holy crap, nice capture of the earthquake SSW of Hekla on the helicorder! Looks massive while it was only M2.6! Was this quake tectonic? It is in Vatnafjoll volcanic system.

    1. Vatnafjöll might be a bit of a bad one…
      Vatnafjöll is the “old” place of eruptive activity before the central Hekla volcano became active again. Vatnafjöll had 30 eruptions between BC 6000 to AD 350, among those are 3 eruptions that clock in as large on my scale.
      So if Vatnafjöll blows it would be 1/10 chance of it being a large eruption. But that is on the other hand true for the entire volcano.

  6. Man… I love data.

    Here is the area East of Askja, all quakes perspective plot, 2007-2010.

    Being human… like all humans I look for patterns in data. Its and innate part of our being. In some cases it can lead to stereotypes, both good and bad, just because we see a pattern. Me, well, I see lumps in this plot. To me, that indicates a collection of stuff wanting to go somewhere.

    I could be wrong. See, this is a sort of a hobby. Jón Frímann, who is much more serious about this endeavor that I am, can make a better judgment of what we see in the plot. Other more experienced people here can better explain it… provided that it needs a more in depth other than what I see.

    http://i52.tinypic.com/2dbp2ec.png

    I’m hanging onto this plot file should someone want a different angle.

    2. That was one hell of an interesting graph.

      Could you turn it 90 degrees? Because it looks like Akja is getting ready for a large fissure eruption, but the is depending on the trending of the blobs.

      1. Yes and no.
        Iceland is always just 1 hour away from eruption. That would be the average time Hekla need from first sign to full-blown eruption. Katla needs a bit longer, but not much.
        Grimsjöll is close, but seems to have taken a nap.
        So the answer is that no one really knows. But a large amount of icelandic volcanos are showing signs of unrest.
        But something will go within 10 years definitly. That is as close as I feel comfortable with predicting.

      2. Thanks for the reply, watching the developments in Iceland and I would like to Iceland ever see ..: D It must be wonderful there.Perhaps there will be no eruption in the near future 🙂

    4. Crust is about 30km thick there, so rising ‘stuff’ must have generated EQs that deep- but when? How far back do the data go?
      Your plots are fascinating, many thanks.

      1. Todays process begann in 2007 according to Hazel Rymer. My guess is that the conduits actually already where in place so no large quake activity at the 30km level was needed. But you have 3 slanted quake “funnels” leading down to 28 km. Might instead be that 28 is the actual magic number under those 3 features, remember that 30km is a good guesstimate.
        I have pre-ordered her upcoming book on Askja.

  7. The earthquake that can be seen on my webicorder at Hekla is from the Hekla volcano it self. I do not know what this means. But the earthquake was tectonic in nature. I am going to have the picture of the earthquake in a blog post later today.

  8. My bet is still on Askja going before a big eruption is likely at Hekla, but I am no expert. My view is just based on the quaking nearby being fairly consistent and tightly distributed, like the magma is pushing up into a descrete well defined area. I’m not so sure it is actually under Askja though. Couldn’t Herðubreið erupt again? Is it totally unquestionably extinct?

    1. Lot’s of questions. I will try to answer those I think I have an answer to, but I am not a volcanologist.

      Thing with Hekla is that it doesn’t need any precursors at all before erupting. At the 2000 eruption all it in advance was a slight lowering of the water in the creeks running off the mountain (that we have now to). Then it had 1 quake above 4 and 27 minutes later it had a 10km high ash-cloud. This is a one beer before vomiting volcano. Nothing on earth could get me to climb up that volcano.
      Katla gives just a couple of hours more of warning, that one seems to have a brief quake swarm first, but nobody really knows.
      Askja is having inflation, but no large quake swarms yet.
      Herdubreid and Herdubreidartögl. Herdubreid was considered to be if not dead close to it. Then it started having magmatic quake swarms and inflation since 2008. So no, it is not dead, it is dormant showing signs of becoming awake. Herdubreidartögl is dormant and awakening.
      So, Askja is showing signs of waking up with a probable regional fissure eruption running from Herdubreid/tögl towards Askja.
      Google for Hazel Rymer, she has been studying Askja for a long time and has a book in printing about it.

      3. Thanks for that. Interesting, though as you say, the Google translation is a bit funny.

        So if the threatening Askja eruption does happen you expect the wonderful shape of those table mountains to be ruined? That would be a great loss, but there is no ice above them now to shape them if they erupt now.

      4. If the eruption was under them they would be altered/destroyed.
        But if it is a regional fissure eruption it would probably be close to them. Look at Krafla-fires to get a picture of what I am talking about.

      1. One answer which would seem plausible would be that when Hekla erupts there are cracks opening up which allows water to flow down in crevices in the bedrock itself.

        I have no data to support that but it should be a logical theory. 🙂 I mean when a volcano erupts the surrounding bedrock should be subject to strain and shifting..

        just a stab in the dark from my side. 🙂

      3. Not necessarily. If the racks just open up (not creating new cracks) or an existing crack widens, we may see no eqs at all, or very few and too small to detect reliably.

      6. You might be right. I’ve got (extended) family members living near Hella, Rangá (view of Hekla) and “originate” from Keldur (where they first notice less water in the local streams) so I’ve had my share of tales of Hekla and pre-Hekla eruptions.

        Hekla seems to have little effect on other water-systems than the local ones at Keldur. However, there are no “official” water level measurements taken close to Hekla, I seem to recall a stick in the bæjarlækur (little stream close to) at Keldur, if the level goes down, something is brewing at Hekla, might not always be an eruption, could be a string of quakes coming (after a small quake or two).

        The water measurement system at Veðurstofa, take a look at Eystri Rangá, Krappi (close to Keldur) and Ytri Rangá (close to Hella).
        http://vmkerfi.vedur.is/vatn/vdv_gmap.php

        Interestingly the flow & water levels up north at Svartá above Ullarfoss (not so much noticed at Svartá Reykjarfoss) in October and November has been enourmous, 98% of normal flow. Svartá is not a glacier waterfall

  10. A quick look at the plot seems to indicate that most of these quakes are located in Herðubreiðartögl.

    1. Saw that plot is also taking in quakes from Vatnajökull, so Lurking, can you please turn it 90 degrees ?

    1. Grimsey is a part of the Kolbeinsey Ridge in the Tjörness Fracture Zone, and as far as I know it is tectonic quakes only there at this time. Tjorness last erupted around 1830 and Kolbeinsey was created in 1755.

      If there will be an eruption there it will probably be an underwater eruption that perhaps might create a temporary island like Kolbeinsey.

  12. Aaagh! the lack of earthquakes is getting quite scary. It’s un-natural – eeek!

    Perhaps the magma is now fee moving upwards unhindered!

    Just teasing

  13. The lack of earthquake is due to a storm that is passing over Iceland at the moment. I am going to post a picture of it soon.

    But lets just say that I am not going out more today.

      2. Oh Kultsi has answered as I typed. Not nice. When we get winds that strong it blows down trees which block roads. I guess you don’t have many trees in Iceland though?

      4. Ehm… well… yes… but… 😉
        An icelandic forrest is very very small compared to what we call a forrest.
        I’ve been to Icelands largest forrest and it was an experience. Finding a forrest named Forrest that is smaller than the shrubbery at the summer house was fun 🙂
        But Icelanders are very proud of Forrest so don’t tell them that it is a nice shrubbery.

        You have volcanos and the worlds most beautifull women in Iceland guys, what the heck do you need a forrest for? 🙂

  16. Darn, can’t reply straight to your input Carl le Strange on müsli at 16:12.

    Of course we are proud of our “forrests”, specially designed (mind you) to let us keep the panoramaic view, unlike Norwegians where you can’t see anything because of trees.

    Seriously though, the wind and gusts overthow cars and damages roofs, huge aluminium shingles fly.

    1. Forgot to mention that electricity was out in parts of the south-east coast, partly lines down, partly sea salt on the lines, some of it is back now but not all in the east part.

  17. @Carl, Treacleminer and the other Lurker: We do have forrests in my country. But looks like they are not staying for very long…

  19. Been bailing my truck out of the auto shop… tried doing the clutch myself but crawling around under it in 38°F for two days sort of takes the motivation out of you. I put the tranny back on and paid to get it done. Then a service call due to a stuck “A” key… grrrr. Thank God for Fridays.

    Roughly the same view with the Moho layer.
    http://i55.tinypic.com/2d9b38h.png

    Plan View
    http://i54.tinypic.com/2r2uewz.png

    View FROM THE NORTH (this is 180 out from what I usually plot.. mainly because it gave a better view.
    http://i54.tinypic.com/117guc5.png

    And… the view from the east.
    http://i51.tinypic.com/35b6lw4.png

    All of these plots are perspective view since a profile sort of looses the details of what is where.

    Vatnajökull barely has any data in these plots. I was going to grab some more data before I started working with it. Comparatively speaking, during the timeframe of the above plots (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 combined) Vatnajökull and it’s batch of volcanoes was sparse.

    I also plan on fiddling around with Hekla since that plot scared the carp out of me. I did a plot for it and saw this HUGE wad of quakes and then realized it wasn’t Hekla, but the April run of Eyjafjallajökull. I had inadvertently put the boundary right down the middle of Hekla.

  20. I’m going back to three per post. Those four images ticked off the forum software again.

    1. There are 18 spam messages waiting. They are trying to sell useless junk to people. I won’t have that on my blog. But you are just seeing that.

      But I am surprised that you did see the comment status page.

      2. It is just for your viewing pleasure. It is not open at all. I did check for it. Far as I can tell, I cannot hide it from normal users in WordPress system.

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