Posted on by Jón Frímann

Update on the activity over the Christmas

Here is a short update on what did go on in Iceland over the Christmas. In all there where few earthquakes in Iceland during Christmas. The main reason for this was a major storm that started in south Iceland on the 25th of December, it lasted until 27th of December in some parts of Iceland. The wind was topping 47m/s in strong winds. But the average wind speed was about 32m/s I think.

Around 17:02 UTC on the 25th of December there was a ML2.77 earthquake in Krísuvík volcano. Far as I can tell by the wave form this earthquake was mostly tectonic in nature. But it is impossible to know if the main source of this earthquake was the magma that is collecting in Krísuvík volcano or not. But activity continues in Krísuvík volcano as it has been doing in the last few weeks before. This earthquake was followed by 20 or so smaller earthquakes in the same area.

Due to the strong storm there where few to no earthquakes recorded on the late 25th to 27th of December. But the storm did simply hide all the minor earthquake that might have been taking place.

The ML2.77 earthquake in Krísuvík at 17:02 UTC at Heklubyggð geophone station. The storm noise almost drowns out the earthquake signal. This plot is filtered at 4Hz as a cut off frequency.

The ML2.77 earthquake in Krísuvík at 17:02 UTC at Hvammstangi geophone station. A normal level of noise can be seen both sides of the earthquake. No storm noise is presented in this plot, as it had not started in north of Iceland at this time.

A few deep earthquakes where seen in Eyjafjallajökull volcano over the same period. At current it is hard to know what they mean in the long term. But it is clear that Eyjafjallajökull volcano continues to make a little rumble and has not quieted down at current time.

26 Replies to “Update on the activity over the Christmas”

  1. And for those who didn’t find Kaldarsel (Cold Arse) at the IMO quake-list for Reykjanes Peninsula it is given as close to Litla Kaffistofan (Little Café) on the IMO list.

    Icelandic, I wish all languages had that level of descriptiveness.

    1. Ha! Well, we have a lot of “Kaldarsel(s)” in New York right now.
      I think Reykjavik has been warmer than us for the past few days?

      4. I think this quake fits into the pattern described by Lurking. First quakes are deeper and SW of Hekla , then rising and coming closer to Hekla via a bend at south…

      5. I think I might map that out when I get around to it. I’ve been preoccupied with filtering and how to apply very very low pass filtering to the quake lists. Dunno how that’s gonna turn out.

    2. This earthquake is due the large earthquake that did happen in this area in the year 2000 when a two Mw6.5 earthquake took place in SISZ. The area is continues to settle down after those large events and is going to do so for the next years I think.

  4. Nice little quake at Grímsfjall:

    Monday 27.12.2010 21:16:15 64.457 -17.322 2.2 km 2.3 90.01 6.3 km NNW of Grímsfjall

    Would that be strong enough to wake the ‘sleeping dragon’?

  5. Okay… I’m confused.

    hraun.vedur.is made the transition to week 52, but seems to have left out the 26th. The last event in week 51 is

    2010 12 25 171043.323 63.93025 -22.03905 5.312 -9.99 0.95

    And the 1st event in week 51 is

    2010 12 27 000514.546 64.76585 -17.28719 6.571 2.03 1.85

    According to en.vedur.is, there were five events on the 26th:

    26.12.2010 22:54:25 63.93 -22.043 4.8 km 0.7 99 4.9 km NNE of Krýsuvík
    26.12.2010 20:11:06 63.936 -22.013 5.4 km 1.2 99 6.0 km NNE of Krýsuvík
    26.12.2010 13:05:42 65.175 -16.285 10.0 km 0.7 99 3.0 km E of Herðubreið
    26.12.2010 12:11:42 66.326 -18.996 10.3 km 1.3 99 20.3 km N of Siglufjörður
    26.12.2010 9:44:21 65.232 -16.327 12.4 km 0.9 99 6.3 km NW of Herðubreiðarlindir

    Am I missing something?

  6. Thanks so much for all your hard work on this blog. I hope you and Iceland have a great year ahead.

    1. Not superfast, but the inflation that started a while ago, has continued… Yet, it might be also ice, as there was just a major storm in Iceland.

      Check the tremor also, the average variability of the blue signal has again risen markedly. I’m hesitant to caal it noise, because I think it is something else, and telling about the internals of the volcano. If I only could get my hands on some high-resolution data…

      1. In this moment it’s night… but i can ashure you that i’ve seen dark steam and white steam emissions! and i’m not the only one!

      2. This might have been old material moving in Eyjafjallajökull volcano. There was nothing going on today according to sensors around Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

  11. Krísuvík looks like it is getting closer. Richter 1.5 at 2.2 km a couple of hours ago. Similar to Eyjafjallajökull maybe, with very hot basaltic magma percolating up dykes and sills trying to find a way out to the surface. Could be about to get some more fire fountains, so long as it doesn’t come out under the lake.

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