Posted on by Jón Frímann

A new earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

A new earthquake swarm appears to have started yesterday in the Krísuvík volcano. This earthquake swarm is a small one, in the number of earthquakes and the size of them. The largest earthquakes according to the automatic SIL system are around ML1.8 in size. The depth is constant around 2 to 5 km or so. This earthquake swarm is just the latest of earthquake swarm that have been taking place in Krísuvík volcano over the past few weeks. As the earthquake activity has been more or less continues for the past few months in Krísuvík volcano.

The current GPS plot shows some inflation taking place at Krísuvík volcano. But so far it is small and does not indicate that a eruption is immanent in Krísuvík volcano. But if the inflow of magma changes suddenly this might change when Krísuvík volcano might start erupting.

Thanks to Carl le Strange on müsli for the tip on the GPS plot.

17 Replies to “A new earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano”

  1. I was with my fiancé yesterday outside near the blue lagoon, and we heard a huge bang, kind of an explosion, around 1 o’clock. Don’t know what it was, maybe some steam venting. In the moment, it was a bit scary, eheh

      1. Very unlikely. There is only an isolated guesthouse where we were. Not a single house for at least 15 minutes drive. This was close to a geothermal power station, so it might be normal there.

  2. I would like to start by thanking the regulars on this blog for the many informative as well as entertaining inputs. I have been following the site for a while now as it connects well into one of my interests. As so many other Icelanders I have been following the eartquake part of vedur.is for some years. One thing has pussled me quite a bit; the number of quakes listed on the site being at the debth of 1.1 km. I suspect that you have already addressed this question at sometime, before I found the blog. Is this number some kind of a “collection bin” for earthquakes of uncertain debth (shallow) or is there a more complex answere to this? Looking forward to every posting and the relaxed, informal but informational inputs. Keep it up!!

    1. @JBH: Very good question, i was also wondering about this 1.1km data.
      May i add a subquestion about the quality percentages too, what does it mean if a quake has 40% or 90% quality?

    2. This is the earthquake depth as the automatic SIL system sees it. This is not a default depth. The fact is that most earthquakes happens at this depth, but this is more common in some areas rather then others.The depth of a earthquakes in Iceland is dependent on the crust thickness in that area.

  4. I’m glad somebody asked the question about the 1.1 earthquakes. I myself was also wondering what that could mean. I thought maybe it’s ice moving and crushing.

    Henk Weijerstrass, Zwaag, Holland

    1. I’ve seen resolution “bins” come up before, but usually they don’t have an odd looking number. In the USGS lists, key numbers are 5.0 and 10.0 km that you usually see in poorly resolved distant quakes.

      Anybody happen to know what the temperature gradient is like (overall) in Iceland at the 1.1 km level? Perhaps some phase change going on that adds to the number of quakes?

  5. Eh.. how about that.

    It seems that the default depth listed at ISC (International Seismological Centre) for the Iceland region is 10km… and that’s based off of the Crust 2.0 model.

    Roughly, that means that what you see listed in the quake tables is pretty likely what the equipment reported/measured it at.

    The bad part about seismic collaboration and data collections is that the garbage in – garbage out rules apply. Lacking a depth figure to make the epicenter into a hypocenter, they fudge it with default depth info. That’s the part that I really like about SIL and Iceland MET, they measure it and state it, and if it might be buggy, they apply a quality figure to it so that you know how they feel about it.

  6. @all icelanders:

    If anyone of you have any contact with the Ministry of Industry Energy & Tourism I would be very glad if you could help out. I have a serious problems with getting in contact with them, their contacts-page does not work, and when I try to call people just hang up on me as soon as I start speaking, except one person who said “Que?” before hanging up.
    I need serious help with a permit.

    If you think you can help, or know anybody who can help, please send me a mail at my drop-mail demiurg2(at)yahoo(dot)se

    Sorry for OT.

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