The earthquake swarm in Prestahnúkur volcano is ongoing with breaks. The fault that is moving is around 5 to 15 km long at the moment (based on the map). The largest earthquake so far has had the magnitude 3,5 and was felt in nearby towns and farms, the second largest earthquake had the magnitude 3,0. Other earthquakes have been smaller so far.
The earthquake activity today (14-December-2015). Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.
I expect this earthquake activity to continue in the next few days to weeks.
The earthquake activity in this area since 1991 (grey circles). New activity are the red circles. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.
The image above is from Week 50 earthquake information website. It can be found here.
Other matters
I’ve been a bit down in the past few days, since I’m living in Iceland and I don’t like it. I don’t belong in Iceland, not sure why that is, it just is. I don’t like the culture (Icelanders are copying U.S culture to some degree, not everything, but many aspects of it), I don’t like the snow and the cold weather. I also don’t like the isolations that follows living in Iceland.
Moving to Denmark
If anyone wants to support my move back to Denmark that can be done with the PayPal button or directly, information about how to do so can be found here.
At the moment I’ve collected money for almost everything. The transfer cost and the first month in rent for the apartment. What is missing is the money for the insurance for the apartment, but I can get a good rent loan for that in Denmark. The insurance amount I have to pay is 9000 DKK (1,206.13€). All that I’m currently waiting for is the Danish Tax (Skat), I’ve been having problem with them for the past few months and that issue has not been resolved yet and that issue is keeping me in Iceland at the moment. Regardless of that, I’ve started preparing my move back to Denmark so that I can move quickly once my last problem has been resolved.
Advertisements and donations
Donations keep this website going. Since it has already outgrown smaller and cheaper hosting options for me. I have to pay $135 in hosting cost a month and so far I’m running at loss. When it comes to advertisements I’m not going to be returning to Google Adsense since getting into that is close to impossible at the moment due to TOS and other changes Google (now Alphabet) has done over the years. Leaving small websites like mine high and dry when it comes to income. I’m going to continue to use Amazon. I hope that no major changes in their TOS and such agreements forces me to quit using them. The rules are getting narrower by the year and aligned in such a way that they fit high traffic website better. Rather then small traffic websites like I currently have.
Thanks all for understanding.
Seems to be way to quiet for the last 8 hours in Iceland???
That is normal, it does happen that day goes by without any earthquake taking place.
Jon,
I give you small amounts from time to time, which is all I can afford for one person. I wish you well and I sympathize with your difficulties. I can also give you some advice. It may not be worth much, but perhaps it might help.
You seem to be one of the many people who are banging their head against a wall that will not crumble. Please keep considering alternatives, even if they do not eventually work out. First, clearly you have cultural difficulties in Iceland but you are also passionately interested in vulcanology and geology, and in Iceland you live in the middle of one of the coolest geological spots on the entire planet. This is why I follow your blog. You are really good at explaining all this cool stuff to others. Maybe somehow you can expand your voice within Iceland, even if you don’t like some of the people there. I understand that you don’t enjoy doing entrepreneurial development, but for example there are a lot of Icelanders showing lots of English-speaking tourists the volcanic scenery in Iceland. Could you help explain all this to some of the tourists?
Secondly, I know that Denmark is where you would love to live, but what about other countries in Europe? If you know Icelandic and English then you should be able to learn Norse or Swedish easily, as well as Dutch. German is a bit harder, but you still have a huge advantage with your background.
Anyway, it’s your life and your choice. Good luck, Jon.
Agreed it is your life Jon. We all wish we could snap our fingers and live the way we want where we want. I wish you all the best in this current struggle. But where ever you go please continue to post your stories and especially your insights into volcanology that continue to be helpful to us all !!!If I ever get a settlement from the Insurance Corp of B C you are one of the people I will be supporting!!
I’m not banging my head against the wall. If I had planned on living in Iceland I would be doing that. But I’m not. While Iceland is a cool place to live for some people. I just don’t like it. There are many foreigners living in Iceland (mostly from Europe) that love it.
The thing about Denmark is that it worked out for me perfectly. I did fit right in, no problem once I started to understand and after the period of adjustment.
I’ve been looking at other countries and I just don’t feel them as a fit.
Dutch? Are you sure?
Jón, it’s quiet at the moment, our Artificial Intelligence & Security Service fills the gap with the Christmas Puzzle, to encourage systematic and logical thinking. A real brainteaser.
It goes E.g. someting like this (somewhat poorly translated from Dutch into English by me):
Task 12. Below you see a set of three numbers. Which number replaces the question mark?
1, 2, 3 (0)
3, 4, 5 (0)
64, 94, 103 (1)
334, 384, 430 (3072)
13, 16, 17 (12)
11 ,12 ,13 (?)
(http://www.aivd.nl/publicaties/publicaties/2015/12/11/kerstpuzzel-2015)
To be fair, I haven’t solved it yet.
But maybe you have a better one.
I wish you very well with your plans, you thoroughly deserve success. However, as you say you are not in a position to move to Denmark until tax issues have cleared up, so even with sufficient funds there would be a delay. Hopefully, the tax authorities in Denmark will soon be able to provide cast iron evidence that things have been sorted out. I say cast iron because I know how easy it is with this kind of thing for people to be told it is clear only for part of the issue not to be.
All credit to you for your efforts in raising funds with your hard and unpleasant work in the slaughter house. I wish you a Happy Christmas in Iceland, hopefully the last one in which you are in Iceland because it is your place of residence.
I greatly appreciate your articles but having lost the part time job which provided part of my income I am not in a position to provide financial assistance. I am sure if your articles were compiled into a book this would sell very well both to tourists and those with a professional interest in your field.
Thanks. I do hope that your work clears up for you. The tax issue is going to be resolved in the end. It has to, it’s the law in Denmark.
Yoiur comments appreciated as always Jon, and especially thanks for pointing me to the week 50 pages above, that’s great to see 🙂
Hopefully things will work out for you soon, but meanwhile I hope you can take the good from where you are even if some things don’t resonate for you. It’s my dream to move to Iceland, but no way I could do that in the near future.
PS I’m shocked at how much you are paying for the hosting, that’s extortionate!
I’ve already outgrown all shared hosting that my hosting company offers. I’ve also outgrown all types of reseller hosting options and virtual hosting. All that I can get now is dedicated hosting, I got the smallest package and already on the edge of outgrowing the server capability as is. I just can’t afford larger server at the moment.
My income doesn’t scale when the traffic increases with Amazon. Since that is not the way Amazon works.
I’m looking into starting again with Google Adsense, once I’m back in Denmark (since having Google Adsense in Iceland is no good). I need more income from my work and that is the only way to do so.
For as long U.K is in the EU you won’t have any problem with it. I don’t know what you want to do in Iceland, but you should be able to find something to work with.
The only advice that I got for you is to secure a income is something else then Iceland Krona (ISK). Since that currency is unstable and has inflation problems. If you have a income in GBP, Euro or something else, living in Iceland is not going to be a problem for you. There is plenty of room and empty farmland if you want to buy one.
It has been brought to my attention that the PayPal form for donation is in Danish, not English as it supposed to be in. I’ll try and fix this, this language problem has been going on for some time now. I don’t know why it is, but it’s clearly PayPal fault, since I choose Denmark – English setting when the paypal buttons where created.
I am going to try and fix this issue.
Deep quakes southeast of Bardarbunga.
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:18:52 64.596 -17.220 20.4 km 0.7 99.0 15.5 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:16:06 64.600 -17.227 24.2 km 2.3 99.0 15.0 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:14:42 64.602 -17.185 20.9 km 1.0 99.0 16.9 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:14:08 64.599 -17.180 16.6 km 1.1 99.0 17.2 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:14:03 64.597 -17.205 18.7 km 1.1 99.0 16.1 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:13:41 64.592 -17.174 15.6 km 0.9 99.0 17.7 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:13:12 64.595 -17.188 16.3 km 1.2 99.0 16.9 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:12:56 64.600 -17.207 18.1 km 1.2 99.0 15.9 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:11:55 64.603 -17.197 16.8 km 2.5 99.0 16.3 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:11:20 64.575 -17.139 23.2 km 1.2 99.0 19.9 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
Wednesday
16.12.2015 20:10:25 64.591 -17.185 16.6 km 0.8 99.0 17.2 km ESE of Bárðarbunga
I have already written a article about this activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Please read it. 🙂