Deep earthquakes in root of Eyjafjallajökull volcano

Today (30-June-2016) three earthquakes took place in the root system of Eyjafjallajökull volcano I think. The most depth for those earthquakes was 14,3 km and the most shallow one 1,3 km. The largest magnitude was 1,1 the other two earthquakes had the magnitude of 0,7. Nothing to worry about magnitude wise.

160630_2055
The earthquake activity close to Eyjafjallajökull volcano (three yellow dots). Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

Eyjafjallajökull volcano extends to this area, however at this area there are no surface craters. If there where they are long lost due to erosion. Unlike many other volcanoes, Eyjafjallajökull volcano does not have an extensive fissure swarm extending outwards for it, that should limit the path the magma can travel in theory. While I am not expecting any type of eruption from Eyjafjallajökull volcano in near future. If this earthquake activity continues I might have to review that outlook. I don’t expect this earthquake activity to continue, since next eruption in Eyjafjallajökull volcano won’t happen (based on my model) until the year 2199 at the earliest.

It is also question of this earthquake activity belongs to Vestmannaeyjar volcano system. Over the past few years deep earthquakes have been taking place there at regular time. Not many, just one or two at the time.

14 Replies to “Deep earthquakes in root of Eyjafjallajökull volcano”

  1. Katla continues to grumble – I know Jon thinks these are summer quakes but some of them have been quite deep.

  2. So called summer quakes or ice-quakes are not shown on the IMO pages as they themselves have confirmed. Unless you mean summer quakes as in isostatic rebound type quakes.

    Btw, han anyone noticed an M1.9 at Oraefajokull at interesting 27.7km depth? I think this one is more newsworthy. 🙂

    1. I did and indeed the depth suggests magma moving around and maybe entering the volcano?

  3. There is a seasonal seismicity pattern in the Mýrdalsjökull area preferentially occurring during the autumn months due to reduced ice load and elevated pore fluid pressure in the underlying crust.

    According to https://notendur.hi.is/palli/Einarsson%20and%20Brandsdottir%202000.pdf the phenomenon remains enigmatic in spite of the explanations given in that study.

    @ I don’t expect this earthquake activity to continue, since next eruption in Eyjafjallajökull volcano won’t happen (based on my model) until the year 2199 at the earliest.

    Personally I agree with Jon, according to my latest calculations based on what I heard at an Irisj pub in Paris it is more likely for Iceland to become European champion football beforehand.

    1. All confirmed by IMO.

      At least 10 below 9km

      One below 14km

      Another 8 at least between 2km -9km

      These are deep quakes… I can’t image a little melt of the snow above can have effects this deep.

  4. A star on the Loki Ridge, at around 5km depth. I would say this to be connected to Hamarinn, and might be some stress on the Loki ridge caused by inflating Hamarin .

    1. Tuesday
      05.07.2016 05:56:13 64.498 -17.458 5.0 km 3.4 99.0 13.6 km NW of Grímsfjall

Comments are closed.