Posted on by Jón Frímann

Earthquake activity increases again in Krýsuvík volcano

It appears that Krýsuvík volcano earthquake activity is increasing again. This time around it appears that the earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano has moved more to the west then last weeks earthquake activity.

The biggest earthquake so far is a ML2.1 earthquake with the depth of 6.9 according to automatic data on Icelandic Met Office web page.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The new earthquake area in Krýsuvík volcano. It is more to the west then the earthquake area that was making earthquakes last week. Activity appears to be picking up slowly. But it is hard to know how this develops over the next few hours or days.

34 Replies to “Earthquake activity increases again in Krýsuvík volcano”

  1. I like the idea of tides affecting Krysuvik area, brought up by Irpsit in a previous post.
    The quakes might be indeed caused by tides, but not pulling/pushing the magma itself, rather the water around the area flowing in/out of the magma reserves.
    The underground reservoirs could be directly connected to the sea through cracks. As the see level increases above a certain height, the water flows deeper into these cracks.

    1. It is not connected to tides. As the tide is unable to have any effects on the bedrock it self. The fresh water in the Reykjanes Peninsula is on top of salt water. But the sea water might get into contact with warm magma in the volcanoes that are on the Reykjanes Peninsula.

      More on this here (icelandic), http://www.eldey.is/Reykjanes/

    2. From the Vedur Is tremor page: “Many phenomena can influence the intensity, for example wind, ocean waves and traffic.”
      Comparing the baseline periodicity (not the spiking) between stations it looks to be more pronounced at coastal stations than inland. So what about wave action contributing to the baseline signal- generating more at, say, high tide than at low tide? The signal would reflect periodic mechanical noise – not phreatic or magmatic activity.

  2. Tidal cycle: 24hr 50min
    From here: http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/kri.gif
    we see the first trough is at ‘6pm’ Feb 24th
    and trough on 6 March is at midday.
    Over ten days the cycle has either lost or gained 6 hours. (dont know which as we cant count all the intervening troughs). Six hours over ten days corresponds to a cycle time of 24.6 per day, thats 24h 36min.
    So: tidal periodocity, wave action?

      1. So to confirm tides/wave hypothesis we should look at two different coastal locations eg Krys and Husavik with different times of high tide – peaks in tremor traces should be displaced by same number of hours.
        As tide comes in waves approach closer to sensors, particularly at locations where foreshore gradient is small.

      2. It is not connected to the tides. It is connected to the wind and the size of the ocean waves in question. Most of the ocean waves that you are going to see on the SIL network are from when the ocean waves break on the coastline.

  4. Earthquakes are starting in Grimsfjall volcano, are we finally heading for an eruption?

  5. They seem to be shallow..and not checked or verified yet. Interesting. Wonder if this is an icequake..with warming up of the area? But definately activity of some sort.

  6. Lurking In Obscurity: Sorry for the OT. Do you know of any blog for So Calif quakes. There is rash of them lately, even up in the CSZ.

    1. No… I haven’t seen any. (that is if you were referring to me.)

      I’ve been doing plots of YoY Vehicle Miles Traveled vs Gas prices in 2011 dollars.

      Pretty grim.

      1. Arg…ya, I’ll bet your not the only one looking at the possibility of getting hit in the wallet. When you see the white house chief of staff hinting at the possibility of opening up the strategic reserve this early in the game and the stock market starting to have big swings, you can almost feel the subtle panic building. We are way out on a limb with this debt and fragile reconvery, so right when we don’t need any surprises, well, surprise.

        Have you every considered buying bulk gas at future prices. See MyGallons.com. I am researching this. Sorry for the OT…life keeps getting more interesting. Damned third world countries.

      2. The 3W countries be damned and the oil companies keeping their markup percentage and the gummint keeping their greedy hands in the soup are the good guys?

        Sorry, does not quite wash.

        Try living where the gas prices are a bit higher, like our $8.40 per gallon.

      3. I hear ya.

        Right now we pay about 52.8 cents per gallon in taxes (roughly 0.1 € per liter). Dunno what the tax rates are over there.

        The part that frost me…is that now some States are considering imposing a mileage tax on top of that since the more efficient vehicles burn less fuel, and the government absolutely have to have their money fix… just like all good drug addicts.

        I throw down about 25,000 to 35,000 miles a year doing service calls for those very same people. Fuel prices definitely affect my bottom line.

        http://i51.tinypic.com/2cprqr8.png

      4. Clearly, your gas prices follow the crude prices closer than ours. Our variations are in cents per liter per annum, but the trend is upwards.

        Our gummint is one greedy SOB: about 75% of our gas price is taxes.

  7. Hmm, wierd vibrations in all channels are taking place at Katla (Lagu Hvorlar and to a lesser extent Snaebyli). I have seen the come and go over that last 3 weeks but not really before then.

    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/hvo.gif

    They do not seem large enough however to get picked up as earthquakes but neither do the seem to coincide with frost or storms. Have any of you got any ideas as to the origins of these tremors? Could the be magmatic? artifacts?

    1. I would say that these spikes are most likey caused by ocean noise. There is alot of harsh weather outside the southern coast.

      15-25 m/s winds cause the waves to come crashing in.

    2. The blue line most sensitive to, and hence mostly due to weather.

    3. i live Hvolsvollur and the weather has been crazy since Saturday… so that must be it

    4. Sounds like good explanations, and would also explain why the effects is mostly seen at the station closer to the sea, whereas magmatic effects, I guess, would be seen equally well on the stations further inland.

  8. There seems to be an abrupt GPS direction shift to the north at around the time when the quake swarm shifted to south of Keilir… any thoughts? I’m struggling seeing an immediate explanation unless it implies that magma is now rising in an area further to the southwest?

    http://strokkur.raunvis.hi.is/~sigrun/KRIVstutt.png

    1. Looks a bit like it, but sometimes it turns out to be ice on the antenna. I don’t know if wind can bend the antenna – perhaps? Hopefully an expert will answer shortly.

      1. Ice gathered on the antenna slows the GPS signal in the direction where the ice resides. So, if ice is on the north face of the antenna, this causes an apparent movement to north.

    2. Exactly the same on this plot, only that this one also took a swing to west instead of east:

      http://strokkur.raunvis.hi.is/~sigrun/MOHAstutt.png

      Mohalsadalur is located west of the Krysuvik system I believe. So according to this info there seems to be some kind of inflation (?) at the location of the new swarms. Since the station (Krys) located NW of the earthquake is moving towards NE. And the station located W of the earthquakes is moving NW. It could also be related to tectonic processes, this is absolutely from an amateur’s point of view simply by trying to interpret the data from both graphs.

      1. It is worth keeping a eye on this movement. Before the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted a good sign was a fast movement in the GPS data.

        But be aware that errors might happen in the GPS data. But I am sure that this is fairly accurate as it is now.

  9. Don’t think it’s likely to be ice at this station (as opposed to the ones up the mountains), but you never know…

    1. It has been snowing (or hail) quite a bit on and off all this morning.

  10. There has been really strong ice showers, lots of snow, and sometimes together with very strong wind gusts.
    Of course all of this can affect GPS antennas.
    I think this is what is causing changes in several stations.

  11. But 4cm inflation since last April, seems to me, not to be related to ice, but rather to magma pushing upwards. There seems to be something happening at Krísuvik volcano.

    It is difficult to say how many weeks, months or years, will this take until an eruption

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