Posted on by Jón Frímann

Two strong earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (17-September-2017) at 14:23 UTC two magnitude 3,9 earthquakes happened in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake activity was at the north-east part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera where earthquake activity has been taking place since September-2015. This earthquake activity is happening due to inflation in Bárðarbunga volcano.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Since September-2015 the rate of activity has been dropping. Now earthquake swarm happens every 11 – 18 days or so. Currently there are no clear signs that an eruption is imminent.

Small note on Þórðarhyrna volcano

On the map above a small earthquake with magnitude of 1,3 can be seen in a volcano named Þórðarhyrna. That volcano is part of Grímsfjall volcano system. Last confirmed eruption in Þórðarhyrna volcano was in the year 1902 (December) and it lasted until 12th January 1904. Not many earthquakes happen in Þórðarhyrna volcano and that suggests that an eruption might happen in this volcano without much warning. The eruption before 1902 – 1904 eruption was in 1887 and that eruption lasted until 1889. Suggesting that when eruption happen in Þórðarhyrna volcano they are long lasting and create a lot of damage as this volcano is completely covered with glacier. I make note of this because I suspect that Þórðarhyrna volcano might erupt without much warning in next few years.

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14 Replies to “Two strong earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano”

  1. thanks for the update and additional info on Þórðarhyrna (another name that would cause global confusion 🙂 ). Is there any working GPS station within Bardarbunga caldera now?

      1. Thank you (again). Very useful plots. It seems to look like steady inflation on most stations. A bit more rapid since the beginning of the summer.

  2. In my view the Holuhraun eruption never really ended, it just got diverted in to filling up Bardarbunga again. And it will spill out to the surface again somewhere, as soon as the pressure within BB gets too high.

  3. I’ve been broke in recent months and today I found out why (this started to get bad in April). The exchange rate now means that I am getting less in September and over the year that number is 11.121 DKK (1.494,42€) over the whole year. If divided by 12, I get 926,75 DKK a month (124,53€) less now in September then I did in January of 2017. All because of the exchange rate of ISK to DKK has lowered by 2,10 ISK (the exchange rate was 15,13 on 03.01.2017, on 18.09.2017 that rate was 17,10 ISK = 1 DKK).

    I will be free of this type of problems once I move back to Iceland next year.

    2. Jon,
      Do you find it odd that there are no significant after shocks after this large quake?

  5. I did until I saw that Popocatépetl erupted which I believe is taking some of the pressure out of the area.

    2. Still no aftershocks since that 7.1 other than Popocatépetl but almost a 100 or so near the 8.4 still going on! Unless of course the 7.1 was an aftershock 2 states away .

  6. Anything with Katla atm? Seems to be small and very little EQ’s but ones that are occuring are quite deep, one recorded earlier was about 27km deep

  7. Just a note to say that I maintain twice daily copies of Vatna, Myrdals and All Iceland quake maps and the graph and a few tremor plots in case you should have a need to go back in time ever.

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw6MT_CnfQRzTDgyUzBDdVNaa28

    Unless Google Drive throws a wobbly these should be up on the drive at around midday and midnight daily. I have data back to around 2011 but at present on Google Drive it goes back to 2014. I am slowly getting my archives up there.

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