Recent measurement of Öræfajökull volcano have confirmed a dyke intrusion, the dyke intrusion is located in south part of Öræfajökull volcano and that area is showing inflation. At the moment the amount of magma is now estimated at being close to the total of what erupted in 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano. At the moment the dyke is at depth of 2 – 6 km and that explains current hydrothermal activity in Öræfajökull volcano and why it is increasing. How long this is going to go on is not known at the moment. Öræfajökull volcano is a stratovolcano with everything that comes with it (information about this type of voclano can be found here and here).
The earthquake activity in Örfæajökull volcano for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Last week total of 160 earthquakes where recorded in Öræfajökull volcano and that is a first time record for Öræfajökull volcano having this many earthquakes since recording of earthquakes started in Öræfajökull volcano (~1995?). Earthquake activity seems to be stable at the moment, when that changes is impossible to know at the moment.
Web cameras
There are now two web cameras. The websites are based on non-dynamic folder settings so this links are going to expire rather quickly.
Fagurhólsmýri web camera (only valid for now)
Web camera bridge (only valid for now)
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Thank you for the information Jon!
GPS measurements of Öræfajökull
http://brunnur.vedur.is/gps/oraefajokull.html
Station Kvisker: since last summer, a very small drift to the south-east can be seen, in combination with a little up movement (2 cm).
So is the dyke intrusion and inflation a precursor to an eruption?
They COULD be a precursor (it seems that magma is indeed moving below that volcano), but it does not necessarily mean there WILL be an eruption: many episodes of magma intrusion do not result in eruption if not every single condition needed for an eruption is met.
If this is such a big happening, why are the magnitudes so low?
Developments re. the quakes (IMOdata):
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/vatnajokulsvoktun/oraefaj_qu_trends.html
There was a fellow that made an active 3-D map of the earthquakes in both Bardabunga and Ketla volcanoes. I would love to see what one of this volcano would look like.
http://baering.github.io/earthquakes/visualization.html