Posted on by Jón Frímann

Ongoing earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano (3-July-2018)

During the last few hours there has been ongoing earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano. This earthquake swarm started around 29-June-2018 in the south side of Öræfajökull volcano. At the moment the earthquake activity seems to be close or directly under Road 1 in Iceland.


The earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano on 3-July-2018. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This change in earthquake activity is interesting and is in my view a sign of trouble to come. There are not any older eruption vents in the side of Öræfajökull volcano, but such vents might have been wiped out by glacier over the centuries. There is a good reason to continue to monitor this earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano.

7 Replies to “Ongoing earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano (3-July-2018)”

  1. I think that IMO identifies this area as a reactivated fault.

    1. Based on the pattern and the order of the earthquakes it definitely seems to be a fault. This is interesting, in combination with the other earthquake activity in the volcano this is definitely “a sign of trouble to come” as Jon so elegantly phrased it.

    1. This activity is happening partly away from the glacier which means it has little to none to do with the glacier. Jon said it was happening below the highway, which very much sounds like a vault that the roadway was placed over. Very much like the event in Hawaii where vents came up along the road when Kilauea’s fault line crossed several roadways causing them to crack and form vents through which magma has continued to erupt.( I believe vent 8 there is very close to or on a roadway. ) Seems to me that Öræfajökull could cause the same issue for Iceland.

      2. These volcanoes are vastly different and I see no reason to think this is volcanic in nature. The quakes were very low magnitude and if magma was intruding there would be some larger quakes as the intrusion expands and moves through the rock. Also, both of the historical eruptions of the volcano have taken place in the caldera and there is no reason to believe the next time it erupts it will be outside of the caldera. While there is something going on with the volcano there is nothing screaming eruption here.

  3. Herðubreið seems to be continuing its activity as well. Any thoughts?

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