Considerable earthquake swarm in Katla volcano

Since early this morning (2-August-2018) there has been considerable earthquake swarm activity in Katla volcano. This earthquake swarm started yesterday (1-August-2018) at low rate but during the night and after a minor stop the earthquake rate increased and at the moment this earthquake swarm can be considered ongoing.


Green star is the magnitude 3,6 earthquake in Katla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake so far had a magnitude of 3,7 and the second largest magnitude has been 2,2. Other earthquakes are smaller in magnitude at the moment. No change in harmonic tremor has been observed at the moment. There is a lot suggesting that glacier water from hydrothermal areas under Mýrdalsjökull glacier are now flooding into Múlakvísl glacier river. I got a report of that over facebook yesterday, but nothing has been confirmed officially at the moment.

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. It helps me keeping the website upside running and makes sure that I can buy food that I need. Thanks for the support. 🙂

6 Replies to “Considerable earthquake swarm in Katla volcano”

  1. When the Mila webcam is down, I have a look at http://www.road.is/travel-info and go to the webcams and click on the one for South Iceland. This gives a picture of the road conditions for the area and is updated about every 15 mins I think. There is more water at Hringvegur, Markarfljot – austur than I have seen for a long time. I have never been to Iceland so not sure exactly where this is, but IMO refers to the Markarfljot area as an outwash plain Katla. See IMO – Hydrology section -glacial outburst floods.

    1. This is due the glacier flood in Skaftárkatlar cauldrons. In the news this was considered happening due to a pressure drop on the hydrothermal system that creates the Skaftárkatlar cauldrons. I don’t know if any eruptions might have happened, if they did they are real small ones.

    2. I just wanted to post a comment that it was due to bad weather and heavy winds. (Hazardous conditions for campers with high profiles and so on). But Jon’s explanation is much more accurate.

Comments are closed.