Today (24-June-2019) at 13:09 UTC, 13:18 UTC and 13:55 UTC three strong earthquakes took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. The earthquake at 13:09 UTC has registered magnitude of mb4,5 at EMSC (information here). The earthquake at 13:55 UTC also has the magnitude of mb4,5 at EMSC (information here). Icelandic Met Office has the earthquake at 13:09 UTC at magnitude Mw3,3 and the earthquake at 13:55 UTC at magnitude Mw4,1. The earthquake at 13:18 UTC has a magnitude of Mw3,4. Smaller earthquakes have followed the largest earthquakes.
The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
This earthquake activity is because of inflation in Bárðarbunga volcano. Since Bárðarbunga volcano continues to be in a inflation stage this earthquake activity did not result in a movement of magma or an eruption. Two of the earthquakes were in the regular location (central caldera and north-east part of the caldera) and the earthquake at 13:09 UTC took place outside the caldera and in north-west part of the volcano. This is slightly unusual based on earlier earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Last strong earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano was on 19-June-2019 and this a short time between strong earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano. This doesn’t seems to be unusual activity.
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I imagine this series of earthquakes being a result of an injection of fresh magma (as indicated by your previous post about the deep deep EQ activity). The caldera plug being violently forced upward by the migrating magma.
Oh, and there are some small spikes in Katla today. The Austmannsbunga IMG stations are back online.
Everything is as it should be. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Hi Jon,
Today at 1600 the webcams at http://webcams.mogt.is/ showed the temperature on the Grimsvötn views at 38 degrees and flames shooting up from the caldera. About 10 minutes it showed temperature rising to 42 degrees and lava and smoke from the same area. By 1630 it seemed to have stopped, but at 1730 the temperature has risen to 46 degrees Celsius. I captured some images of the event. Is this a normal? Before the last large earthquake swarm, I noticed the temperatures climbing into the 40s and even a 50 degree range.
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There is no eruption in Grímsvötn volcano. This was just the sun warming things up.