Today (31-January-2020) an earthquake swarm started again north of Grindavík village in the volcano of Reykjanes (both). Largest earthquake so far had the magnitude of Mw2,5. Other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude but that might change without warning. Inflation today is close to 45mm and continues to increase by each day. The source of this information can be found here.
The latest earthquake swarm in the volcano Reykjanes. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
The fault lines that are now active are three based on current earthquake pattern. This fault lines might just make an earthquakes and might not erupt. At the writing of this article there is no sign that magma has started to move towards the surface. Stronger earthquake swarms can happen without warning and they don’t have to be close to the area that is now inflating. Since the inflation is changing the stress levels in nearby crust that is going to break once the crust stress level has been reached. When that happens is not something that is possible to know.
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Very strong smell of sulphur yesterday and last night, maybe that is another way of telling it’s close
Where did you smell the sulphur Shane?
Big EQ at Grindavik now.
a swarm just a while ago, still ongoing http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/drumplot/drumplot/grv_highpass_2.0.png
I don’t fully understand all the graphs being very much an amateur, but visited that area 2 years ago, fascinating though very worrying for those who live there, Does all this data mean that magma is moving or is it just the stresses on the fault lines?
interesting earthquake activity during the last three hours or so,
on and around the whole peninsula.
I made 2 screenshots:
– https://imgur.com/akj1g1x
– https://imgur.com/II9gHI3
especially the second link caught my attention.. all caused by inflation??
There is a lot of poorly located earthquakes on the map of Icelandic Met Office. This happens when the earthquake swarm is so dense the SIL network cannot process all the earthquakes at the same time. This problem is going to get worse as the earthquake swarm grows in next few hours.
This inflation is very interesting to follow, yet the chances are that this will suddenly wane out without seeing a eruption.
However, if we see magma intrusion and eruption i would imagine that the time-span from the first signs of intrusion to the actual eruption will be quite short compared to what we have seen of the three volcanic event in Iceland the last ten years. I am thinking of all the faults and cracks in this area as well as the thickness of the crust which is rather thin compared to other areas in Iceland. Then of course, we need the chemistry and pressure to be right first anyhow. Or am i way off (i am no expert!)?