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Earthquake update for 2nd February 2020
Earthquake activity close to Grindavík town continues as before. Largest earthquakes since midnight had the magnitude of Mw3,3 and Mw3,0. A lot of smaller earthquake activity is currently happening and don’t always appears to be visible on the automatic map on Icelandic Met Office website. Over 200 earthquakes have taken place since midnight. Over 1200 earthquakes have taken place since 21st January 2020 when this started. Inflation remains the same and is now close to 50mm (GPS information can be viewed here). Rate of inflation seems to change slightly between days and I don’t know why that is happening. Most inflation seems to be happening close to the blue lagoon. Most of the earthquake activity is on a fault that is south-west to north-east direction and is south-east of highest point of the inflation. That makes a sense in terms of crust stress factors. What is missing is a earthquake swarm north of the main inflation area.
Earthquake activity in the Grindavík town area for the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
All the earthquake activity in this area since 21st of January 2020 to 2nd February 2020. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Surface image of the area that is now having earthquake swarms. Copyright of this image belongs to Google.
The earthquake activity in the last 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
There are no signs of the magma that is now injecting it self into the crust at 3 to 6 km depth that has started to break up the surface. It is possible that pressure is not enough for that to happen just yet. What happens next is impossible to know for sure but earthquake activity is going to continue in this area until inflation stops or an eruption starts.
Thanks for an informative post. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Looking at the GPS readings, it seems like instead of inflation (uplift), there is now very clear displacement to the north on SKSH and SENG stations. It is a bit worrying. How much more stress and tension can the crust handle (rhetorical question)?
Thanks Jon looks like we may have an interesting time ahead.