Today (11-April 2020) an earthquake swarm took place north of Grindavík town. Largest earthquake in today’s swarm had a magnitude of Mw3,2. Other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude.
The earthquake activity on the Reykjanes peninsula today. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
Icelandic Met Office has issued a earthquake warning for Reykjanes and Reykjavík area. The warning is that magnitude Mw6,3 earthquake might hit this area soon but it is not possible to give any better time frame than this. The reason for this warning is that the magma injection is now changing the stress levels in the crust and is pressuring nearby faults that might break without much warning.
Icelandic News about the earthquake warning
Fólk þarf að búa sig undir skjálfta nærri sex að stærð (Rúv.is)
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Can you give us your thoughts on this
I am just waiting for what happens next. But there is magma collecting in this area into sills in the crust in this area.
Will this result in a eruption?
Probably not. Eruptions don’t require strong earthquakes normally but with this system it is difficult to say for sure. The thinking here is that nearby faults are getting stressed because of the magma injection and that they are going to break soon because of this. That would be tectonic movement rather than magma movement.
But since this volcano system last erupted more than 700 years ago there is no good way to know what happens next.