Yesterday (20-June-2020) at 19:26 UTC a magnitude Mw5,6 earthquake took place on the Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This earthquake was felt over a wide area and all the way to Kópavogur in south Iceland and all the way to Ísafjörður in west Iceland. Where I am located this earthquake was clearly felt but due to distance no damage happened. This earthquake created a lot of rock slides and possible landslides There is now a warning about being close and in mountains if a large earthquakes happens for this reason. In the Flatey fault there is now a risk of a large earthquake with magnitude up to Mw7,1 since there has not been a earthquake of that size since 1755 in that area. At the writing of this article there have been 72 earthquakes with magnitude larger than Mw3,0. Over 2000 earthquakes have been recorded since Friday 19-June-2020 when this earthquake swarm started. Activity happens in strong swarms with a drop in between. At the writing of this article there seems to be a low in the earthquake activity. Last large earthquake in Tjörnes Fracture Zone took place in eastern part of it in 1976 and last strong earthquake in the western part of Tjörnes Fracture Zone was in 1963.
Earthquake activity remains strong even if there is a minor drop in activity when this article is written. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
The earthquake activity remains dense as can be seen here. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.
The magnitude Mw5,6 earthquake as it aooeared on my geophone (Hvammstangi 1).
The magnitude Mw5,6 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone (Hvammstangi 2).
The Mw5,6 earthquake as it appeared on my live computer that I use to monitor earthquakes.
It is impossible to know how this earthquake swarm is going to evolve and change over the next few hours but the risk of a larger earthquakes remains high for now and that won’t change until this earthquake swarm ends if a larger earthquake doesn’t happen in the earthquake swarm that is now ongoing.
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Some jötunn is very angrily pounding the ground here
Big spike now. Hope you are ok up there.