The earthquake activity in Askja volcano continues to evolve at rather fast phase. A lot faster phase then I did originally expect. Far as I can tell from the Icelandic Met Office SIL data (tremor plots). The earthquakes that are now taking place in north Askja volcano appear to be mostly magma related earthquakes. The strongest earthquake so far did happen today and had the size ML2.5 with the depth of 0.1 km. The deepest earthquake so far took also place today and had the depth of 19,6 km. It had the size ML1.4.
However earthquakes with the depth of 22 km has been recorded close to Herðubreiðartögl. Few days ago a tornillo earthquakes (most likely the case now. But yet unconfirmed from my point of view) started too appear in Askja volcano. But that means that magma is on the move in Askja volcano. Currently this might also be the case with the earthquake activity east of Askja volcano. But at this moment it is a bit more unclear what the activity east of Askja volcano means. But it is also possible that magma is also pushing east from Askja volcano. But so far earthquake activity east of Askja volcano has been different then from the earthquake activity north of Askja volcano. But it has not been focuesed on a single spot like the earthquake activity in north part of Askja volcano system.
It is unclear at this moment how this is going to evolve in the long term. But no reports of increased hydrothermal activity have so far appeared in the news. Currently the activity is rather low, so a eruption is not yet imminent in Askja volcano. But that might change without any warning at all at any time.
Current Askja volcano earthquake activity. Click on this picture for full resolution. Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site. Copyright of this picture belongs too them.
Due to distance. I do not record any small earthquakes from Askja volcano. But they need to be larger then ML3.0 to appear on my geophone network.
01:25:13 65.146 -16.998 1.1 km 1.7 90.02 22.0 km WNW of Dreki
Large chunks of the internet seem to be impossibly slow tonight. Is it just me or is it a more widespread problem?
03:25:22 65.138 -17.039 2.1 km 0.9 83.09 23.1 km WNW of Dreki
OT:
Here is a -.6 magnitude tremor. Only 34% confidence however. I wonder what the current record for the smallest quake happens to be.
03:23:58 63.636 -19.217 3.7 km -0.6 33.6 1.7 km ESE of Goðabunga
A bunch of shallow quakes again at Askja.
Yeah
Got a feeling that this time it’s gonna blow. Probably a VEI 0 too. -D
http://i56.tinypic.com/2aiki9d.png
Anyone have any sources on wind patterns currently from Iceland just in case Askja decides to get nasty.
http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/elements/#type=wind
Forecast for a week, though after 3 days it is not always right anymore
When Frim.. fissure erupted before the Eyja eruption, was the fissure eruption seen in any way in the tremor charts?
Oh dear lord, Katla is waking up too. Run for the hills! 🙂
Now that you said that, all of them will go to 1000 year quiet period, Bet you a beer that nothing will happen at all now.
Surely in the event of an eruption, running for the hills would be the most counterproductive thing one could possibly do? I should have thought that running as far away as is feasibly possible from the hills would be a far better course of action? Haha 😛
Did anyone else notice the rather large spike in low to mid frequency tremor at Grímsfjall (nearest met office seismometre) a couple of days ago? Does that mean anything significant?
I think I call an eruption, purely because there’s been nothing much in the world news over the past week, and we’re due a bit of excitement.
It didn’t come across very well in my comment, but that last bit was supposed to be irony. 🙂
Depends on which eruption we are talking, I guess. For Katla this is exactly what the emergency plan says: Go to higher ground to be safe of potential flood waves from the glacier.
Is there a link to GPS data of the area around Askja?
Morning everyone.
Hmmm… things are getting interesting in Askja’s fissure swarm…
I kept this link to an article about volcanoes and magma types in Iceland.
There are a few interesting things about Askja, and nice graphs and images.
Probably you already have it, but I’ll place it here, just in case…
http://www.geokem.com/OIB-volcanic-iceland.html
So far there is nothing going at Katla volcano. But Askja volcano is getting a different story for sure.
This appears to be evolving way faster then I did expect. But so far I don’t expect a large eruption too happen in Askja volcano at this point.