Posted on by Jón Frímann

Update on Fagradalsfjall volcano activity on 7-March-2021 at 00:21 UTC

This is a short update on activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano. This is mostly on the activity on 6-March-2021.

Overview of current activity

  • Earthquake activity is mostly limited to small earthquakes.
  • Risk of eruption has not been reduced with current change in activity.
  • The magma dyke is at the shallowest on 2 km but it has an average depth of 5 km to 8 km depth.
  • Most of earthquake activity is closest to Fagradalsfjall mountain (north end?). The dyke is situated between Fagradalsfjall mountain and Keilir mountain.
  • Fagradalsfjall volcano has not erupted in last 12000 years.
  • There has not been any magma activity observed in Krýsuvík volcano and Reykjanes volcano (Svartsengi volcano?). All earthquake activity in those volcanoes are due to crust stress changes due to inflation from Fagradalsfjall volcano.

 

Dotted line showing the Fagradalsfjall volcano
The area of activity according to Icelandic Met Office. This might also be the Fagradalsfjall volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There remains a high risk of a strong earthquake with magnitude between Mw6,0 to Mw6,5 because of crustal stress changes that are connected to all the inflation that is now taking place in Fagradalsfjall volcano.

Dense earthquake activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano with many green stars showing earthquakes with magnitudes above Mw3,0 and many new red dots showing new smaller earthquakes
Dense earthquake activity in Fagradalsfjall volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Harmonic tremor has not been detected again since Wednesday but that might change without warning.

Current web cameras of Keilir mountain and possible eruption area

Beint vefstreymi af skjálftasvæðinu – Efstaleiti (Rúv.is)
Beint vefstreymi af skjálftasvæðinu – Vogastapi (Rúv.is)
Keilir í beinni (mbl.is)
Óróasvæðið í beinni útsendingu (Vísir.is)
Live from Iceland
Keilir og skjálftasvæðið (YouTube)
Road camera 1
Road camera 2 (night vision/infrared)

If anything major happens I’ll write a new article soon as I possibly can do so.

8 Replies to “Update on Fagradalsfjall volcano activity on 7-March-2021 at 00:21 UTC”

  1. Jón, I know you have to sleep, and that is just how it is. You did, though, miss out on a lot of activity which probably kicked off as soon as you entered slumberland. Harmonic tremor from midnight, as, I am sure, you will have noted before you read this. I look forward to your next post.

    2. I was awake during this. I normally don’t write articles during the night. I didn’t notice the largest earthquake where I am in Iceland but the distance is considerable, around 190 km in direct line.

  3. Your content is much appreciated and has kept me more informed than most any other sources. Thank you.

  5. There’s a problem with the webcam links: I notice that many of them don’t work because they are using the obsolete and unsupported Flash software. Adobe has shut down Flash, has been telling users to uninstall it and has begun blocking it.

    1. If you had used more than one second to think before you wrote down that comment you would have saved a lot of stupid ignorance that you did write down in your comment.

      None of the websites I link to are using Flash to stream their web cameras. Flash has not been used on Icelandic websites in years and it was phased out more than five years ago by website owners in Iceland. While web cameras link can break as they often do. Most of the links I use work. With the exception of the YouTube link that is always breaking and few technical problems that one web camera was having.

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