Posted on by Jón Frímann

New information about the situation in Fagradalsfjall volcano

This is a short article about the new information published today (8-March-2021) by Icelandic Met Office and Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management.

New measurements of the situation in Fagradalsfjall volcano show that the dyke intrusion continues to grow and as at its shallowest point at 1 km depth. Possible eruption is expected at the south end of the dyke intrusion (closest to Fagradalsfjall mountain). Earthquakes are going to happen at the south-west end of the dyke and north-east of the dyke because of the inflation the magma is creating in the area.

The dyke shown with dotted line and circle shows the most effective area. Gray areas at both ends shows earthquake effected area
The earthquake areas at the ends of the dyke intrusion, shown in gray areas on this map. The dyke is shown within the line with dot lines. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There are going to be quiet times between high period of activity according to the news about this activity. There is also ongoing risk of a earthquake with magnitude of Mw6,5 in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano and according to Icelandic Met Office that risk has not been reduced in recent days. Outside of the Fagradalsfjall volcano magma dyke, no magma movement has been detected in Reykjanes (Svartsengi?) volcano and in Krýsuvík volcano.

Sources (Icelandic)

Áfram má búast við að virknin á Reykjanesskaga verði kaflaskipt (Iceland, English, Polish, Almannavarnir.is)
Kvikan er á kílómetra dýpi (Rúv.is, Icelandic)

9 Replies to “New information about the situation in Fagradalsfjall volcano”

  1. As people might have noticed the Google Adsense ads are gone. This is not my doing. This is Google Adsense doing and I don’t know if this is ever going to be resolved. This might go on for 30 days and that means 30 days of no extra income for me from ads.

    If people can donate to support my work that would be really appreciated.

  3. Looks like there was a couple of hours of tremor between 0500 and 0700 this morning (9 March)

    1. George B, that tremor has been confirmed. It was said in an interview with the Icelandic Met Office that it wouldn’t take that much for magma to reach the surface. Of course, they are not saying it will do so. Jón will have plenty of material for an update when he looks into this, I am sure.

  4. GPS monitoring shows that there was a rather big lea in displacement yesterday, and continuing today. How is it that this rapid ground deformation isn’t causing bigger and shallower EQs? Is the crust in the lava field too porous to make big “cracking” earthquakes?

    Either way, as long as this inflation goes on, this event is not over.

    (Link to Reykjanes GPS embedded)

    1. Other opinion:
      The ground down there is too warm because of upcoming heat.
      It does deform, but it doesn’t crack heavily anymore. Maybe. (?)

  5. I am going to write a new article later on about the events of today (9-March-2021). I am doing other things for the next few hours before I can write the article and working on looking into the data from last few hours.

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