Category: Krýsuvík

This is a short update on activity in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes.

There has not been a lot of change in the earthquake activity in Reykjanes volcano. There has been a slight increase in earthquake activity compared to yesterday (28-Febrary-2021) but that increase is not a lot and only from 800 earthquakes to 1000 earthquakes for a 12 hour time period according to the news. Largest earthquake in last 24 hours had a magnitude of Mw4,9 and was felt over a wide area in West Iceland and was clearly felt in Reykjanes area.

There have now been two earthquakes outside Reykjanestá out in the ocean. A swarm of earthquakes started to appear at that location few hours ago. It is unclear what this earthquake activity means for now. This earthquake activity is something that needs to be watched since it seems to be connected for some unknown reason to the main earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula.

Update at 16:57 UTC

The newest earthquake has the magnitude of Mw5,1 at 16:35 UTC. This earthquake was felt over a wide area in western Iceland and all over Reykjanes peninsula.

PayPal button

Since I was lazy and I had not closed down my PayPal account I made a reversal in change that I had made. It is now possible to support me with PayPal donation. Donations along with advertisement income from this website help me to keep writing about earthquake and volcano activity in Iceland and try to live some type of life at the same time. Thanks for the support. 🙂

Article updated at 16:58 UTC.

Article updated at 23:35 UTC.

I have now switched to daily update for the earthquake swarm in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes.

The situation in the earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula in the volcanoes Reykjanes and Krýsuvík remains the same. During the last 24 hours the largest earthquakes have had magnitude of Mw4,7 and a lot of earthquakes with magnitudes above M3,0. No magma movement has been detected so far but University of Iceland – Earth science department warned that detection of magma is only limited to the first 5 km of Earth crust and any magma movement below 5 km might not be detected by seismometer. It also issued that signs of magma might be getting lost in all this earthquake activity that is currently taking place and no clear sign of magma have been detected. The whole thing can be read on Facebook here. Text in English is provided by Eldfjallafræði og náttúruvárhópur Háskóla Íslands about this.

Some of the earthquake activity has migrated closer to the mountain Keilir. Other earthquake activity appears to be located at the same place as before. That location is close to Fagradalsfjall mountain and Krýsuvík volcano. If that changes anything when it comes to this earthquake activity I don’t know but the risk is there. Icelandic Met Office is now hoping that the earthquake swarm ends next week.

If anything major happens I’ll post new article soon as possible.

This is a short update on the activity on Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes.

Largest earthquake in the last 24 hour had a magnitude of Mw5,2 at 08:17 UTC and this earthquake was felt over a wide area in west Iceland. Over the last 48 hours there have been 95 earthquakes with magnitude above Mw3,0. GPS is showing a lot of displacement and those information can be found here. Largest displacement has been in and around Krýsuvík and other GPS stations on Reykjanes peninsula.

Cracks have also formed in one road and other surface damage and other small damages have started to appear in buildings and roads on Reykjanes peninsula. There is going to be a storm in Iceland until early 2-March-2021. This storm is going to reduce the detection of smaller earthquakes in this earthquake swarm while it goes over Iceland.

All this information can change without warning.

News about cracks in the road on Reykjanes peninsula

Sprungur á Suðurstrandavegi vegna skjálftanna (Rúv.is, Icelandic, Pictures)

This is a short update on activity in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes. This update is written at 19:28 UTC.

The activity today (25-February-2021) has been mostly just minor earthquakes. Largest earthquakes today had a magnitude of Mw3,5 but this number can still change. In the last 24 hours over 2500 earthquakes have been recorded by Icelandic Met Office according to the news.

Steam has been confirmed close the parking lot close to Keilir mountain on Reykjanes peninsula. This area did not have steam before the Mw5,7 earthquake yesterday (24-February). It is unclear that is going on in that location. There continues to be high risk for a earthquake with magnitude Mw6,0 to Mw6,8 on Reykjanes peninsula because of this earthquake activity.

I’ll post update soon as possible if anything happens.

This is a short update at 21:19 UTC about the earthquake activity in volcanoes Reykjanes and Krýsuvík.

Earthquake activity slowed little since last update at 14:41 UTC. There are now fewer larger earthquakes taking place at the writing of this article. That has the chance of changing without warning. There seems to be new areas of activity appearing on the automatic Icelandic Met Office map. It is unclear if this is a artifact of the heavy earthquake activity in the area or a real thing is difficult to know for sure at the writing of this article.

Currently there are no signs of magma moving in both volcano systems. That might change without warning if there is a sudden change in activity. Because of how long it has been since last eruption took place in both volcanoes what happens before an eruption is unclear. What is only known from around 681 year old historical records that did survive to this day is that earthquake activity increases sharply before an eruption and does so a good while before the first eruption happens. Last eruption in Krýsuvík volcano was in the year 1340.

I am going to post next update tomorrow (25-February-2021) unless something major happens and then I’ll post a new article soon as possible.

This is a short update at 14:41 UTC.

This is about volcanoes Reykjanes and Krýsuvík.

According to new pictures from Icelandic Coast Guard. Steam has been seen from the area that had the strongest earthquakes this morning. This seems to be in a area that did not have an earlier any steam activity, this however depends a confirmation.

Icelandic News about the steam activity that has been detected.

Hvít­ir gufustrók­ar sjást á svæðinu (mbl.is, Icelandic, Pictures)

Today (24-October-2020) I noticed that there has been since yesterday (23-October-2020) a swarm of small earthquakes on what appears to be a west to east fault on the Reykjanes peninsula in the Reykjanes volcano. All of this earthquake activity is mostly just small earthquakes that don’t appear on the automatic map on Icelandic Met Office website. This earthquake activity only appears after a manual review that Icelandic Met Office has do. The total length of the fault that is in west to east direction seems to be 20 km to 30 km, it is difficult to be sure at the writing of this article.

The earthquake activity on the Reykjanes peninusla in the Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There are more faults at work in this. One or two fault are in mostly north-south direction and one fault is at southwest to northeast direction. There is also some cluster earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano but it doesn’t seem to have formed any fault like direction as of writing of this article. This changes seems to be supported by movement on the automatic GPS data from this area that can be viewed here (GPS time series for Reykjanes). It is difficult to be sure what happens next in this. There is now a storm passing over Iceland and that prevents detection and recording of the smallest earthquakes on the Reykjanes peninsula. The weather forecast for next week doesn’t look so good today (Saturday 24-October-2020).

It is a fact that not every eruption requires a big and strong earthquake swarm to start. I don’t know if that is true for Reykjanes volcano.

This is a short update.

Reports from yesterday (22-October-2020) on Stöð 2 (Channel 2) report that there is a strong smell of Sulfur dioxide from Grænavatn lake. Some increase in one hots spring in Krýsuvík volcano has been reported. That might because of change in water pathways in the crust because of the earthquake on 20-October-2020. New cracks have also formed and the earthquake caused small landslides on the coastline closest to the earthquake. The cracks in the ground are dangerous and people should not go to the coastline in this area of Iceland now. A new earthquake can happen at any time without warning.

Automatic GPS data is suggesting that in Krýsuvík volcano there has been a fast inflation of magma. I don’t think this is displacement because of the earthquake based on other nearby GPS stations.

Icelandic News

Brún Krýsuvíkurbjargs sprungin og varasöm eftir jarðskjálftana (Stöð 2/Vísir.is, pictures, video)