Few earthquakes in Iceland, interesting events at Kverkfjöll volcano

Currently it is quiet in Iceland when it comes to earthquakes. It is also quiet in Icelandic volcanoes. As no volcano shows clear signs that is about to start erupting. But in this quiet period it is easy to miss the earthquake signs that appear in Icelandic volcanoes.

A volcano named Kverkfjöll has been showing increased signs of unrest over the past few years. So far the largest earthquake swarm took place few years ago. When a cluster of ML2.5 to ML3.5 earthquake took place in it. But since then it has been rather quite. But it is my opinion that Kverkfjöll volcano are on the path to a eruption. But so far it is unclear how and when it might take place. As Kverkfjöll volcano is continues to be a rather quiet volcano, even it is showing slightly higher activity then compared over the last few years. A better SIL network in this are accounts for some of the few earthquakes. But not all of them far as I can tell. In the last 48 hours there have been two earthquakes at rather uncommon place in Kverkfjöll volcano. Both events where small, less then mag 2.0 in size. But those events are part of a pattern that did start in Week 12 of 2011. But even it doesn’t look like a lot. There has been continues activity in Kverkfjöll volcano over the past few weeks and this activity appears to be continuing. I am going to write a better post about it later, when I have better picture of what is going on in Kverkfjöll volcano.

Last earthquake swarm that was in the larger size took place in October 2010. My review of it can be found here, Kverkfjöll volcano shows sign of activity (2010).

Other then this it remains quiet in Iceland. That is why I don’t have a lot too write about at the moment.

Quiet time in Iceland at the moment

Currently everything is quiet in Iceland. There is little earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano but still ongoing at really slow rate however. Nothing is going on in the volcanoes in Vatnajökull. The TFZ fracture zone is also quiet and has been for some time now. So far only few earthquakes have taken place in TFZ in the last week. But no earthquake swarms have taken place there in a long time now.

In general the activity in Iceland is really quiet. While everything is quiet in Iceland, there is a eruption ongoing in Hawaii. Please see Erik blog for more details.

Maps of geology in Iceland

Here are two maps of the geology in Iceland. The first map shows the fault zones with the active volcanoes in Iceland. Also in this map the age of the rock is shown. The second map shows the rock type, if it is acid, basic and so on.


A map of Iceland with fault zones and active volcanoes. This map is not up to date with newest research and stuff like that. Click on the picture to get a full size.


This map shows rock type in Iceland. Explanation is to the right. Click on the picture to get a full size.

Both pictures are from this web site here.