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Fresh earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (04-Januar-2016) a fresh earthquake activity took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. The largest earthquake had the magnitude of 3,3 and the smaller earthquake had a magnitude of 3,2. Other earthquakes in this earthquake swarm where smaller in magnitude.

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The earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano. Green stars show the magnitude 3,3 and 3,2 earthquakes. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

Deepest earthquake yesterday (03-January-2016) had the magnitude of 2,6 and depth of 21,5 km. Current earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano has been connected to a inflation that is now taking place where the earthquakes are taking place. According to Kristín Jónsdóttir on Rúv News earlier today. It appears at least one magma chamber on 10 to 15 km depth inside Bárðarbunga volcano is filling up and that might result in an eruption in coming months. Where and when is impossible to know at this point in time.

Icelandic News

Kvikusöfnun skýri skjálftavirkni í Bárðarbungu (Rúv.is, Icelandic)

Update 1

New earthquake with the magnitude of 3,0 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano at 01:24 UTC on 05-January-2016. The earthquakes that have been taking place have been low period earthquakes based on the fact they are not recording properly with the SIL network (tectonic earthquakes almost always have correct magnitude).

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The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

This is a sharp increase in earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Currently nothing suggests that eruption is about to start, due to lack of continuous earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake activity however suggests that magma pressure is increasing fast in a magma chamber that is located in north-east part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. When it might erupt is a question that does not have any clear answers at the moment. At the moment the only thing that can be done is to wait and see what happens next.

Article updated on 05-January-2016 at 11:41 UTC.

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Minor earthquake swarm on Reykjanes ridge and TFZ (Tjörnes Fracture Zone)

The new year (2016) stars with two minor earthquake swarms in Iceland. Both earthquake swarms are small in both earthquake magnitude and number of earthquakes.

Reykjanes Ridge earthquake swarm

The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge started at 09:08 UTC and lasted until 11:24 UTC. The earthquake swarm has stopped for now, I don’t think it’s over at the moment. It’s difficult to know for sure if an earthquake swarm is over or not in this area, since earthquake swarms are complex and a minor earthquake swarm might start a bigger one few hours later.

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The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

This earthquake swarm was small in magnitude and the largest earthquake had the magnitude of 2,1. The earthquake swarm is taking place in a volcano that last erupted in 1926 according to Global Volcanism Program. I however don’t think it is connected to any volcano related activity, this appears to be more like a rift earthquake activity.

Tjörnes Fracture Zone (TFZ)

A second earthquake swarm today took place in TFZ. This earthquake swarm was small in magnitude and largest earthquake had the magnitude of 1,9. This earthquake swarm is also rather deep, with deepest earthquake having the depth of 21,9 km (if it was properly located). This might suggest that magma was at work here. This earthquake swarm took place in a volcano that last erupted in the year 1868 (they think) (GVP information). There are two volcanoes in this area and it’s not fully clear what volcano erupted in the year 1868.

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The earthquake swarm in TFZ. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

This earthquake swarm is continuing and has not yet stopped. It remains a question if it is going to grow or start activity in nearby fault, since sometimes activity in one fault on TFZ can trigger earthquake activity in nearby faults. At the moment that has not happened, but it’s difficult to know for sure at the moment.

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Happy new year 2016

I wish my readers a happy new year 2016. I hope that the coming year is better then 2015.

It is possible to watch the fireworks in Reykjavík on Rúv 2 channel here (on-line). If it does not work there are always Míla web-cameras that can be viewed here.

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Weather warning for Iceland 30-December-2015

The weather forecast for Iceland on 30-December-2015 is looking really bad. The worst weather is going to be in eastern Iceland and possibly in western Iceland. It is not known where the worst wind is going to be exactly, but it is going to be real bad weather in eastern Iceland. UK Met Office has named this storm Frank, news about it can be found here (BBC Weather). The main risk is strong wind and rain.

This storm is also going to create a major problems in Faroe Islands and in the general area around Iceland.

The storm system low in hPa. Images are from this blog here (in Icelandic).

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The storm system. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

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The storm system.Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

I’m going to update this article as needed if everything goes bad when the storm arrives in Iceland on 30-December-2015.

Update 1

There was a storm in east Iceland yesterday. Creating a flood and snow-mud slides. One of those mud slides took out one SIL station.

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The SIL station at Aðalból is now off-line due to mud-flood in that area. The image above shows when the mud-slide hits the SIL station and damages or destroys it. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

Image of the mud-slide can be found here. Washington Post has news article about this storm and it can be read here.

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New wind forecast for Iceland on 30-December-2015. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

Flight delays should be expect according to FlightRadar24.

Update 2

Eastern part of Iceland got hit bad in this weather. North Iceland (eastern and western) are next going to be hit with this weather, it is not going to be as bad as in eastern Iceland. Mudslides also fell, damaging roads and creating other issues. Flooding was also a major problem in eastern Iceland. Some road damage has happened, but I don’t know the extent of at the moment. The lowest air pressure measured was 930 hPa according to Iceland Met Office.

News with images and videos of the storm in eastern Iceland (in Icelandic)

Aurskriður féllu í Fljótsdal (Rúv.is)
Malbikið flettist af veginum í Eskifirði (Rúv.is, images)
Ótrúlegar myndir frá Eskifirði (Rúv.is, videos)

Svipmyndir frá Eskifirði morguninn eftir storminn (Vísir.is, images)
Sjóhús svo gott sem farið: „Aldrei kynnst öðru eins“ (Vísir.is, images, video)

I don’t know when the weather is going to be fully over, but the worst appears to be over currently. I’m going to update this article as more information comes in.

Other

I’ve opened up the possibility for people to register again. If it stays spam-bot free it is going to be a permanent feature. This didn’t work out due to manual spam registration. If anyone wants to use the registered user function please contact me over email so I can manually register a user name (password is going to be a random). There isn’t anything I can do about spam registration on my website, since they are done by people that get paid $1 for every registration that is made. All spam users are going to be deleted once they get active.


Article updated at 17:55 UTC.
Article updated at 16:03 UTC on 30-December-2015.

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Fresh earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

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Last night (26-December-2015) two magnitude 3,3 earthquakes took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake activity was followed by a change in activity on 2 – 4Hz band, I’m not sure why that is, it might signal a inflow of magma at depth into shallow parts of the crust. This is however only guess on my part, this change in signal and it’s origin.

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The change in the SIL station can be seen between 25 and 26-December-2015 on the blue line. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

It is my view that the risk of eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano is increasing fast and Bárðarbunga volcano might erupt without warning at any time. Iceland Met Office holds a different view and that is there is no major risk of eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano at the moment, even if magma continues to flow into Bárðarbunga volcano.

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The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

The magnitude 3,3 earthquake in north-east part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera had the depth of 0,1 km. The magnitude 3,3 earthquake in south-east part of the caldera had the depth of 2,5 km. At 08:20 UTC this morning a magnitude 1,0 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano, that earthquake had the dept of 20,3 km and that suggest the magma inflow might be more than current ideas and models suggest (this earthquake is on the edge of the volcano, not far from Tungnafellsjökull volcano). I don’t know what is going to happen next in Bárðarbunga volcano. Since nobody knows for sure what is going to happen next in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Update 1

The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano has now created a half-circle of earthquakes in the caldera. Over the past 24 hours there has been slight increase in activity in Bárðarbunga volcano after the magnitude 3,3 earthquakes. There has also been some odd harmonic tremor spikes around Bárðarbunga volcano, the problem is that at the moment there is bad weather taking place at this location in Vatnajökull glacier area. So this might just be wind. I have to wait until the weather gets better in order to see if anything changes.

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The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano at 27-December-2015. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

I don’t know if any more activity is going to take place. This might die down, it is difficult to be sure about what happens next.

Article updated on 27-December-2015 at 17:56 UTC.

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

Last night (20-December-2015) a earthquake activity took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest earthquake in this short earthquake swarm had the magnitude of 3,5 and the second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 3,1. This earthquake activity is shallow and above above 10 km depth and it appears to be result of magma activity in north-eastern part of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. The earthquakes that took place appear to be long period volcano earthquakes (details can be found here, under b-type earthquake).

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

There clearly is something going on in Bárðarbunga volcano, it is already known that inflation is taking place in Bárðarbunga volcano after the eruption in Holuhraun ended in February-2015. Along with increase in dyke intrusions this clearly suggest that magma pressure is increasing inside Bárðarbunga volcano. What worries me is not the risk of large eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano. The risk in my view is at the moment risk of small eruption taking place, if a small eruption takes place under a glacier it is going to mean glacier flood. Size depends on the eruption size, duration and other factors. Currently there are no signs of imminent eruption, but that might change without warning. The north-eastern part of the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera is in my view weakened structure due to all the earthquake activity for the past 15 (about) months.

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Minor dyke intrusion in Bárðarbunga volcano

From 20:10 to 20:14 UTC a minor dyke intrusion took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This dyke intrusion was small, only lasting those few moments and the largest earthquake had the magnitude of 2,5. Other earthquakes are smaller. Depth was from 15,6 km to 23,2 km. Based on the location, this is clearly a dyke intrusion into Bárðarbunga volcano. It is too small to start an eruption, but suggest that magma processes in Bárðarbunga volcano are starting to increase again.

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The dyke intrusion in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

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There is also a change in the SIL station Vonarskarð. What is creating remains unknown. This might be a change in hydrothermal systems under the glacier, but is impossible to know for sure at this point in time. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

I don’t know if any more earthquake activity is going to take place in Bárðarbunga volcano. Since it is impossible to know what magma does next inside a volcano. At the moment I’m not expecting a eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano.

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Update on Prestahnúkur earthquake swarm

The earthquake swarm in Prestahnúkur volcano is ongoing with breaks. The fault that is moving is around 5 to 15 km long at the moment (based on the map). The largest earthquake so far has had the magnitude 3,5 and was felt in nearby towns and farms, the second largest earthquake had the magnitude 3,0. Other earthquakes have been smaller so far.

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The earthquake activity today (14-December-2015). Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

I expect this earthquake activity to continue in the next few days to weeks.

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The earthquake activity in this area since 1991 (grey circles). New activity are the red circles. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

The image above is from Week 50 earthquake information website. It can be found here.

Other matters

I’ve been a bit down in the past few days, since I’m living in Iceland and I don’t like it. I don’t belong in Iceland, not sure why that is, it just is. I don’t like the culture (Icelanders are copying U.S culture to some degree, not everything, but many aspects of it), I don’t like the snow and the cold weather. I also don’t like the isolations that follows living in Iceland.

Moving to Denmark

If anyone wants to support my move back to Denmark that can be done with the PayPal button or directly, information about how to do so can be found here.

At the moment I’ve collected money for almost everything. The transfer cost and the first month in rent for the apartment. What is missing is the money for the insurance for the apartment, but I can get a good rent loan for that in Denmark. The insurance amount I have to pay is 9000 DKK (1,206.13€). All that I’m currently waiting for is the Danish Tax (Skat), I’ve been having problem with them for the past few months and that issue has not been resolved yet and that issue is keeping me in Iceland at the moment. Regardless of that, I’ve started preparing my move back to Denmark so that I can move quickly once my last problem has been resolved.

Advertisements and donations

Donations keep this website going. Since it has already outgrown smaller and cheaper hosting options for me. I have to pay $135 in hosting cost a month and so far I’m running at loss. When it comes to advertisements I’m not going to be returning to Google Adsense since getting into that is close to impossible at the moment due to TOS and other changes Google (now Alphabet) has done over the years. Leaving small websites like mine high and dry when it comes to income. I’m going to continue to use Amazon. I hope that no major changes in their TOS and such agreements forces me to quit using them. The rules are getting narrower by the year and aligned in such a way that they fit high traffic website better. Rather then small traffic websites like I currently have.

Thanks all for understanding.