Fewer earthquakes taking place on Tjörnes Fracture Zone at the moment

Donation note: I still need donations for October. I currently have no money for anything and that is rather bad. This bad situation that I am having is going to last for several months according to an excel document that I have set-up to figure out my total debt repayment. I can repay my debt (or buy replacement hardware if anything fails), but not buy food at the same time. The exchange rate of ISK to DKK is also bad at the moment. I hope for improvement but that won’t happen for next several months at least.

Activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone continues as it has been doing for the past week. There is not a lot of other activity taking place in Iceland at the moment. The largest earthquake today (03-October-2013) had the magnitude of 3.5, a second earthquake with the magnitude of 3.1 also took place in TFZ today. Depth of this earthquake swarm remains the same, around 5 to 15 km at current time.

MynniEyjafj2013.svd.03-October-2013
The largest earthquakes in this earthquake swarm in TFZ. Image in original context can be found here (Icelandic). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Today (03-October-2013) there were fewer earthquakes in this swarm than yesterday. The drop is currently around half of less activity than yesterday. I am not sure why this is as currently the earthquake swarm is ongoing. Even if there are fewer earthquakes taking place. This might just be a short time drop in earthquake activity, or this might signal an end of this earthquake swarm. Currently it’s too early to know for sure. The only thing that can be done is to wait and see what happens next in this earthquake swarm.

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Earthquake activity today on Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

So far there are no signs of any magma having reached the surface, if that is the reason for this earthquake swarm in this area of Tjörnes Fracture Zone.

Update on Tjörnes Fracture Zone earthquake swarm

Donation note: I still need donations to survive this month as any other months while I am just on social welfare from Iceland as I have explained here. This month I just have around 24 DKK (3.21€) for food this month after paying all the bills and my debt. I have already got some donation, but they just allow me to buy food for about one and half week if I am smart. Thanks for the help.

The earthquake swarm on Tjörnes Fracture Zone continues. The earthquakes are getting stronger, with the largest one today having the magnitude 3.8 (automatic results) and five other earthquakes with the magnitude 3.0 to 3.2. Currently the depth is around the same, it remains at 5 to 15 km and at the moment it doesn’t seems to be changing. Rate of earthquakes is around the same today (02-October-2013) as it was yesterday (01-October-2013), with no major changes in earthquake rate from what I can see currently taken place.

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Earthquake activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Green star show earthquakes larger than magnitude 3.0. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

All earthquakes above magnitude 3.0 have been felt in Siglufjöður and Ólafsfjörður towns and other populated areas that are close to this earthquake swarm. There are no signs of this earthquake swarm slowing down as is. It still has not been confirmed if this earthquake activity is connected to magma injection at depth, or if this is just normal tectonic earthquake activity in this area. It’s going to remain difficult to confirm this idea until an eruption starts in this area and that simply might just not happen at all. The largest earthquakes appear on my webicorders website here, on the geophone station named Böðvarshólar.

Blog post updated at 22:33 UTC on 02-October-2013.
Blog post updated at 22:39 UTC on 02-October-2013.

More earthquake activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone

Donation note: Please donate. This month as past several months before that are difficult for me. Due to poor exchange range from ISK to DKK and the fact that I generally have low income. This website and writing on it is my job, along with other writing jobs that I attend to. Older posts on donations can be found here.

Today (01-October-2013) there has been a lot of earthquake activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Current area of activity is same as for the past week, what is now changing is the rate and magnitude of earthquakes. This morning an magnitude 3.2 earthquake took place in this area. That earthquake and at least two other smaller ones where felt in Ólafsfirði, the town closest to this earthquake swarm. Earthquake activity is currently ongoing and with no signs of stopping.

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Earthquake activity in TFZ today. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

It has been reported by Rúv and other news media in Iceland that this might be an dike intrusion in this area. This is what geologist at Icelandic Meteorological Office are theorising at the moment. I do not know if this is true or not. What I do know is that at this location there is no known volcano and if there is an volcano at this location it is currently unknown and not documented at all (such things happen). If this is magma and if it finds an path to the surface we are going to see an eruption. I do not know if that would create an new island if that was the case, such speculations have to wait until an eruption started. If it ever gets that far. If this is magma then it is still at great depth, since the depth of this earthquake swarm is at the moment around 5 to 15 km and does not seem to change that much at the moment.

It is possible to watch this earthquake activity here on my webicorder website. The closest geophone station that I have to this earthquake swarm is the one named “Böðvarshólar”. It is already showing many of the strongest earthquakes in this swarm clearly. It is located in the country side far from any major traffic source.

I am going to post updates about this earthquake swarm when needed.

Blog post updated at 20:26 UTC on 01-October-2013.
Blog post updated at 23:53 UTC on 01-October-2013.

Update on Tjörnes Fracture Zone earthquake swarm

It has been almost a week since the earthquake swarm started in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Today (30-September-2013) this activity continues. Since this earthquake swarm just around 1000 earthquakes (according to news) have so far been recorded by Icelandic Meteorological Office (when this words are written). The largest earthquakes have had the magnitude of 2.8, but no earthquake so far has reached the magnitude above 3.0.

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The earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Currently there is no sign of this earthquake swarm ending. So far it has not been felt by anyone and so far. I do not know how this earthquake swarm is going to develop. It’s however important to keep an eye on this earthquake swarm, since it’s impossible to know what happens next in this area.

Earthquake activity continues on Tjörnes Fracture Zone

The earthquake swarm that started two days ago (wrote about it here) in Tjörnes Fracture Zone continues and appears to be growing in the past few hours. So far the largest earthquakes have not been stronger then magnitude 2.6 or 2.7 (automatic and reviewed results).

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The earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

None of this earthquakes have been felt that I know. Since they are good distance (~20 km) from populated areas and are small at the moment. That might change if larger earthquakes start to happen in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Currently this earthquake swarm activity is mostly continuous with just few stops in it, no stop has so far not lasted more than 1 to 3 hours so far. Currently this earthquake swarm activity is ongoing and I do not expect it to stop at the moment.

Magnitude 5.5 earthquake deep on the Reykjanes Ridge

Last night (26-September-2013) an earthquake took place deep on the Reykjanes Ridge. This earthquake had the magnitude of 5.5 according to reviewed results from EMSC. This earthquake was close to 1000 km from the south coast of Iceland so it was not felt by any human. Fish and crabs might have been disturbed however at that location. More information about this earthquake can be found here on EMSC website.

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The earthquake location on the Reykjanes Ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to EMSC.

An aftershock with the magnitude of 4.6 was recorded on the same location. Information about that earthquake can be found here on EMSC website. It is possible that more smaller earthquakes took place in this location, but due to distance from any seismometer network any smaller earthquakes then this are not detected at all.

Earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone

Today (25-September-2013) an earthquake swarm started in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This earthquake swarm started slowly and was mostly making small earthquakes early on. The largest earthquake today had the magnitude of 2.8 according to automatic results from Icelandic Meteorological Office. Currently the earthquake swarm is ongoing.

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Earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

I am expecting this earthquake swarm to continue for the next hours at least. TFZ is highly active when it comes to earthquake activity so this earthquake swarm is no surprise. If any major earthquake take place in TFZ it’s possible to see them here on my webicorder website.

Minor earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano

An minor earthquake swarm took place in Öræfajökull volcano today (09-September-2013). This was just minor earthquake activity and it was at shallow depth, just around 2.6 to 4.8 km. Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2.0.

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Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. Öræfajökull volcano is located south-most part of Vatnajökull glacier (next to the km line on the map). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Earthquake activity is not common in Öræfajökull volcano and that makes this activity interesting. So far this is just earthquake activity and I am not expecting anything else to take place. More earthquakes might happen in next few days to weeks. Or nothing else might happen Öræfajökull volcano.

Interesting earthquake activity in Hamarinn volcano

Over the past few days interesting earthquake activity has been taking place in Hamarinn volcano. The earthquakes have been aligning along two east-west lines. Possibly an fissure in the volcano. I am not sure why this is happening, but I did record one earthquake from Hamarinn volcano today (07-September-2013) and that trace suggests this earthquakes have there origin in magma movements in the Hamarinn volcano. That has not yet been confirmed and this might never be confirmed due to lack of data. Largest earthquake so far had the magnitude of 2.2 at the depth of 4.5 km.

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Hamarinn volcano earthquake activity. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Last eruption in Hamarinn volcano was on 11 – 12-July-2011. It was an minor eruption and I did cover it here and here. Small eruptions are common in Icelandic volcanoes just as the are in other volcanoes around the world. Before the minor eruption in the year 2011 there was several months of earthquake activity in Hamarinn volcano. The area that now has this earthquake activity is the same area that had this minor eruption in the year 2011. I do not know if current activity is an early indicator that it is going to happen again. It however cannot be ruled out currently. What can be done is to monitor current levels of activity and just wait and see what happens next.

Minor earthquake swarm in Esjufjöll volcano

Today (05-September-2013) an minor earthquake swarm took place in Esjufjöll volcano. Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2.2 and the depth of 4.9 km.

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Earthquake swarm in Esjufjöll volcano. Esjufjöll volcano are located in south part of Vatnajökull glacier, just northeast of Öræfajökull volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.

Earthquakes in this area are because of magma movement it is believed. Now there are more SIL stations in the area, so more earthquakes are being recorded. Few years ago the lowest magnitude that Icelandic Meteorological Office was able to detect in Esjufjöll volcano was magnitude 1.5 and above.