Category: Krýsuvík

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Hydrothermal areas grow larger in Krýsuvík volcano due to earthquake swarm

According to news from Rúv. It appears that hydrothermal areas in Krýsuvík volcano are growing larger following the earthquake swarm in the past few days. This same news also tells that the number of cracks in the ground have grown in numbers following the earthquake swarm, this allows more water to get into contact with the hot rock and that warms the water up fast.

Currently the earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano is quieting down. But that might chance without any warning at all. But won’t be surprised if the earthquake swarm stops completely.

In my personal opinion this is a clue that magma might be pushing it’s way up the Krýsuvík volcano system. I get the clue from the increased hydrothermal activity in the this area. But at the moment it is too early to know for sure if this is going to result in a eruption or not. But if this activity continues as it has then a eruption is going to happen one day. That can also chance without any warning at all. But this type activity means that status of the volcano it self is constantly changing and makes it unpredictable. How eruptions in Krýsuvík volcano behave is also a big unknown.

Update: According to Rúv evening news (Icelandic, video) there appears to be magma related aspect to this weekend earthquake swarm in Krýsuvík volcano. According to Dr. Páll Einarsson geologist at Iceland University it appears that magma is the source (as stated above) of this weekend earthquake swarm. This news also says that there has been a lot of earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano over the past two years and this earthquake activity is not only tectonic as is common in this area. The news at Rúv also says that geologist in Iceland are wondering and unsure what exactly is going on at Krýsuvík volcano at the moment. But the reported inflation in the news at Rúv is sad to be 10 cm (I do not know if that number is accurate or not). But it clearly a reason now to watch the activity at Krýsuvík volcano. If there is a eruption in Krýsuvík volcano it is going to be a harmless (as it can be) lava eruption. Unless it is under water, but then there is a Surtsey type of eruption for as long there is water getting into the crater. So don’t expect aircraft problem if there is a eruption in Krýsuvík volcano.

Thanks to The other lurker for the news tip.

News about this. Use Google Translate at own risk.

Jarðhitasvæðið hefur stækkað (Rúv.is)

Blog post updated at 21:15 CET on 28.02.2011. News item about Krýsuvík volcano from Rúv added.

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Overview of the earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano

Today has been interesting in regards to the earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano. But today there have been well over 800 earthquakes (far as I can tell). Over the past few hours the earthquake activity has slowed down a little bit. But far as I can tell it is far from over and might start to pick up again at any time and with no warning at all.

Icelandic Met Office released a picture of the earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano so far for the year 2011.


Black circles are earthquakes up to 26th of February. Red ones are earthquakes on the 27th February. Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site and copyright of this picture belongs to them.

Here is a picture of the location of the earthquakes so far.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site and copyright of this picture belongs to them.
Please note that this image does not have all the earthquakes that have been recorded in Krýsuvík volcano today.

More information about volcanoes in Reykjanes can be found here, in Icelandic.

Here is a picture, with fissure swarms and other things related to the four volcanoes that are on the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland.


Picture is from here. Copyright of this picture belongs to however owns it. Please note that I use this picture in a educational purpose on this web site. If there are any issues with the use of this picture. Please email me here: jonfr@8930a1.talbot.shared.1984.is

I expect that this earthquake activity is going to continue in the coming hours. But it is impossible to know when it stops.

Click on the pictures to see higher resolution of them.

Blog post updated at 04:12 CET on 28.02.2011. Title of this blog post is fixed.
Blot post updated at 13:40 CET on 28.02.2011. Spelling error fixed.

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Large earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

After four days of continues earthquake activity it appears that Krísuvík volcano has stepped up it’s activity by a order of magnitude. Since midnight there have been over 400 earthquakes in Krísuvík volcano. The activity is continuing when this is written and does not show any signs of slowing down at this moment. Geologist in Iceland are expecting more earthquakes in this area over the next hours and even earthquakes that are larger then ML3.0 in size.

The largest earthquakes where ML3.3 and ML3.7 in size. This is automatic size by the SIL system. The depth of the earthquakes was 4.7 km and 1.1 km according to the automatic SIL system. Due to high number of earthquakes the SIL system is putting earthquakes down all around the Reykjanes Peninsula. While there might be some earthquakes there, the number is not nearly as high as can be seen on the map. The earthquakes can be located by there low quality number.

Given the location and how this earthquake swarm is behaving it is my opinion that this is due to a magma is pushing up the crust in this area. But it remains a question of this is going to start a eruption or not. But the chances are growing for as long as this earthquake pattern holds up in Krísuvík volcano. If a eruption starts in Krísuvík volcano it is going to one of Hawaii type eruption, unless it is under water then it is going to be explosive for as long there is water getting into the crater. Last time there was a eruption in this area a 25 km long eruption fissure did form.

For now however all that can be done is to wait and see what happens. This earthquake swarm is going to continue for the next few hours and even days. The largest earthquakes can be seen on my geophone sensors here.



Map of the earthquake swarm in Krísuvík at 15:00 UTC. Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web page. Copyright belongs to them.

Icelandic news about this earthquake. Use Google translate at own risk.

Búist við áframhaldandi virkni (Rúv.is)
Engin merki um gosóróa (Rúv.is)
Heldur rólegra síðasta hálftímann (Vísir.is)
Jarðskjálftinn var 4 stig að stærð – 200 skjálftar frá miðnætti (Vísir.is)
Jarðskjálfti í Reykjavík (Vísir.is, 09:13 UTC)
Hætta á fleiri skjálftum (mbl.is)
Skjálftinn var nær höfuðborgarsvæðinu (mbl.is, 11:00 UTC)
Jarðskjálfti í Reykjavík (mbl.is, 09:07 UTC)
Skjálftinn líklega 4 stig (mbl.is)
Kort af skjálftanum (mbl.is)
Dregið hefur úr skjálftahrinunni (Vísir.is)
Tveir snarpir jarðskjálftar 24 km SSV af Reykjavík (DV.is)

Note: Check time stamps of the news articles.

Blog post updated at 14:50 CET on the 27.02.2011.
Blog post updated at 16:14 CET on the 27.02.2011.

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Two day long earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

While this earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano does not appear to be big in size. It is clear that was rather long and might even be ongoing. But it is interesting how long this earthquake swarm did last. So far the time is about 2 days. It is impossible to know if the earthquake swarm is over or not. Current number of earthquakes is about 60 earthquakes so far.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office graphic web tool.

The earthquakes are on North-South fault line according to the visual evidence. Depth of the earthquakes is from 12 km and up to 3 km at the moment. It is hard to know at the moment if this is due to magma inflow under Krísuvík volcano or just normal tectonic activity along the rift zone in Reykjanes.

Icelandic news about this earthquake swarm.

Hrina smáskjálfta í Krýsuvík (Vísir.is, Icelandic)

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Small earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

Currently there is a small earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano. This earthquake swarm is small and is only about 20 or so earthquakes at current time. It is impossible to know if this earthquake swarm is going to continue or grow at present time. But it is not uncommon in this area for a small earthquake swam to be a warm up for a larger one. But as always there is just a wait and see what happens in the area.

The largest earthquakes in this earthquake swarm have reached up to ML2.0 in size so far.

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Fake Hekla eruption, earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

I did miss this yesterday. But apparently there where false rumours on Facebook yesterday that Hekla volcano had start erupting. While the facts where those that no eruption was taking place in Hekla people did believe this anyway and didn’t check for the facts. The reason why this did happen was that somebody did use a old news about last Hekla eruption that took place in the year 2000. But news of that eruption can still be found on the internet today.

The most serious aspect of this false rumours about Hekla volcano is that this got into the news rooms at few media station, where people asked the news reporters on why they where not covering the eruption (that didn’t exist) in the news and with breaking news on the tv. But this also got into Icelandic Met Office, but people where calling them also. According to news on this false rumours this annoyed the geologist on duty. But this takes valuable time from them for no reason.

About six thousand people fell for this prank or false rumour on Facebook.

News about this: Hekla fór að gjósa á Facebook (Vísir.is) (Icelandic) – Use Google Translate at own risk.

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A small earthquake swarm is taking place in Krísuvík volcano. This earthquake swarm is not big so far. The largest earthquakes have gone up to ML2.2 in size. The depth in this earthquake swarm is about 7 to 11 km. So far something less then 30 earthquakes have happened. Other then this small earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano, and few other small earthquake swarms taking place in Iceland or around it there isn’t a lot happening in earthquakes and volcano activity at the moment.

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Update on the quiet time

It currently is quiet in Iceland, both in volcano and earthquakes. But it is not all without earthquakes. Few earthquakes have taken place in Krísuvík volcano, the largest being ML2.6 and in Kverkfjöll volcano. Few earthquakes have also appeared in TFZ, but all of them where small.

Besides this small activity. Everything remains quiet.

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Earthquakes between Grímsfjall and Bárðarbunga volcano. Earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

Since Week 52 in the year 2010 there have been strange earthquakes between Bárðarbunga volcano and Grímsfjall volcano. It is hard to know exactly what this means. But it is clear that tension is rising fast in Grímsfjall volcano, as is evidence by the ML4.2 and ML3.5 earthquakes in Grímsfjall volcano few days ago. But this might be something, or this might simply be nothing at all. Only time is going to tell us what this means.

Far as I know, nothing like this was recorded before the Gjálp eruption (SIL earthquake data from 1996) between Grímsfjall volcano and Bárðarbunga volcano in the year 1996. But it is a important factor that the SIL network was a lot smaller back in those days.

Krísuvík volcano

This morning there has been a micro-earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano. The largest earthquakes have gone up to ML2.0 (automatic SIL data), with the focal depth of ~4 km. So far around 20 earthquakes have been recorded by the SIL system that Icelandic Met Office runs. This morning the earthquake swarm has quieted down a bit. But it is hard to know if it is over or not. But this area of Krísuvík volcano has been having a lot of micro-earthquakes swarms over the past few weeks. This has been followed by a uplift in the volcano (inflation). But that did start early last year after a short period of deflation.

Other then this, it remains quiet in Iceland volcano and earthquake wise.

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A new earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano

A new earthquake swarm appears to have started yesterday in the Krísuvík volcano. This earthquake swarm is a small one, in the number of earthquakes and the size of them. The largest earthquakes according to the automatic SIL system are around ML1.8 in size. The depth is constant around 2 to 5 km or so. This earthquake swarm is just the latest of earthquake swarm that have been taking place in Krísuvík volcano over the past few weeks. As the earthquake activity has been more or less continues for the past few months in Krísuvík volcano.

The current GPS plot shows some inflation taking place at Krísuvík volcano. But so far it is small and does not indicate that a eruption is immanent in Krísuvík volcano. But if the inflow of magma changes suddenly this might change when Krísuvík volcano might start erupting.

Thanks to Carl le Strange on müsli for the tip on the GPS plot.

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Update on the activity over the Christmas

Here is a short update on what did go on in Iceland over the Christmas. In all there where few earthquakes in Iceland during Christmas. The main reason for this was a major storm that started in south Iceland on the 25th of December, it lasted until 27th of December in some parts of Iceland. The wind was topping 47m/s in strong winds. But the average wind speed was about 32m/s I think.

Around 17:02 UTC on the 25th of December there was a ML2.77 earthquake in Krísuvík volcano. Far as I can tell by the wave form this earthquake was mostly tectonic in nature. But it is impossible to know if the main source of this earthquake was the magma that is collecting in Krísuvík volcano or not. But activity continues in Krísuvík volcano as it has been doing in the last few weeks before. This earthquake was followed by 20 or so smaller earthquakes in the same area.

Due to the strong storm there where few to no earthquakes recorded on the late 25th to 27th of December. But the storm did simply hide all the minor earthquake that might have been taking place.

The ML2.77 earthquake in Krísuvík at 17:02 UTC at Heklubyggð geophone station. The storm noise almost drowns out the earthquake signal. This plot is filtered at 4Hz as a cut off frequency.

The ML2.77 earthquake in Krísuvík at 17:02 UTC at Hvammstangi geophone station. A normal level of noise can be seen both sides of the earthquake. No storm noise is presented in this plot, as it had not started in north of Iceland at this time.

A few deep earthquakes where seen in Eyjafjallajökull volcano over the same period. At current it is hard to know what they mean in the long term. But it is clear that Eyjafjallajökull volcano continues to make a little rumble and has not quieted down at current time.