It turns out that the fault with Hvammstangi geophone station was a software issue. Not a hardware issue. I have now fixed this after instructions from the manufacturer of the hardware. This was a software bug. If this had been a hardware issue. It would have been a lot harder to fix. The Hvammstangi geophone station is now running normally. Any earthquake activity in TFZ appears best on this geophone station.
Hardware failure in Hvammstangi geophone
In accordance with rules of bad timing. The Hvammstangi geophone station has had a bad hardware failure. What exactly has failed I am not sure of yet. But currently the geophone station does not power up. So the hardware failure is most likely in the board that converts the analog signals to digital signal for the PC. I am going to make an attempt to fix this issue when I go to Iceland in December. If that is unsuccessful. I have to send the hardware to the U.S and have it fixed there. If that is the case. The Böðvarshólar geophone station won’t go online until sometimes in the year 2013. I can’t afford replacement station. I am just to broke to buy it (as always. I am too broke to do anything in reality at the moment).
This means I have no way to detect earthquakes in north Iceland at the moment. But if any large earthquakes takes place there. My geophone stations in south Iceland are going to record such earthquake to some extent.
Changes to the geophone network in December 2012
The following changes are going to be made to the geophone network in December. The Hvammstangi geophone station is being decommissioned. The hardware is going to be moved to new location. That is going to be a new geophone station called Böðvarshólar (bhr). This change costs me 29.900 ISK (182€, 1360 DKK, USD 236), plus a monthly charge of 2190 ISK for 3G connection. But I can only connect the geophone to the internet over GSM/3G in this location. Any donation to support me to cover this hardware cost is welcomed.
I am also going to do an maintenance on Skeiðflöt geophone station. A backup power is going to be added and I am going to resolve the freezing issue that I have been having with this station for some time now. This maintenance and adding a backup power to this geophone station is going to cost me 10.900 ISK (66€, 495 DKK, USD 86), any donation towards this cost is also welcomed. As backup power is needed for this location. But the electric grid in this location is for some unknown reason unstable at times. I do not know why that is. But to prevent damage to the hardware. I need to add a backup power to prevent it.
Other changes are not planned for the geophone network at present time. But I am not going to end my geophone network operations as I had originally planned in November. But the cost of running and sometimes hardware changes and maintenance for this geophone network is keeping me rather broke at the moment. Something that I am not happy with. I do have income of Google Adsense. But when traffic is low (when nothing is happening), this Google adsense income is low and is not even close enough to cover my costs at time and at times paying the bills that I need to pay. I always pay my bills on time. But sometimes that is all I do that month and nothing else.
The web page is going to move from the simnet.is address to jonfr.com address. I am going to post more details on that in January 2013. I am going to cut some minor costs with this. The savings won’t be great. But just a little bit.
So any support with donations are welcomed. As they help me keeping all this running. So I can report to all what is taking place in Iceland when it comes to volcanoes, earthquakes and general geology.
Audio file of magnitude 5.6 earthquake on TFZ 21. October 2012
This is a just minor test that I was doing. Here is the audio file of the magnitude 5.6 earthquake as I did record it on Hvammstangi geophone station on 21. October 2012. This audio is about 4 seconds long.
121021.012439.hvtzZ
Test audio file. Click to listen or download.
Harmonic tremor level drops in Grímsfjall volcano
During the night. Harmonic tremor levels started to drop in Grímsfjall volcano. The reason for this harmonic tremor level increase remain unknown and unclear. But no volcano related activity has been seen or recorded so far in Grímsfjall volcano.
Harmonic tremor levels in Grímsfjall volcano. This is high resolution image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
Harmonic tremor levels in Grímsfjall volcano. This is low resolution image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
Some earthquake activity has been taking place following this events. But the earthquakes have been small and do not suggest anything is about to take place in Grímsfjall volcano.
Earthquake activity in Grímsfjall volcano for the past 48 hours. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
So far Grímsfjall volcano has remained quiet during this glacier flood. With nothing suggesting that it is going to change soon. As for the glacier flood it self. According to latest news it seems to have peaked and is now dropping. But this was a small glacier flood. With just rise about 153 cm. But that is quite small compared to many older glacier floods from Grímsfjall volcano.
Icelandic News about this glacier flood
Hlaupið í Grímsvötnum virðist hafa náð hámarki (Vísir.is)
Hlaupið í Gígjukvísl í rénun (Rúv.is)
Blog post updated at 12:48 UTC on 27.11.2012
Unclear what is going on in Grímsfjall volcano
It is unclear what is going on in Grímsfjall volcano at this moment. Harmonic tremor level continue to rise. They are currently way above what is normal for minor glacier floods from Grímsfjall volcano. This might be a minor eruption, or it might just be glacier on the move inside caldera. Whatever it is. This is not a strong event. As it only appears so far on only one SIL station. The one located on top of Grímsfjall volcano. Other SIL stations do not show any change so far. There is no earthquake activity in Grímsfjall volcano so far following this activity.
Grímsfjall volcano tremor levels this morning at 09:20 UTC. This is high resolution image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
Tremor levels at Grímsfjall SIL station (low resolution). The spike is maybe an earthquake. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
So far nothing there is no word from Icelandic Meteorological Office on what is going on in Grímsfjall volcano. I am also uncertain what is going on in Grímsfjall volcano at present time. But I am sure that is going to get clearer in the next few hours. The harmonic tremor level appears to be continue to rise. So it might get confirmed in the next few hours if there is an eruption in Grímsfjall volcano or not.
Geophone network is going to stay up
I have changed my mind on taking the geophone network down. The main reason being that data is valuable. The data that I am collecting today has value. I did not release this until this morning. After I had been telling the person who hosts my Hvammstangi geophone that data has value yesterday. This is also true for my geophone network. But it is going to cost me a lot to keep it running as is. The largest cost being maintenance and internet cost over 3G (2190 ISK, 13,41€ a month pr. 3G connection where that is used).
But this is it. My geophone network is going to stay up until I can replace it with a better network in the future. When that is going to happen I do not know. But I hope it is going to take me less then 10 years until I can start to implement that plan.
Glacier flood from Grímsfjall volcano continues to increase [Update]
Current glacier flood from Grímsfjall volcano continues to grow in size. To everyone surprise I think. Currently the glacier flood remains small. Harmonic tremor on Grímsfjall SIL station continues to grow. But this is due to the glacier flood. Not any volcano activity so far.
Harmonic tremor during this glacier flood from Grímsfjall volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
Conductivity of the glacier water remains high. But this means glacier food water is in the river. As oppose to any normal melt water coming from the glacier it self. This current glacier flood is the second glacier flood from Grímsfjall volcano this year. But earlier this year a small glacier flood did go from Grímsfjall volcano. My coverage of that glacier flood can be found here (28.01.2012) and here (29.01.2012). Current glacier flood started on Wednesday. So it has already been ongoing almost four days at current time. I am going to post more updates on this glacier flood if needed.
Icelandic news about this glacier flood
Enn vöxtur í Gígjukvísl (Rúv.is)
Vatnshæð í Gígju enn að aukast (mbl.is)
Vatnshæðin um tveir metrar (Vísir.is)
Minor glacier flood has started from Grímsfjall volcano glacier lake
A minor glacier flood has started from Grímsfjall volcano glacier lake. This glacier flood is expected to be extremely small. Since last glacier flood from Grímsfjall volcano took place earlier this year. That glacier flood was also small. Minor harmonic tremor changes have been taking place on Grímsfjall SIL stations. But they are not strong and can easily drown in wind noise. But it has been a stormy few weeks in Iceland.
Harmonic tremor changes on Grímsfjall SIL station. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
I do not expect any volcano activity to take place following this glacier flood. As last eruption in Grímsfjall volcano took place last year and that eruption was the largest one in 140 years at least. But I am going to keep monitoring this activity and post updates if anything changes.
Icelandic News about this glacier flood
Lítið hlaup hafið í Grímsvötnum (Rúv.is)
Vatnamælingamenn á leið austur (Rúv.is)
Hlaup að hefjast í Grímsvötnum (Vísir.is)
Lítið hlaup hafið í Grímsvötnum (mbl.is)
Minor earthquake in Höfsjökull volcano. Continued earthquake activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone
It has been quiet in Iceland for the past few weeks. Mostly due to bad weather. But that drops the SIL network ability to detect minor earthquake activity in Iceland.
Hofsjökull volcano
Hofsjökull volcano is among Iceland most quiet volcanoes. With no eruption documented in historical times. Hofsjökull volcano is also a interesting volcano. As it more like two volcanoes in one. Why that is I am not sure. Hofsjökull volcano is covered with a glacier that is up to 650 meters thick in the central caldera.
The earthquake in Hofsjökull volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
This earthquake was small. Just magnitude 1.3. But with the depth of 22,4 km. So it took place in the magma chamber, or close to it. Rather then any crustal earthquake activity. But it is hard to know for sure at the moment. During a normal year. Hofsjökull volcano can have up to 10 earthquakes during the year. Some years there are no earthquakes at all in Hofsjökull volcano.
Tjörnes Fracture Zone
Earthquake swarm that started on 20th of October in TFZ continues to this day. But currently the earthquake activity is just minor earthquakes at the moment. But the swarm is ongoing now for one month. There are also no signs of this earthquake swarm stopping. Even if the earthquakes are just minor ones for now.
Current earthquake activity in TFZ today and past few days. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Meteorological Office.
I fully expect the earthquake activity to continue in TFZ. When it might stop is impossible to know for now. So keeping an eye of this area of TFZ is a good idea. The risk of large earthquake taking place in this area remains unchanged last I knew.