New video of the eruption in El Hierro volcano

The eruption in El Hierro volcano continues with on and off rhythmic at the moment. So fluxuations in the harmonic tremor plots can be rather huge. That is from considerable amount of tremors down to no harmonic tremors at all.


The harmonic tremor in El Hierro volcano. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).

Here is also an video of the eruption in El Hierro volcano. I do believe that this pictures are rather new. But I am not sure. The audio is Spanish.

It is impossible to know for how long El Hierro volcano is going to keep up the current eruption pattern. But this pattern might stop at any time, without any warning at all.

New earthquake activity in Upptyppingar tuff mountains

During last week and on 5. January 2012 there where few earthquakes in the Upptyppingar tuff mountains. This mountains are not volcano by definition (yet anyway). But since the year 2007 there has been magma intrusion into that area. This magma intrusion however stopped and has been stopped for several years now. But that might be about to change. As on 5 January 2012 there where few small earthquakes with the depth of 12 km. Last eruption that took place in the Upptyppingar tuff mountain area where about 12.000 years ago, around the end of the last ice age. Considerable deformation has taken place in the crust in Upptyppingar tuff mountain since magma started to build up there. Current earthquake activity in Upptyppingar tuff mountain is not high at the moment however. But it has remained rather constant for the past 7 to 10 weeks at least. But due to lack of SIL stations in the area, it is hard to know how many earthquakes have exactly been taking place there at the moment.

Upptyppingar tuff mountains are part of Kverkfjöll volcano system. This new magma into Upptyppingar tuff mountains suggests that Kverkfjöll volcano might be about to enter an new time of activity. But they have been dormant since the year 1968 at least. But Kverkfjöll volcano have also been seeing some earthquake activity on its own.

It is most likely is the case that we are going to see eruption taking place in Upptyppingar tuff mountain one day. But the wait for it might be long however.

A research papers into the activity in Upptyppingar tuff mountain.

Resarch #1 (pdf file)
Research #2 (pdf file)

Renewed eruption activity in El Hierro volcano

Since yesterday there has been an renewed eruption activity in El Hierro volcano. Harmonic tremor has not seen big increase however. This suggest that this new eruption so far is small and mot procuring a lot of lava to the surface. Some floating pyroclastic has been spotted on web cameras and by local people when they come up to the surface. This eruption activity appears be intermittent at the moment. Going on and off every few hours to days.


The harmonic tremor from the eruption in El Hierro volcano. Harmonic tremor remains low however, so there is not a lot of energy in this eruption at the moment. Spikes in the tremor chart are most likely explosions taking place in the eruption area. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).

The eruption appears to have started again following an new dike intrusion from great depth into El Hierro volcano. This was followed by few earthquakes. All of them where small. If more new magma flows into El Hierro volcano this new eruption episode is going to increase in strength and in power. But it is hard to be sure if that is going to happen or not.


Eruption area in El Hierro volcano. This new eruption seems to be closer to the coast line then before. Copyright of this picture belongs to INVOLCAN. Picture is via Eruption blog (Erik Klemetti)

It is impossible to know what happens next in El Hierro volcano. So watching is important thing to do.

Other blogs about this new eruption.

Renewed Activity at El Hierro in the Canary Islands (Wired Science)

An ML3.5 earthquake west of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura Islands

Today at 17:05 UTC today (05.01.2012) there was an ML3.5 earthquake outside the Lanzarote (Wiki) and Fuerteventura (Wiki) Islands, in the Canary Islands. This earthquake was tectonic in nature, so no it not connected any volcano activity from what I can tell at current time. But I have limited data to base my opinion on. I do not know if this earthquake was felt. But given the distance to next population I find it unlikely to be the case.


The location of the earthquake according to IGN. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).


The earthquake as it did appear on the nearby seismometer. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).

According to this image there where two earthquakes that took place. Right after the ML3.5 earthquake an smaller earthquake did take place. But there is no size for it. But I am guessing that it is around ML1.2 in size (at least). No more earthquakes have been detected in this area since this earthquake took place earlier today.

Eruption starts again then stops again in El Hierro volcano

Few weeks ago the eruption in El Hierro volcano stopped for few hours. Before it did restart at lower levels for few days. Then it stopped again. This type of behavior is not so unexpected as it seems that El Hierro volcano did get some minor magma injection in past few days and around the time the eruption did restart. But this injection of new magma was followed by minor earthquake swarm in El Hierro volcano, with one of the earthquake having the depth of 34 km (automatic depth estimate I think). But this new injections of magma seems to be small compared to the amount of magma that has already been injected into and erupted already in El Hierro volcano.


Harmonic tremor yesterday (03-01-2012) in El Hierro volcano. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).


Harmonic tremor today (04-01-2012) in El Hierro volcano. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).

Current level of harmonic tremor in El Hierro volcano suggests an small eruption in the area. But there is now an highly active hydro-thermal area where the eruption started and has been taking place for the past three months. But it is going to take several weeks and up to years for this area to cool down. Then there is also the chance of hydro-thermal activity in the area if there is an dike intrusion into the rock of the El Hierro volcano that has not erupted. If that is the case as might well be. It is going to decades and up to hundreds of years to cool down.

For the moment however the main eruption event in El Hierro volcano is over and it is going to remain like that until new magma is injected into volcano. But that might not happen for hundreds to thousands of years if the current sequence of events that led to current eruption is over. But only time is going to tell us what happens next is El Hierro volcano. As volcanoes are unpredictable in there nature.

A ML3.4 earthquake 25 east of Grímsey Island (automatic size)

When things gets busy in Iceland, they mean it. At least that is the case now. This also the reason why I do not trust the quiet times in Iceland.

A earthquake with the size of ML3.4 took place 25 km east of Grímsey Island in the TFZ at 21:46 UTC. But that is an non-volcanic zone that bridges the eastern volcanic zone with the North-Atlantic rift zone. This earthquake had an earthquake with the size of ML2.9 taking place before the larger one. That was an pre-earthquake most likely. But it seems that an earthquake swarm is also starting in TFZ as it has done close to Krísuvík volcano on the Reykjanes Ridge. I do not know if this earthquake was felt or not.

I am going to update this blog post if I need to.

Update 1: The location of this earthquake. So far there have not been any aftershocks following the ML3.4 earthquake. Its depth was at 11.5 km. This earthquake does not appear clearly on my geophones due to the distance involved (over 200 km).


The location of the ML3.4 earthquake on TFZ. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.

Blog post updated at 22:22 UTC.

A ML3.6 earthquake in Krísuvík volcano (automatic size)

At 21:12 UTC on 3. January 2012 an earthquake with the automatic size of ML3.6 did happen in Krísuvík volcano. I do not yet know if this earthquake was felt in the nearby area. But I assuming that it has done so.

This earthquake did appear clearly on my geophones. Both in north and south Iceland. They can be viewed here. I am going to update this blog post as I know more. But this seems to be an start of earthquake swarm in Krísuvík volcano.

Update 1: It has been confirmed that this earthquake was felt in Reykjavík and nearby area. The automatic depth of this earthquake was 14.2 km according to Iceland Met Office.

Update 2: Earthquake swarm has started in Krísuvík volcano. The largest earthquake in this earthquake swarm after the main earthquake is ML1.1 in size. Larger earthquakes however might happen at any time in this earthquake swarm. But that is at least the experience so far.

Update 3: Here are the traces of the earthquake. Sorry. But for the moment there are no high resolution pictures available as my main earthquake computer is offline until I move back to Denmark. See this blog post here for more details on that.


The location of the ML3.6 to ML3.7 earthquake in Krísuvík volcano. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.


The ML3.6 earthquake as it did appear on Eyrarbakki geophone. This picture is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see the CC Licence web page for more detail.


The ML3.6 earthquake as it did appear on the Heklubyggð geophone. This picture is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see the CC Licence web page for more detail.


The ML3.6 earthquake as it did appear on the Hvammstangi geophone. This picture is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see the CC Licence web page for more detail.

Blog post updated at 21:38 UTC.
Blog post updated at 21:45 UTC.
Blog post updated at 22:15 UTC.

Hekla volcano is quiet

I have been seeing some rumors about Hekla volcano might be about to erupt. This is wrong. For the moment Hekla volcano is quiet as it has been since the last eruption in the year 2000. For few years Hekla volcano did erupt for about every 10 years. That might have change already. Nobody is sure on that now. But one thing is clear Hekla volcano is going to erupt one day. But when is always the question.

People have been speculating on the earthquakes west of Hekla volcano. This earthquakes do not belong to Hekla volcano. They are part of activity in the SISZ (South Icelandic Seismic Zone). Earthquakes in this area tectonic in nature, not volcanic. So in worst case, this earthquakes might be sign of new major earthquake preparing to take place some day in the future.

For the moment however. Everything is quiet in Hekla volcano.

Website news for January 2012

Here are the web site news for January 2012. This is the first web site news on this blog after the name change.

Name of this blog has changed

On the 1st January 2012 this blog changed about name. It did go from being Iceland volcano and earthquake blog to Iceland, Spain and Canary Island earthquake and volcano blog. This name change had been announced in the beginning of December. I now cover what happens in Iceland, Spain and Canary Islands with best efforts. Currently I do not understand Spanish, so that might be a bit of an problem when it comes to understanding what officials are saying if an eruption or an earthquake happens in Spain or Canary Islands. But in any case I am going to do my best interpretative the data that I have access to.

Donations

As I did say in December. My main income of this blog is from advertisements and donations. Due to my plans on moving to Denmark. I have to make a little shift in my personal economic setup until I am back to Denmark. But I have been transferring money from my social welfare to my danish bank account to pay for the cost of this web site and my danish phone number (I want to keep that number). From January February 2012 I am going to stop doing that until I move back to Denmark (at least, I am going to try to do so). But that should work I hope, if it does not. Then I have to resume sending money to Denmark to pay the bills there. The reasons for this is that I want to save as much money that I can before I move back to Denmark. For that reason I am going to be more depended on donations to keep things afloat for me. As being poor is not cheap at all. The cost of running the web hosting has also increased from $14 to $145 during the month (about 800 DKK with current exchange rates). But I had move this blog to an dedicated server as the traffic had gotten too high for the shared hosting plan that I was on before. But traffic on slow day is around 3000 to 4000 page loads. It gets up to 30.000 page loads or more if something is going on in Iceland. I do not yet have any idea on how traffic is going if something happens in Spain or Canary Island. But that is going to become clear one day.

As I say here above. I am currently trying to save for the moving cost to Denmark. But that puts strain on my other financial parts as I have limited income at the current moment. But I am on social welfare and that is fixed income, as I have written about before here on this blog. Donations also help me to maintain the hardware that I run in connection with my geophone network.

Geophone network

In January 2012 I am going to fish expanding my geophone network for the time being. But I am going start the geophone at farm Skeiðflöt. But that farm is located just south of Katla volcano. That that is going to give me really good overview of what is happening in Katla volcano. However, the geophone station at Skeiðflöt has been a bit more expensive that I did originally plan. As I have to buy lcd screen, keyboard, mouse, wireless network hardware and few cables. The extra cost is about 28050 ISK, 1.313,58 DKK, 176,72€, 228,61$, 147,54 GBP. This is not an cost that I like (I am trying to save money, as I planning on moving to Denmark). But I have already bought the computer that did cost 25.000 ISK, 1.170,75 DKK, 157,50€, 203,75$, 131,50 GBP, for the Skeiðflöt geophone station. So any donations to cover this cost are welcomed. But the geophone station is important because it is located close to Katla volcano and is hopefully going to give good information about the activity in Katla volcano, earthquakes and harmonic tremors. That is why I am doing my best to setup this geophone station soon as possible. As Katla volcano might erupt sooner rather then later.

The move to Denmark

As I have sad before. I am going to move back to Denmark later this year. I am not sure when exactly. But I do know that this going to happen. Until that happens, I am working with limited options. My main earthquake computer is down (offline) and is going to be offline until I move back Denmark into my own apartment. That means no high resolutions traces of earthquakes. As the software that I use to make that is on my main earthquake computer.

I am also looking for apartments outside Copenhagen. The max price that I can handle is about 3500 DKK for the monthly rent. I like to deal with rental companies that are in Denmark rather then with individuals. So any suggestions for 2 rooms apartments are welcomed. Just leave the suggestions in the comment.

This is also (as sad before) why I am still dealing with a bit of economic hardship until I move back to Denmark. But I think that I am still going to be dealing with money issue after I move back to Denmark. I am not yet out of those problem until I start publishing e-books and normal books. I am not yet sure when that starts for me. But it is in the works.

E-mail newsletter

For those who like to watch what is going on in Iceland, Spain and Canary Islands in terms of earthquake and volcano activity. It is now possible to subscribe to an automatic email list that sends you the newest blog posts update on what is going on in this blog. Just fill out the form here below, or click on this link.

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Volcano and earthquake forum

I also want to remind people of the volcano and earthquake forum. But it has been having slow traffic since I did start it in December. But on the forum it is possible to add pictures, ask questions, discuss volcanoes and earthquakes, among other things that do not fit so well into any discussions on this blog.

I do not think that there is anything more for web site news for January 2012. But if there is. I am going to update this blog post with that information.

Update 1: So I did start my extra savings from January 2012 rather then February. As that allows me to save more money faster then I otherwise would have done.

Blog post updated at 14:36 UTC 3. January 2012.

Happy new year 2012!

I wish everyone a happy new year! I hope that everyone is going to have a good year 2012. Thanks for the reading and the support during the year of 2011. Without it I would not have made it as I did.

Thanks for the year 2011. Now lets see what the year 2012 has to offer.