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No volcano eruption starting in Bárðarbunga volcano

The Icelandic Met Office has issued that there is no eruption about to start in Bárðarbunga volcano. News that claim that are wrong and remain that until proven otherwise.

Iceland Met Office announcement. Original announcement can be found here (IMO web site)

Specialist remark

Presently, there are no signs of an imminent volcanic eruption in Iceland. The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) did not issue a warning last weekend in connection with increased seismicity beneath the Vatnajökull ice-cap. If signs of an eruption were apparent, IMO would issue a warning immediately.

A lot of earthquakes does not always mean that a eruption is immanent. It sometimes just means a lot of earthquakes and nothing more. Media dramatization does not chance this fact.

Icelandic News on this. Use Google Translate at own risk.

Gos er ekki að hefjast (Vísir.is, Icelandic)

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Minor earthquake swarm east of Grímsey Island

Today there has been a minor earthquake swarm east of Grímsey Island (is in Tjörnes Fracture Zone). The number of earthquakes that have taken place at the moment is something around 20 to 30 earthquakes. All of the earthquakes so far are less then ML3.0 in size.

This earthquake swarm in TFZ is so far quiet and mostly small in size. It remains unclear as always if this earthquake swarm changes or starts a new earthquake swarm that is bigger. But this area is known for that one earthquake swarm starts a new one in the TFZ.

So far this does not appear to be happening in the TFZ. But it is worth mentioning that TFZ is highly active earthquake zone. But there are no volcanoes there. Except at the south and north end of the TFZ. Where the rift zone ends and where the rift zone starts again.

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Geologist worry about earthquake activity in Kistufell field (Bárðarbunga volcano)

In my last blog post I did tell the news about the possibility about a eruption in the Kistufell volcano field. But that field is a part of Bárðarbunga volcano system and has a lot of earthquake activity since the beginning of earthquake recording in Iceland.

In the tonight news on Rúv about this area, Páll Einarsson geologist at University of Iceland says in the news on Rúv that there is a good reason to worry about this area. As it is one of the most active one in Iceland, but it is directly above the mantle plume under Iceland. Páll Einarsson also says in the news on Rúv that before the eruption in the year 1996, that took place in a volcanic ridge now named Gjálp there was a increase in earthquake activity in Kistufell field.

But due to continues earthquake activity there is it hard to know what is exactly going on there. Páll Einarsson also says in the news on Rúv that it is a problem that this area of Iceland lacks the proper coverage with seismometers. But they are few in this area and that makes it harder to detect the depth and the location of the earthquake that take place in this area of Iceland.

After the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in the year 2010. It seems that geologist in Iceland take earthquake swarms more seriusly then they did before. As they did learn from Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption that not all volcano start with few earthquakes just before they erupt, as is common with few volcanoes in Iceland.

The news from Rúv on this matter. Use Google Translate to understand.

Full ástæða til að hafa varann á (Rúv.is)

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There might be a volcano eruption in less then a one year time in Báðarbunga volcano (Kistufell field)

I do not know if this is Icelandic media sensationalism or just a simple misquote in the news article. But according to Morgunblaðið (mbl.is) in a interview with the geologist named Sigurlaugar Hjaltadóttir (works at Icelandic Met Office) she sad that there is more risk of a eruption in north-west side of Vatnajökull glacier due to the high earthquake activity in the area. But while the earthquakes continue to be at great depth, there is a less chance of a eruption in the area.

But she might be referring to is that a earthquake activity in the area might be increasing because of Grímsfjall volcano and Bárðarbunga volcano interaction. But it remains be seen if that is the case or not here. It is however clear that only time is going to tell us if there is going to be a eruption in this area soon or not.

The news in Icelandic. Please use Google Translate or something similar to understand.

Gæti gosið innan árs (mbl.is)

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The earthquake activity at Kistufell (Bárðarbunga volcano)

There is been a highly localized earthquake swarm in Kistufell area in the highland. This area is well known in Iceland for high earthquake activity and often makes earthquakes that are close to Mb5.0 in size. The current earthquake swarm is rather small in comparison to many earthquake swarms that have taken place in this area before.

This does not mean that there is going to be a eruption there. As this area is highly activate in regards to tectonics forces in this area. But this area can erupt and has done so in the past. But this area belongs to the Bárðarbunga volcano and it has fissure types of eruptions when it erupts.

Here is a picture with the activity of this area in December 2009. As can be seen there, this area has a lot of earthquake activity almost all of the time. The text with the picture can be found here in Icelandic. Use Google Translate with the normal risks involved.

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Glacier quakes in Vatnajökull glacier following a lot of rain

The quiet time in Iceland continues with few to no earthquakes. Besides the strong Mw6.2 earthquake in Jan Mayen Island (Belongs to Norway, regional to Iceland geological area in my personal view) there is nothing happening.

On the night of 25th of January there where ice-quakes in Vatnajökull glacier. This appears to have happened due to heavy rain in that area from the 21st of January. But that can make the glacier move suddenly and that makes the ice-quakes. Icelandic Met Office has some pictures of this activity.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site. Copyright belongs to them.

Ice-quakes in this plot appear as spikes. As can be seen a lot of ice-quakes took place in Vatnajökull glacier during the heavy rain.


Picture is from Icelandic Met Office web site. Copyright belongs to them.

A high detail of the ice-quakes. As can be seen, the ice-quakes look different then normal earthquakes. This is because ice is not as dense then rock and is under less pressure, and therefor breaks in a different way.

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Shortage on updates while moving and other things

In the next few days or weeks there is going to be a shortage of updates on this web page. This is because I am moving to a different country and I might not always be connected to the internet (and I might have a lack of internet connection in Denmark) when something happens in Iceland. I also might be traveling when something interesting takes place in Iceland.

I am going to do my best update on events in Iceland in the case something happens. But I am sure that something is going to happen while I am mostly offline in this transit of mine.

If anything happen, please post information on that in the comments. They are going to remain open for the next 30 days as is the default rule on this blog.

With my move to Europe I am also considering starting to cover volcanoes in Europe as well, as any major earthquake that happens in Europe. As that is also not done far as I know. But other sites that cover this topic are global. But I am considering going more regional (Europe) instead of being just local to Iceland. But I feel that there are enough global volcano web sites out there. So it is not in my plans to go global. But I have few problems, for instance on how to cover Russia. A country in Europe, but also has borders in Asia and to the U.S. But I am sure that I am going to be done figuring out this problem when I am properly connected to the internet again in Denmark (but I don’t know how long that is going to take).

Ads info.

I am considering adding the other Amazon stores to this web site. But that might take some doing due to hard languages in question (Japanese, Chinese, Italian, French etc..). But at the moment this is just on the consideration stage for the moment. At the moment the store is slow according to my counter. But I am sure that traffic is going to pick up in coming weeks. At least I hope so.

Any comments and suggestions on this are welcomed!

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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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People feelings about the advertisements ?

As a web site owner. I want to know what my readers feel about the advertisement plan that I am putting up here.

The reason that I ask is because I think critical and I want to know if this annoys anyone or not, or if that I am going to far with this or not. My plan from the start has been that to keep the advertisement integrated into the blog so it doesn’t annoy my readers in any way. I also want criticism if there is one on this plan that I have.

I just got approved for Amazon Deutschland (DE) Associates program. So I have started to add some small advertisement from them too on to the blog sidebar. I am going to setup the aStore tomorrow if I have the time.

I also want to thank people for the support and for reading my blog. 🙂

(I also use the quiet time for this, as there is nothing happening in earthquakes and volcanoes in Iceland at the moment)

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Wave form picture of the ML2.5 earthquake in the South Icelandic Seismic Zone (SISZ)

Here is a wave form picture of the ML2.5 earthquake that took place west of Hekla volcano. This earthquake is part of the the SISZ. Not Hekla volcano. But it remains to be seen if this is related to Hekla volcano, but Hekla volcano location appears to have some effect on SISZ. Normally during or after a eruption in Hekla volcano it is followed by a small swarms of earthquakes in SISZ. In the year 1878 there was a eruption in Hekla volcano that was pre-seeded by large earthquakes in SISZ. The eruption that followed was a fissure eruption near a peak named Krakatindur. This area also erupted in the year 1913, but that time on two new fissures.

The wave form data. This picture is released under CC licence, see the legal section for more information.

I was going to setup the location and distance data. But IMO has not released that data at present time.

Historical accounts of Hekla eruptions (Icelandic). GVP information on Hekla volcano.