Volcano and earthquake activity in Iceland
Today (9-November-2022) at 13:34 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,2 took place in Hengill volcano. This earthquake was felt in Hveragerði town and in Reykjavík. Few smaller earthquakes followed the larger earthquake.
It looks like this earthquake swarm is over or close to end. I don’t expect anything major to happen in this earthquake activity.
Today (3-November-2022) at 11:06 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,2 took place in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This earthquake took place a bit of a distance from land. This earthquake seems to be part of an activity that is now happening in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This seems to be an ongoing earthquake swarm in this area.
It is difficult to know what this earthquake activity means, if it means anything. Its been a while since Tjörnes Fracture Zone had a strong earthquake above Mw6,0 in this area and north of it. Earthquakes in Tjörnes Fracture Zone can go up to Mw7,0 in magnitude, those are rare and happen only after a long time period of quiet it seems.
Today (31-October-2022) at 15:00 UTC an earthquake with magnitude Mw3,2 took place at Herðubreið mountain. This earthquake started a swarm just east of the earthquake swarm that has been going on for more than a week now. Earthquake activity remains high at the writing of this article.
It is unclear what is going at this area. This looks like a tectonic earthquake activity, but there might be more in this than appears. At the moment, this is just earthquake activity and its unknown if that is going to change.
Today (31-October-2022) at 14:57 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,2 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This is a normal inflation earthquake as Bárðarbunga volcano continues to inflate after the large eruption in 2014 to 2015.
This earthquake activity is normal and happens every few months in Bárðarbunga volcano.
During the night of 27-October-2022 an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,0 took place at 02:13 UTC. This earthquake was followed by few minor earthquakes. This earthquake was also felt in Grímsey island and in Akureyri town.
There’s a good chance of more earthquake activity in this area. Since this seems to connected to or be part of an earthquake swarm that started on 8-September-2022.
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Sometime yesterday (24-October-2022) a change happened in the earthquake swarm close to Herðubreið mountain. I am not sure when that change happened and it probably took few hours to happen before I detected it. But the change seems to be that now the earthquake swarm is at two locations and not just one. The second change is that the earthquake swarm is now getting more intense. The earthquakes at the writing of this article are minor, only magnitude Mw0,0 to Mw2,7 at the strongest. Nothing above Mw3,0 so far, but that might change without warning. Depth of this earthquake swarm is around 2 to 3 km at the writing of this article.
What is going to happen next is impossible to know. An eruption in this area has not happened for at least 12.000 years or even longer. I don’t know if stronger earthquake activity is required for this area for an eruption to happen. It already is rather fractured from older earthquake activity and rift activity, that makes it possible for magma to have easier paths to the surface without much earthquake activity. That is at least one idea on the situation in this area. I might be wrong on this, since I don’t have information on the finer details of the crust around Herðubreið mountain.
This earthquake activity is ongoing at the writing of this article.
I normally don’t write article this late unless I think it is important.
This earthquake activity in Katla volcano seems to be at that nature that it is worth writing a short article about it this late. At 00:46 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,6 (this is early reviewed earthquake magnitude, it might change when reviewed later tomorrow at Icelandic Met Office). Few smaller earthquakes have happened following this earthquake. Currently the earthquake activity is slow and it is possible that nothing more might happen.
I don’t know if this is a sign of an eruption that is going to happen or if this is just an earthquake activity that happens regularly in Katla volcano. There are now 104 years since last major eruption in Katla volcano and the situation is unclear on what is going on. If anything more happens I am going to write an update tomorrow. There’s a good chance nothing more might happen, but it is worth keeping a watch out for this if anything changes suddenly.
This morning on 23-October-2022 an earthquake swarm took place in west part of Fagradalsfjall volcano. Largest earthquake in this swarm so far had a magnitude of Mw3,0.
This earthquake activity is the result of magma pushing up into the crust at around 5 km depth. This is not a large dyke intrusion and possibly won’t result in a eruption, unless there’s a sharp increase in earthquake activity and that has happened (the August 2022 eruption started this way). This is currently a situation that requires monitoring for changes. If anything is going to happen is impossible to know.
During the night of 23-October-2022 an earthquake swarm started north of Herðubreið mountain. This looks like a tectonic earthquake swarm, rather then a magma related activity. At the writing of this article, over 500 earthquakes have been recorded.
Largest earthquake at the writing of this article had a magnitude Mw4,0 and one magnitude Mw3,1 earthquake took place. Second largest earthquake had a magnitude of Mw3,3. This earthquake swarm is ongoing at the writing of this article and there’s still a risk of larger earthquakes happening north of Herðubreið mountain. The largest earthquake was felt in Akureyri according to news reports.
A fissure has opened up in south part of Grímsfjall volcano without erupting at this moment. Pictures show that there’s a lot of hydrothermal activity in this fissure. I can see by the Facebook post (link below) that this is a new fissure in a location that it didn’t exist before. Based on recent history, this strongly suggests that this is the area where next eruption is going to happen in Grímsfjall volcano. When and how big such eruption is going to be is impossible to know. This fissure is located around Lat: 64° 24′ 13,476″ N Lon: 17° 13′ 57,282″ W. It possibly is growing and has made holes in the glacier large enough to swallow large cars.
The Facebook post with pictures can be found here. But you might need a Facebook account to view the pictures. I can’t add them here because of copyright.