Strong earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

At 10:11 UTC today (22-February-2022) an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,8 (Icelandic Met Office) or Mw5,0 (EMSC) took place in Bárðarbunga volcano.

Two green stars in Bárðarbunga volcano showing the strong earthquake activity in the volcano. Two smaller dots show smaller earthquakes.
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Yesterday (21-February-2022) at 14:08 UTC there had been a earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,0 in Bárðarbunga volcano, along with few smaller earthquakes. This earthquake activity shows that Bárðarbunga volcano continues to inflate after the eruption in the year 2014 to 2015. It is impossible to know when next eruption happens in Bárðarbunga volcano, it might be 10 years from now or 100 years from now. Last eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano before the 2014 eruption was in the year 1902.

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Earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (29-December-2021) at 14:46 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,6 (Icelandic Met Office) or magnitude of mb4,5 (EMSC website information here).

Green star in Vatnajökull galacier in Bárðarbunga volcano. Few red dots show smaller earthquakes that also happened in Bárðarbunga volcano
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity is normal and is because of inflation that is now happening in Bárðarbunga volcano. Eruption is not going to happen now. It might be few more years or few more decades until that happens.

Strong earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano this morning

At 07:20 UTC today (6-November-2021) an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,0 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. A swarm of smaller earthquakes happened in the same area before and after the strongest earthquake.

Green star in Bárðarbunga volcano shows the location of the Mw4,0 earthquake.
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity shows that Bárðarbunga volcano continues to inflate after the eruption in 2014 to 2015. This does not indicate that an eruption is about to happen. A lot more earthquake activity and time has to happen before an new eruption happens in Bárðarbunga volcano.

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Strong earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

After a long while of not writing about Bárðarbunga volcano it is now time for new article.

On 27-July-2021 at 19:02 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,9 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. At 22:12 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,5 took place in eastern part of Bárðarbunga volcano.  EMSC is reporting this earthquake as mb4,8. That information can be found here.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga voclano shown by two green stars. One little to the west and the second one to the east in the rim of the main caldera.
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is because there is now inflation going on in Bárðarbunga volcano. This inflation is going to continue until there is a new eruption. When that happens is impossible to know.

Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

Yesterday (12-May-2021) at 15:47 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,5. This earthquake was in the normal area of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera. This earthquake activity is connected to inflation of Bárðarbunga volcano that started after the end of Holuhraun eruption in 2015.

Green star in Bárðarbunga volcano caldera and few red dots east of Bárðarbunga volcano showing new deep dyke activity taking place. Image is from 13:20 today (13-May-2021).
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There has been a slow drop in earthquake activity during the last few months and it is unclear why that is. Eruptions in Bárðarbunga volcano can be as short apart in time as 18 years or less. The 1996 eruption in Gjálp fissure was from Bárðarbunga volcano, that places the time between eruptions 1996 and 2014 at 18 years.

Strong earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

During the night of 13-February 2021 an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,0 took place at 02:30 UTC. This earthquake is normal and is because of inflation in Bárðarbunga volcano after the eruption ended in 2015.

Green star shows the location of the magnitude 4,0 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano that is located in north-west part of Vatnajökull glacier.
Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There is one of this earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano every few months and last earthquake with magnitude Mw3,9 took place on 21-December-2020 in Bárðarbunga volcano. This type of earthquake activity is going to continue in Bárðarbunga volcano for decades until next eruption happens in 20 to 100 years.

Strong earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (21-December-2020) at 11:38 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,9 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake had two earlier earthquakes with magnitude of Mw2,4 and Mw2,8. Smaller earthquake activity seems to have stopped or happening at slow rate at the writing of this article. Currently Bárðarbunga volcano has an earthquake with magnitude Mw3,0 to Mw5,0 every few weeks since end of the eruption in 2015. This pattern doesn’t seems to be changing.

Increasing hydrothermal activity and ground heat in Bárðarbunga volcano

It was reported in the news in Iceland few days ago that ground heat and hydrothermal activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is increasing and has been doing so for at least few months. Steam has been observed according to the news coming from one of the cauldron that is now in the rim of Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. It has also been observed that few areas that have been active for a long time are now expanding in size.

Current risk is large glacier floods from Bárðarbunga volcano as the heat is melting large amounts of glacier in this area and possible damage and danger from those glacier floods. This increase in ground heat suggests that magma is slowly pushing its way up in the caldera rim of Bárðarbunga volcano. It is not possible to know if this is the case in the caldera since that is full of glacier that is ~600 meters thick at the most deepest end. If it wasn’t for Vatnajökull glacier and the pressure it puts in Bárðarbunga volcano there would already be an eruption going on there today. It is only when the magma gets above the pressure of the glacier an eruption can happen and in the eruption of 2014 and 2015 that didn’t happen as the magma found a easier way out by forming a dyke that travelled ~46 km away from the main volcano before an eruption started. This option for the magma might be closed now since dyke like the that formed in 2014 and 2015 eruption normally only erupt once after the magma flow stops.

Icelandic News

Jarðhiti í Bárðarbungu sífellt að aukast (Rúv.is)

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Hard drive problems

I am currently dealing with failing hard drives in my main computer and that makes it really slow. This might slow down my response until Friday when I finally get replacement hard drives. I also had hard drive problems with my main earthquake computer but that issue has been resolved with new hard drives.

Strong earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (27-September-2020) at 00:06 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,8 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake is the strongest earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano since April 2020 according to Icelandic Met Office.


Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office. Used with permission.

This earthquake activity suggests that magma might be pushing up at this location but no data for now confirms this. This might just be the caldera pushing up after it dropped 60 meters in 2014 to 2015 eruption of Bárðarbunga volcano. There are no signs of possible eruption and after this earthquake took place there has only been minor earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano and nearby areas.

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