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Earthquake on Reykjanes peninsula – update at 14:26 UTC

This is a short update on the earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula. Early magnitude calculation give this earthquake a magnitude of Mw5,6 but this number might change. Large aftershock activity is expected during the next 24 hours.


The earthquake activity on Reykjanes peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

A video recording of the earthquake from Alþingi shows the effect of this earthquake.

I’ll post more details later today when I have them.

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Large earthquake on Reykjanes peninsula – details pending

Today (20-October-2020) at 13:43 UTC large earthquake with early magnitude of Mw5,5 took place close to Kleifarvatn lake in Krýsuvík volcano. I’ll write a second article with more details about this earthquake later today. This earthquake was felt in Reykjavík and over wide area of south Iceland.

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Felt earthquake 3 km north-east of Húsavík town last night

Yesterday (17-October-2020) at 22:02 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,3 took place 3 km north-east of Húsavík town in the Flatey – Húsavík fault. This was followed by few minor earthquakes. This earthquake was felt in Húsavík but no damage was reported from it.


The earthquake activity close to Húsavík. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This area of the Flatey – Húsavík fault has not seen any earthquake activity until now, even if there has been a strong earthquake swarm going on in nearby areas since June 2020 . There continues to be a risk of stronger earthquakes in Tjörnes Fracture Zone.

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Earthquake activity increases in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes

Since 15-October-2020 there has been a slow increase in small earthquakes in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes. This earthquake activity has been followed by changes in GPS location. The GPS data can be viewed at Reykjanes CGPS website. All the earthquakes at the writing of this article are small in magnitude. Last few weeks have been quiet in Reykjanes and Krýsuvík volcanoes and that is normal for this type of volcanoes.


The earthquake activity in the volcanoes Reykjanes and Krýsuvík. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is not possible to know how this is going to develop since what happens depends on the amount of magma moving and what that does. It is unclear if this is inflation or deflation event taking place. It might take few days to see what that is.

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Donations needed for October

I always hate to write this type of article. But it can’t be helped in my situation. Currently I am broke due to extra cost of buying new hard drives for my main computer so it remained useful and I still have some more hardware to renew and buy in next few months. While I have installed Google Adsense its going to be a while until it starts working for me properly. Since until I am back in Denmark I’ll run it in low mode and I might have to disable it for few weeks so I won’t go over few limits that Google Adsense has until I have moved back to Denmark (complicated reasons I’ll not write about currently).

I hope people can support me and my work here with donations. It helps me keep working on this website and keep everything updated when something happens in Iceland. Thanks for the support.

PayPal

I have to keep PayPal as it is the only way to let people donate to support my work. I’ll switch to Danish PayPal once I have moved back to Denmark. I don’t know if I am going to have have the monthly donation possibly since that option did only have little usage.

Bank donations

If you are donating with a bank. Please update your donation information to my Danish bank account. Information can be found on my donation website here. The reason for this change is increased economic instability in Iceland with the currency (ISK). That is among many other things has been making my life difficult during the last few months.

Article updated on 13-October-2020 at 02:46 UTC.
Article updated on 14-October-2020 at 03:53 UTC.

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More landslide problems far south of Akureyri

Today (07-October-2020) has seen more landslide problems in the landslide that did fall yesterday (06-October-2020). The problem today according to the news is water that is flowing in the landslide and is expanding it. Two houses and one summer house have been evacuated because of high risk more landslides in this area. The flow from the landslide has been going into ditches that are around the farms and filling them up. This has resulted in flooding over nearby roads and blocking them.

The changes have not appeared properly in pictures in the news media. Below are the pictures in Icelandic News that I was able to find.

Hús rýmd og enn hætta á aurskriðum (Rúv.is)
Loka veg­um og rýma hús eft­ir aur­skriðu (mbl.is, pictures)

I’ll try to update on this situation if I see any news about this. That might not happen since this might not stay long in the news cycle in Iceland.

Update 1

Rúv News has released a new video of the landslide that shows the area that it covers. There is a lot of water flow in the landslide as can be seen in the video.

Enn vatnsrennsli úr aurskriðunni og grannt fylgst með

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. I am broke this month because I had to get new hard drives for my computers. Thanks for the support. 🙂

Amazon Advertisement phase out

After using Amazon Associate for 10 years I’ve made the chose to phase them out slowly in next few days. The reason is that they don’t pay enough to keep their banners on my website. Amazon Associate is going to be replaced with Google Adsense but that won’t happen in full until after I move back to Denmark sometimes in 2021 if the covid-19 situation gets better.

Article updated on 08-October-2020 at 14:21 UTC.

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Large landslide far south of Akureyri town

Today (06-October-2020) an large landside took place on a farm far south of Akureyri town. There was no house damage in this landslide but a water well for the farm and other houses was destroyed in this landslide according to the news.

All pictures are from the police of Akureyri / north-east police.


Side view of the landslide.


Side view of the landslide.


Front view of the landslide.

It is unclear why this landslide took place according to the news. Some ideas have connected this landslides to the earthquake activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone but that connection is unclear at best.

Rúv News has a video that can be viewed below.

Aurskriðan í Eyjafirði mögulega vegna jarðskjálfta (Rúv.is, Icelandic)

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. I am broke in October since I had to buy new hard drives for my computers as the one I used had failed. Thanks for the support. 🙂

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Strong earthquake activity in Flatey – Húsavík fault on Tjörnes Fracture Zone

Early morning today (6-October-2020) an large earthquake swarm took place in Flatey – Húsavík fault in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Total of seven earthquakes with magnitude above Mw3,0 took place during the earthquake swarm this morning. Largest earthquake had a magnitude of Mw4,1 other magnitudes where smaller. Around 300 earthquakes took place during this earthquake swarm.


The earthquake activity on Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The largest earthquakes where felt and no damage was reported from this earthquake swarm. This earthquake swarm might be ongoing at the writing of this article. There is continued high risk of a earthquake with magnitude Mw6,0 to Mw7,0 in this area and on larger area in Tjörnes Fracture Zone because how complex the faults are in this area.

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. Due to hardware failures I am currently broke and that’s a problem for me in October. Thanks for the support. 🙂

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Icelandic Met Office adds new seismometers on Snæfellsnes peninsula

On Friday (2-October-2020) Icelandic Met Office announced on their Facebook page that they had added three new seismometers. This means that on the Icelandic Met Office Iceland map there are now going to start appearing earthquakes on Snæfellsnes peninsula and earthquakes when they happen in Westfjörd and other nearby areas out in the ocean and on land. Areas that have until now not had great detection of small earthquakes. This are just three seismometers so locations might be slightly inaccurate for the smallest earthquakes. But this is the first time that Snæfellsnes peninsula is being monitored all day directly. I don’t know where the new seismometers are located since they are not yet on the tremor plot website that Icelandic Met Office has.

The new seismometers on Snæfellsnes peninsula are going to show earthquakes if any from this volcanoes that are on Snæfellsnes peninsula.

Snæfellsjökull volcano
Ljósufjöll volcano
Helgrindur volcano