Category: Hamarinn

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Sharp rise in harmonic tremor on Skrokkalda and Grímsfjall SIL station (among others)

There is a sharp rise in harmonic tremor on the Skrokkalda and Grímsfjall SIL station. I do not know yet what volcano is responsible for it. But the Hamarinn volcano is a suspect at the moment.

Current tremor plot.


The tremor spike is at the end of this tremor plot. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.


The tremor spike is at the end of this tremor plot. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

I am going to post more information about what is going on when I know more. This blog post might get updated soon if needed.

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Interesting earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano system (Hamarinn volcano)

At 02:06 and 02:07 UTC there where interesting earthquakes in Bárðarbunga volcano system. What makes them interesting is that fact they did happen at 0.6 km depth one of them. But this area did see some volcano related activity (speculated) earlier this summer, that did result in large glacier flood. But it has been suggested that a minor eruption took place there around 10. July 2011.


The two earthquakes can be seen as spikes at the end of this tremor plot from Icelandic Met Office. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

What makes this earthquakes so interesting is that they seem to have a low period component in them. But it was seen on the Kálfafell SIL station, and other SIL station that was decent distance from the source of the earthquake.


The two earthquakes can be seen as spikes at the end of this tremor plot from Icelandic Met Office. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Currently there is nothing that suggests that a eruption is about to start in this area. But that can change without warning given the current status of Hamarinn volcano system.

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Glacier flood has started in Skaftá river

The latests news is that a glacier flood has started in Skaftá river. At the moment this glacier flood does not appear to be big, as there was also a glacier flood in this river last year. Because of this short time, there has not been a lot of water collected in the western cauldron that is emptying now. It was clear today that it was the western cauldron that had emptied when scientists did fly over the area earlier today.

This glacier flood is often early event and has been since the year 1955. Following this glacier flood there is often spike in harmonic tremor because magma goes on the move due to sudden pressure release in this area. So far it has not been able to trigger a eruption in Hamarinn volcano. It remains to be seen if that has changed or not.

Icelandic News about this

Hlaup hafið í Skaftá (Rúv.is, Pictures, Icelandic)
Rennsli eykst í Skaftá (Vísir.is)
Hlaupið komið í Skaftá (mbl.is)

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No glacier flood yet from Hamarinn volcano, but it is on it’s way

At current time (around 20:30 UTC) it has been observed that no glacier flood has started in Skaftá river. But the glacier flood is expected to start in the river around midnight, but the river might start to grow around 19:00 to 21:00 UTC. According to latest news the river has however started to get darker and conductivity in the water has started rise since this morning, but that was the signal that a glacier flood was about to start. Glacier flood tremor have also been dropping in the last few hours according to the latests news that I have seen (but I am hoping for a update on that detail).

The source of this glacier flood is a hydrothermal area in Hamarinn volcano (part of Bárðarbunga volcano). This area also did have a glacier flood last year. But last year there where two glacier floods in Skaftá river in June 2010, see reports here in Iceland at Icelandic Met Office web page.

This hydrothermal area in Hamarinn volcano is in two cauldrons in the Vatnajökull glacier. With time they fill with water that then breaks ice when the pressure is enough in the cauldrons due to water levels. It remains a question if the surprise glacier flood earlier this month from Hamarinn volcano has something to do with this. But at current time that is only speculation. But if the hydrothermal area is unusually highly active, or there has been some change it is hard to know for sure the size of this glacier flood.

Currently however the experts are expecting a small glacier flood due the fact there where two glacier floods from this area last year. But we however have to wait until midnight until we know what is the actual size of this glacier flood.

Icelandic News about this

Skaftárhlaup ekki enn hafið (Rúv.is)
Skaftárhlaupið komið í byggð eftir sólarhring (Vísir.is)
Engin merki um hlaup ennþá (mbl.is)

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Small harmonic tremor spike from Hamarinn volcano

There seems to be a small harmonic tremor spike taking place in Hamarinn volcano (Bárðarbunga volcano) at the moment. This tremor spike is not strong at the moment. This tremor spike appears to have been pre-seeded by few long period earthquakes (not all of the earthquakes seen on Skrokkalda are from Hamarinn volcano, few are from Katla volcano), but that suggests that magma is on the move in Hamarinn volcano. But this would the second harmonic tremor in a time period of 48 hours it seems.


The harmonic tremor spikes can be seen at the end of this tremor plot. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Currently it is impossible to know what happens in Hamarinn volcano. As it’s pre-eruption behaviour is rather unknown. But if there is a eruption in this area I am expecting a lot of earthquakes, with size well over ML3.0.

Blog post updated at 16:20 UTC.

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Possible minor eruption in Hamarinn volcano yesterday. Update on Katla volcano

There appears to be more in this new hydrothermal activity in Hamarinn volcano then at first sight. It seems that this actually might have a eruption in Hamarinn volcano (Bárðarbunga volcano). If this event is confirmed, this is the first eruption in Hamarinn volcano since the year 1910.

This also mean that there is a chance of more activity in this area in coming weeks or months. But when it might happen is impossible to know.


The new cauldrons are marked with a “X” on this map. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This eruption was really small and did just last for few hours. But it was able to melt a lot of ice and create rather large glacier flood from Vatnajökull glacier. If the activity resumes in this area this is going to repeat it self in terms of glacier flood.

Icelandic News about this event.

Innskot af kviku (Rúv.is, Icelandic)
Eldgos gæti hafa brotist upp við Hamarinn (Vísir.is, Icelandic, Pictures)
Fundu nýjan sigketil (mbl.is, Icelandic, Pictures)

Sigketill við Lokahrygg (Icelandic Met Office, Icelandic, Pictures)

Update on Katla volcano

Here is a short update on Katla volcano. There have been repeated short burst of harmonic tremors taking place inside the Katla volcano caldera. This harmonic tremor spikes have been small and they are hard to see on the harmonic tremor graph that Icelandic Met Office has on-line. Other then this it has been quiet so far in Katla volcano.

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New hydrothermal area found in Vatnajökull glacier

After the glacier flood that took place last night and today the source of this flood has finally been found. According to the news the source of this flood is a new hydrothermal area inside the Bárðarbunga fissure swarm. But this new hydrothermal area is located in Hamarinn volcano (also known lokahryggur or Loki-fögrufjöll), sadly the news does not say exactly where it is located. Just that it located in western Vatnajökull glacier. This flood did go down the river Sveðju and into the Hágöngulón lake (human made lake) that did swallow it whole according to the news. The overflow after the dam lake was full did go into an even larger natural lake, that did not feel any effects of this glacier flood.

In terms of size this glacier flood was larger then the glacier flood in Mýrdalsjökull glacier last week. But that was only about 2000 m3/sec, but this was somewhere around 2200 m3/sec. But this are the numbers that I have seen in the news. But this are not confirmed numbers and might be subject to change on later date.

Other then this activity. It has been rather quiet in Iceland in terms of earthquake and volcano activity.

Icelandic news about this.

Áður óþekkt jarðhitasvæði fundið (Rúv.is, Icelandic)
Virkjunarlónin gleyptu gríðarstóra flóðbylgjuna (Vísir.is, Icelandic)

Órói við Lokahrygg í Vatnajökli (Icelandic Met Office, Icelandic, Pictures)

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Glacier flood confirmed from Vatnajökull glacier, flood is from Hamarinn volcano (Loki-Fögrufjöll area)

The harmonic tremor that started yesterday has been confirmed to be coming from Hamarinn volcano (Bárðarbunga volcano), but they are also known as Loki-Fögrufjöll in GVP database.

So far there is nothing that indicates an eruption is taking place at the moment in Hamarinn volcano. But that might change without warning. At the moment nobody is sure where the glacier flood is coming from. But this appears to be a new area of hydrothermal activity in Hamarinn volcano that is releasing water at the moment. This new hydrothermal area is most likely created by new dike intrusions into the bed rock in the affected area. There are no pictures of the affected area, as the area is impassible to air plains at the moment due to cloud cover or fog. Lack of earthquakes also makes it hard to locate the source of this glacier flood.

Currently the glacier flood has peaked and is getting lower. There not expected to be any damage from this glacier flood on human structures or roads. This area of Iceland is unpopulated. The water is going into large lakes in the area where the effects of this glacier flood are almost none. The glacier flood did flow into a dam lake that is collecting water from rivers that this glacier flood did go into. This did make the lake rise about 70 cm in several hours and fill it. No damage is expected from this glacier flood to the dam or other structures in this area connected to the dam. But it is estimated that 26 gigaliters did flow into the dam lake during the night from this glacier flood.


Harmonic tremor at 12:59 UTC, this is Skrokkalda SIL station. At this time it had been dropping down. But starting to rise again after that when this is written. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.


This is the harmonic tremor at 12:59 UTC on Grímsfjall SIL station. It is bit hard to see it due high background noise on this SIL station. Copyright of this picture belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

So far this is just a glacier flood and nothing else. But that might change if an eruption starts in this area. But that is no way certain that it is going to happen now. We just have to wait and see what happens in Hamarinn volcano.

Icelandic News about this.

Hágöngulón fylltist í hlaupinu (mbl.is, Icelandic)
Hlaup undan Köldukvíslarjökli (mbl.is, Icelandic)
Jökulhlaup undan Vatnajökli (Vísir.is, Icelandic)
Hlaupið í rénun (Vísir.is, Icelandic)
Órói við Vatnajökul (Rúv.is, Icelandic)
Flóð undan Vatnajökli (Rúv.is, Icelandic)

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New harmonic tremor detected. But it is not from Katla volcano

Some other and unknown volcano dedicated to join the spotlight in Iceland by starting making it’s own harmonic tremor. I do not yet know what volcano this is. But most likely it is the Hamarinn volcano. But that is part of Bárðarbunga volcano.


Skrokkalda SIL stations 07:49 UTC this morning. The first harmonic tremor spike seen on that SIL station. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.


Skrokkalda SIL station 19:09 UTC. The third harmonic tremor spike in progress when this graph was saved. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

I do not know what volcano is making this noise since there are no earthquakes. But I now find this most likely to be an dike intrusion somewhere close to Skrokkalda SIL stations. Other volcanoes that might be creating this harmonic tremor is the volcano Tungnafellsjökull volcano or the volcano that Skrokkalda SIL station actually is on top of.

But both of those volcanoes have been dormant for an long time now. So I find that to be unlikely, but not impossible. Until a earthquakes happens or something else that actually shows the area of activity in question. This is all just a guess work out in the blue.

Update 1: There is more going on there now then when this first did start. I did record an earthquake from this harmonic tremor around 00:30 UTC. This earthquake was extremely low period as can be seen on this picture.


This earthquake took place around 00:30 UTC on 13. July 2011. It is filtered at 1Hz and is extremely long period earthquake. This suggests that magma did create this earthquake. This picture is released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. See the Creative Commons Licence web page for more information.

Blog post updated at 01:02 UTC on 13. July 2011.

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Possibility of dike intrusion in Hamarinn volcano

It appears that there is a chance of a dike intrusion in Hamarinn volcano (Loki-Fögrufjöll area). What suggest that there is a dike intrusion starting in Hamarinn volcano is a earthquake swarm that is unusually dense and has a really narrow area. But normal earthquake swarms usually spread over a small area in the align of the fault line.

How this is developing is a good question. But due to lack of earthquakes it is hard to know for sure at the moment. But at the moment it is worth to keep eye on Hamarinn volcano area.