Today (12-November-2021) at 05:05 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,2 took place 3,3 km South West of Keilir mountain. This earthquake was felt up to Borgarnes town.
Continue reading “Earthquake not far from Keilir mountain this morning”
Volcano and earthquake activity in Iceland
Today (12-November-2021) at 05:05 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,2 took place 3,3 km South West of Keilir mountain. This earthquake was felt up to Borgarnes town.
Continue reading “Earthquake not far from Keilir mountain this morning”
Yesterday (28-October-2021) two earthquakes with magnitude of Mw3,6 and Mw3,0 took place west of Kleifarvatn lake (in Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system). The first earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,6 took place at 18:36 UTC and the second earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,0 took place at 23:11 UTC. Other earthquakes that took place where smaller in magnitude.
This earthquake activity seems to be connected to magma movements in the area. It has not yet and might not result in a eruption since this is in a different fissure area. It is unlikely that this activity is connected to the magma movements that are ongoing close to Fagradalsfjall mountain.
The earthquake swarm with Keilir mountain continues today (2-October-2021) and largest earthquake at the writing of this article had a magnitude of Mw4,2. This might change without warning.
Based on what I am seeing it is my view that magma is the reason why this earthquake activity is happening. The magma seems trapped, based on the earthquake activity and that is interesting. This suggest that the feeder channel, that possibly started at this location has closed up and that is the reason why the eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain stopped. At least that is the working idea, if it is true I don’t know.
Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management and Icelandic Met Office has warned people against going to Keilir mountain because of risk of volcano eruption or large earthquakes.
It is unclear at the writing of this article if there are changes to hydrothermal activity close to Keilir mountain. There have been reports about it, but they remain unconfirmed at the writing of this article.
There is now a risk of an earthquake with magnitude of Mw6,0 in the area of Keilir mountain. The earthquake activity shows a pattern of high and low activity every few hours. Why this happens is not well understood at the writing of this article.
On Saturday 25-September-2021 an earthquake swarm started close to Keilir mountain, at the writing of this article this earthquake swarm is ongoing.
The eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain has been having its longest quiet period since 19-March-2021 and at the writing of this article that is ongoing situation.
This earthquake activity suggest that the eruption time period in this part of the Reykjanes peninsula is not over, even if nothing is happening at the moment.
Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja is a volcano system is currently erupting in this area.
Article updated on 29-September-2021 at 11:49 UTC. Correct date of the earthquake swarm start added to the article.
Yesterday (15-September-2021) around 11:10 UTC a large lava cave just south of the crater in Geldingadalir had a roof collapse in a small area or a lava breakup in the surface. This resulted in the lava flow down Geldingadalir into Nátthagi. The flow covered Geldingadalir in less than 20 minutes. After that it did reach the barrier that stops it from going into Nátthagakriki, if that happens both walking path A and B are going to get closed forever or having to be redrawn from their current locations. Lava down that path also allows the lava flow to go in the direction of Grindavík town and nearby roads.
The lava flow yesterday did go down into Nátthagi but didn’t get far into there compared with the older lava it was flowing on top of. This sudden lava flow did put people in danger and shows that the lava field is full of dangerous caves that can collapse or burst open at any time without any warning. The lava flow that started yesterday is ongoing best to my knowledge. But the view has been limited due to fog and bad weather in Fagradalsfjall mountain this evening.
One or two idiots where seen walking on the crater rim yesterday and I think this are the same people that Icelandic coast guard had to transport from Gónhóll since they where unable to get back because of the new lava flow that had happened when they where there.
The crater is now ~334 meters above sea level high. Currently the crater is now growing in height but that can change without warning.
Pictures of this new lava flow are on social media. I can’t use them because of copyright but if searched they can be found and viewed. There are also some amount of videos of this lava flow on YouTube.
Fagradalsfjall mountain is part of Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system.
Added 10-January-2022
This article can be found in Spanish here.
This is unconfirmed so there might be number of other reasons why this is being observed. This also might be wrong reporting but based on web cameras that might not be the case. There has been some visual view of this on web cameras. Here are two pictures that I was able to screen grab from two of those cameras.
It is unclear what is going on and this might all be wrong. But I am also seeing this new light source on the web camera from mbl.is on YouTube as it peaks a little from behind the large crater in Fagradalsfjall mountain. That crater is not active at the moment.
I don’t know when confirmation is going to appear. If this is an eruption. If this is not an eruption, then there is going to be a confirmation of that too. I’ll post update here is I learn anything more in the next few hours.
Update 03:07 UTC 7-September-2021
The light on the second picture (on the right) is a human made light. I think it is the lighthouse. What is appearing on the thermal camera has not been identified.
Update 13:36 UTC 7-September-2021
This is wrong reporting that happened here. Nothing happened and what was seen on the thermal camera is most likely the heat from the crater. This type of wrong information happens every once in a while. Currently the main crater remains inactive and sulphur colours have started to appear on him from the sulphur outgassing that is now happening.
Article updated at 03:08 UTC on 7-September-2021
Article update at 13:39 UTC on 7-September-2021
This is a short update on the five month eruption day in the Fagradalsfjall mountain that is part of Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system.
There are no more updates of the eruption at the writing of this article. That might change without warning but I don’t know if that is going to happen.
This is a short update on the eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain that is part of Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system.
Fog has been blocking the view of the eruption today and I expect that is going to be the case tomorrow (17-August-2021) and maybe next few days. This fog makes it difficult to see what is going in the eruption.
This is a short update on what is going on the eruption in Fagradalsfjall mountain that is part of Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja volcano system.
This eruption remains small. Currently it is even smaller than Hekla volcano 2000 eruption that was the smallest eruption in Hekla in recorded history (according to the news). While the eruption remains this small the lava is not going to flow far or is going to do so slowly. Most of the lava is just going to build up next to the crater and next nearby area.
People continue to walk out in the lava and that is extremely dangerous. The lava field, where it is deep enough has large caves full of 1100C hot lava and if the roof breaks and people fall into it there is no saving anyone from this. Just break in the lava field crust allows for lava flows to break out with same deadly consequences.
This is possible mistaken reporting. There have been reporting of ash clouds or steam clouds off the coast during the evening of 7-August-2021. This would be in the volcano system Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja.
The ash cloud or steam cloud would indicate an activity off the coastline or possible eruption activity in the ocean. Explosive events like that appear a lot more clearly as harmonic tremor on SIL stations and according to news reports nothing has been seen so far in the harmonic tremor data. There have been no earthquake activity in the area where the clouds are supposed to have been seen.
The coast guard has been sent to this area, as they where nearby anyway. I don’t know if anything has been reported so far. The weather is fine in south Iceland and I don’t think there is a lot of ocean waves, but as this is the Atlantic ocean there can be ocean waves even if there is no wind, since the ocean waves can arrive from parts of the ocean with bad weather thousands of kilometres away.
If anything new is reported I am going to update this article or write a new one.