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Two earthquake swarms in Tjörnes Fracture Zone (TFZ)

Over the last few days there has been small earthquake swarm activity in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. The activity has been in two locations, west of Kópasker village and east of Grímsey island (ongoing swarm). Both earthquake swarms are small for now and only few earthquakes larger than magnitude 2,0 have happened. Total number of earthquakes is around 146 for the whole Tjörnes Fracture Zone when this article is written.


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

The earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island is not over as it has not yet peaked based on what I am seeing. It is more difficult to know about the earthquake swarm west of Kópasker village. As of writing of this article both earthquake swarms are ongoing.

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Update on the earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island in Nafir volcano

This is a short update on the earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island in the Nafir volcano (no Global Volcanism Program profile). Yesterday (19-March-2019) a magnitude 3,2 earthquake happened. Other earthquakes both before and after it are smaller in magnitude. In total over 200 earthquakes appear to have taken place in this earthquake swarm.


Earthquake activity yesterday (19-March-2019) in Nafir volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Earthquake activity has currently stopped. Based on the pattern in the earthquake swarm last year this might not be over and this might be going on for weeks until a peak is reached in earthquake swarm activity. It is impossible to know for sure what happens next in this earthquake activity in this area.

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Earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island (Tjörnes Fracture Zone)

During the night of 18-March-2019 an earthquake swarm started east of Grímsey island in a volcano called Nafir (no Global Volcanism Program profile). The only GVP profile that exists is about the volcano south of this one (GVP profile can be found here). The volcano in this area doesn’t have any documented eruption history in recent 10.000+ years. This might be wrong due to lack of research. In 2018 there was a strong earthquake swarm in this area. Articles connected to that earthquake swarm can be read here. Top of the earthquake activity on 19th of February 2018 looked like this as I wrote in a article last year. Current earthquake activity suggests a repeat of last year activity, only time is going to show if this does happen, but clues are strong in that direction. Earthquake activity in this area is complex and this is a rift valley it is taking place in.


The earthquake swarm east of Grímsey island in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake so far has the magnitude of 3,3 and other earthquakes are smaller in magnitude. Currently around 55 earthquakes have been recorded. The earthquake swarm is ongoing even if current rate of earthquakes is low.

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Earthquake activity in Presthnjúkar volcano (south Langjökull glacier)

Yesterday (16-March-2019) an earthquake swarm took place in Presthnjúkar volcano (south-Langjökull) or a volcano connected to it (there is a chance this volcano does not have a Global Volcanism Program profile). This earthquake swarm has been slow moving and only around 21 earthquakes have taken place in this earthquake swarm.


The earthquake swarm in Langjökull glacier. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of 3,0 and other earthquakes that took place were smaller in magnitude. It is unclear why this earthquake activity is taking place, there is a chance this is just a tectonic movement. Last eruption in this volcano took place more than 5000 years ago. It appears that this earthquake swarm is now over. There is always a possibility that new earthquake swarm is going to start at the same or close to this earthquake swarm location.

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Strong earthquake swarm deep on Reykjanes ridge

Today (10-March-2019) strong earthquake swarm started deep on the Reykjanes ridge. The distance from Reykjavík is around 840 km. Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of Mw5,8 (EMSC information here). Only three earthquakes where detected and all of them where large than magnitude 5,0. There is a good chance this earthquake swarm is currently ongoing. It is not possible to know if an eruption is happening this far from the coastline. Depth at this location is 3 to 6 km. There is a good chance more earthquake are going to appear on this location in next few hours to days because of the large Mw5,8 earthquake.

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Earthquake 30 km north west of Vestmanneyjar islands

Today (5-March-2019) at 12:59 UTC a magnitude 3,2 earthquake took place 30,6 km north west of Vestmannaeyjar islands. This was a single earthquake and no aftershocks have happened since this earthquake took place.


The earthquake (green star). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

At this location there are no known fault lines or active volcanoes. This is possibly a intra-plate earthquake. They do happen every few months somewhere in Iceland and most of them are not detected or felt.

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Strong earthquake swarm in Bárðarbunga volcano (not high number of earthquakes)

This morning (4-March-2019) a strong earthquake swarm took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest earthquake had a magnitude of 4,1 (at 05:52 UTC), second largest had a magnitude of 3,8 (at 05:46 UTC) and the third largest earthquake had a magnitude of 3,3 (at 06:03 UTC). Other earthquakes were smaller in magnitude.


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

Total of eight earthquakes where recorded in this swarm. This earthquake swarm is slightly unusual because its only been two weeks since a magnitude 4,2 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This are inflation related earthquakes, since Bárðarbunga volcano has been inflating since end of the eruption in Holuhraun in February 2015. This process is going to continue until next eruption happens in Bárðarbunga volcano system. This process can be at shortest be 1 year and at the longest this can take 104 years. I base this on Bárðarbunga volcano known eruption history. Details can be found in Global Volcanism Program information website about Bárðarbunga volcano.

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Donations needed for March

I am once again having money issues. The reason now is that I moved to a new dedicated server in February and I am paying down my debt at a rather fast rate (so I can finish paying what I owe the bank this year), normally there is a thin balance in this, it just doesn’t take a lot to upset that balance. It isn’t free to run this website and never has been. I did try to use Amazon as an advertising revenue since Google Adsense never did work well enough for me I felt (Google is difficult when moving between countries as I’ve been doing). I do get social welfare from Iceland but since Iceland is the most expensive country in Europe (source) that income doesn’t go that far from me. I made the chose to reduce the Amazon advertisement since I was not getting a lot or sometimes no income from having those advertisement. It continues to be possible to support my work by using Amazon. It is now on the page Support via Amazon, there are all the advertising banners that need to be clicked before item is bought from Amazon. I get a small precent of each item sale price (buying an item and returning it does not work, if an item is returned what I get is just withdrawn from my Amazon account).

I don’t need many 10 and 20 euro donations to help me with the month of March or any other month of the year. Donations also help me doing daily things, like buying food and feel less stressed with the money problems that I am having. There is a lot of work that I put into this website and monitoring what is going on, even if I am having major hardware issues at the moment due to failed computers (motherboards) that limit what I can do (it is not possible to send me hardware to Iceland due to costs, donation for that are welcome, please mark them with a written note).

I don’t want to set-up Patreon as many people have done to support them self in the creative works. The reason for that is I don’t have any way to offer rewards as is often on Patreon and I feel that PayPal and direct bank donations are just good enough (for people that don’t use PayPal).

Thanks for the support. 🙂

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Strong earthquake swarm 100 km north of Kolbeinsey island

During the night of 28-February-2019, starting on 27-February-2019 an strong earthquake swarm took place 100 km north of Kolbeinsey island. I don’t know if this was just a earthquake swarm or an eruption. The area is far from the coast and remote because of that. Depth of the ocean at this location is around 1 to 3 km and that makes any eruption invisible on the surface of the ocean.


Green stars show the location of the earthquake swarm. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of 4,3 (at 07:43 UTC) and second largest earthquake had a magnitude of 4,1 (at 07:37 UTC). Total number of earthquakes with magnitude above 3,0 was 16 at last review from Icelandic Met Office. I don’t know the total number of earthquakes recorded in this earthquake swarm. A lot of earthquakes where not detected because of distance from the SIL network. It looks like this earthquake swarm is over. Since there hasn’t been any earthquake activity detected for the last few hours.

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Earthquake with magnitude (Mw) 4,2 in Bárðarbunga volcano

Yesterday (23-February-2019) a earthquake with the magnitude Mw 4,2 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This earthquake was in the north-east location of the caldera. This is the location were most earthquakes happen in Bárðarbunga volcano. There appears to have been a foreshock this time with a magnitude of 2,7.


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

I can’t provide wave image of the earthquake since my main earthquake computer is broken and I can’t afford for the moment getting a new one (+Windows 10 Pro licence). I hope to get a new computer this summer for this task along with switching to Raspberry Shake seismometer.

EMSC/USGS show the magnitude as 4,5 this happens due to difference method used for calculate the magnitude of this earthquake.

Update

I did manage to get the earthquake trace data from the remote station that handles it.


The earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano. This image is under Creative Commons licence. Please see CC Licence page for more details.

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Article updated on 25-February-2019. Image of the earthquake added.