Magnitude 4,6 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

At 00:08 UTC on 23-October-2018 a magnitude 4,6 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. This is the strongest earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano for at least three months. A second earthquake with a magnitude of 3,5 happened at 00:12 UTC. This earthquake activity had earlier smaller earthquakes happening in Bárðarbunga volcano. It started yesterday (22-October-2018) with few minor earthquakes.


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

Other earthquakes in this earthquake activity were smaller in magnitude. This type of earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano is now common after the end of the eruption in 2015.

Update on 24-October-2018

Icelandic Met Office has revised the magnitude of few of the earthquakes that happened in Bárðarbunga volcano. Now the magnitudes of the largest earthquakes are magnitude 3,9, magnitude 4,6 and magnitude 3,5.


Updated map of the earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

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Article updated at 15:17 UTC on 24-October-2018.

Earthquake swarm north of Kolbeinsey island

Today (19-October-2018) a earthquake swarm took place north of Kolbeinsey island. Due to distance from the SIL network only the largest earthquakes are being recorded.


Earthquake swarm north of Kolbeinsey island (green star). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake detected so far has a magnitude of 3,3 and the second largest has a magnitude of 3,0. Other earthquakes that are being detected are smaller in magnitude but all are over 2,5 in magnitude. The sensitivity of the SIL network isn’t good this far from the coastline. It is unclear if this earthquake swarm is ongoing or not.

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Earthquake activity continues in Öræfajökull volcano

Earthquake activity continues in Öræfajökull volcano as before. Earthquake swarm happen now every few days and most of them are minor in terms of magnitude and number of earthquakes that happen. Today (15-Ocotober-2018) the largest earthquake that happened in Öræfajökull volcano had a magnitude of 2,1 and 1,5. Other earthquakes are smaller in magnitude.


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

This earthquake activity is due to magma flowing into Öræfajökull volcano at depth. What that depth is unclear at the moment. This earthquake activity happens in pluses with quiet period between them.

Update on the donation for new hardware

Thanks to donations last week I almost have all the money to buy a Raspberry Shake seismometer. I am still missing around ~268€ in order to buy the Raspberry Shake station. With this new hardware I am going to be able to provide a lot better data from what I currently have. This includes I hope a spectrograph of an earthquake (I need a linux computer for this. I’ll set one up once I’ve moved to Spain). I can’t do that with my current old hardware and software. For those that have donated already. Thanks so much for the support. 🙂

Earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula

Today (3-Ocotber-2018) there has been a earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula. Most earthquakes have been small and not found, but the largest earthquake in this earthquake swarm had a magnitude of 3,2.


The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Peninsula. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The largest earthquake was felt in the blue lagoon. It seems that this earthquake swarm has stopped for now.

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Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull and Bárðarbunga volcanoes

This is article is set-up in this way to save me some time due to the fact that I have to go to work tomorrow at 07:00 UTC (this is until 23rd October 2018).

Öræfajökull volcano

Since yesterday (01-October-2018) there has been a earthquake swarm in Öræfajökull volcano. There has been several dozen earthquakes in this earthquake swarm. Most of them are small. Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of 3,1 and was felt on nearby farms (there is no town or village close to Öræfajökull volcano). This earthquake swarm is currently ongoing.

Bárðarbunga volcano

A magnitude 3,0 and 3,6 earthquakes happened in Bárðarbunga volcano today. The smaller earthquake happened early in the morning but he larger one at 13:08 UTC. There hasn’t been any large amount of earthquake activity following this earthquakes. This is now the normal pattern of Bárðarbunga volcano since the eruption 2014 – 2015 (Holuhraun).


Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga and Öræfajökull volcanoes. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

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Minor earthquake swarms in Öræfajökull volcano

An earthquake swarm started in Öræfajökull volcano yesterday (26-September-2018). Largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of 1,2. Other earthquakes had a magnitude of 0,0 and up to 0,5.


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

This earthquake activity is because of magma is moving inside Öræfajökull volcano. This movement is mostly slow and often stops at times. This is going to continue for a long while longer in current phase. There is no risk of eruption in Öræfajökull volcano at the moment.

Donations

Please remember to support my work with donations. At the moment I am trying to save up for Raspberry Shake sensor to replace my current hardware that Böðvarshólar geophone station. The computer I used has already failed and I am currently using temporarily set-up (it often fails). I’ve gotten some donations but not enough to buy the Raspberry Shake sensor I need. Please see pinned article for more details. Thanks for the support. 🙂

Social Media

I have made the decision to open up my social media a little more. This is only the social media that I use to post pictures to. I can be followed on Twitter using the twitter buttons on the side on this website. If you only want geology information please use Iceland geology twitter. I retweet a lot of stuff on my regular twitter.

My Instagram can be found here (username jonfr500)
My Snapchat is jonfr500

Magnitude 3,0 earthquake in Öræfajökull volcano

This evening (21-September-2018) at 21:15 UTC a magnitude 3,0 earthquake happened in Öræfajökull volcano. This was followed by a swarm of earthquakes and largest earthquake after the magnitude 3,0 earthquake had a magnitude of 1,4 so far.


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

I expect the largest earthquake to have been felt in nearby farms that are close to Öræfajökull volcano (some are in it roots). In recent weeks the magnitude of earthquakes in Öræfajökull volcano has slowly been moving upwards. This change is not by much at the moment.

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Magnitude 4,2 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (14-September-2018) at 10:40 UTC an magnitude 4,2 earthquake took place in Bárðarbunga volcano. Second largest earthquake in this swarm had a magnitude of 2,9. Other earthquakes that happened were smaller in magnitude.


Green star is the magnitude 4,2 earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity is normal for Bárðarbunga volcano as it continues to inflate after the eruption 2014 – 2015. At the moment the rate of this magnitude earthquake seems to be around 1 earthquake each month. It seems that rate of earthquakes is continuing to drop and soon it is going to be one to two earthquakes a year like this in Bárðarbunga volcano.

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Earthquake swarm on Reykjanes peninsula (Bláfjöll area) [updated]

Earthquake swarm started today (13-September-2018) in Bláfjöll area. This earthquake swarm continued today with only minor earthquakes. At 20:17 UTC an earthquake with magnitude 4,1 happened in Bláfjöll area. This earthquake was felt over a wide area.


Earthquake swarm in Bláfjöll area. Green star is the magnitude 4,1 earthquake. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake swarm appears to be ongoing. There is a possibility that more earthquakes with magnitude above 3,0 might happen in next few hours to days.

Update 14-September-2018

Icelandic Met Office has updated the earthquakes in this area. Two earthquakes happened yesterday. One with magnitude 4,1 and one with magnitude 4,2. There are only few seconds between the earthquakes.


The new image of the earthquake activity in Bláfjöll area. Green stars are the two earthquakes that were felt. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

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Article updated on 14-September-2018 at 13:21 UTC.

Katla volcano releases massive amount of CO2 daily

According to new study into CO2 release of Katla volcano the amount released by the volcano is massive. According to the news on Rúv the daily amount released of CO2 is 20 kiloton (1 kiloton = 1000 tons). What is not known today is if this high release of CO2 is constant or if it fluctuates during the year. More reaches is needed into that possible.

I don’t know how much magma is needed for this amount of CO2 release from Katla volcano. What I do know is that it is not little amount of magma inside Katla volcano. Largest documented eruption in Katla volcano had a VEI size of 5. The Eldgjá eruption in 934 was more lava than volcano ash and that was the largest eruption in Katla volcano for a long time. It is not possible to predict an eruption in Katla volcano or any other volcano with good precision.

This makes Katla volcano the 3rd largest CO2 releasing volcano in the world.

Rúv News in Icelandic

Kvikusöfnun í Kötlu (Rúv.is, Icelandic)


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Please remember to support my work with donations. I am also trying to buy new hardware and I need donations for that so I can continue providing webicorders with close to real time information about earthquake activity in Iceland. Thanks for the support. 🙂