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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano on 13-October-2017

On Friday 13 of October 2017 there was an earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Largest earthquake in this activity had the magnitude of 3,1. Earlier earthquake had the magnitude of 2,9.


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

This latest earthquake is at an interesting location. This earthquake happens close to or inside the hydrothermal area in the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. This area has not seen a lot of earthquake activity in recent months. Magma at this location is at shallow depth as is shown by the hydrothermal activity. Geologists are estimating that magma is at around 1 km depth at the hydrothermal location. This hydrothermal vents have melted hundreds of meters of glacier already due to how energetic they are. The magnitude 2,9 earthquake took place in the normal north-east place in the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera rim. There is also a interesting cluster of earthquakes in the north part of the caldera happening in last few hours.

At the moment there isn’t anything that suggest that an eruption is imminent in Bárðarbunga volcano.

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Minor earthquake swarm on Kolbeinsey Island

Today (Sunday 08-October-2017) a minor earthquake swarm took place in Kolbeinsey Island. Only three earthquakes where detected, but that does not rule out that more earthquakes happened but where not detected due to distance from land and the SIL network.


The earthquake activity is marked by the green star to the north on this image. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake detected had the magnitude of 3,1 and the second largest earthquake detected had a magnitude of 2,1. Since 10:33 UTC this morning, that lack of activity does not rule out more activity in next few days.

New SIL station

I did see in the news today that Icelandic Met Office has added a new SIL station at Bjarnarey Island. This increases the earthquake resolution for Vestmannaeyjar area along with improving earthquake detection in Katla volcano and making it possible to detect small earthquakes deeper south of Iceland.

Icelandic news about the new SIL station, Jarðskjálftamælir í Bjarnarey að frumkvæði Vinnslustöðvarinnar (eyjafrettir.is).

Icelandic Met Office has also moved the SIL station in Vestmanneyjar Island around. The old location was not usable any more due to cultural noise from the population in Vestmannaeyjar Island.

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Sulphur smell felt from Múlakvísl glacier river

On the 3-October-2017 there was an increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano as I wrote about here. This activity was deeper than suspected as during the night there was an small harmonic spike as was mentioned in this comment here.

Today (08-October-2017) there was a news on Rúv about sulphur smell being detected and higher conductivity in Múlakvísl glacier river at the same time. The main idea is that one of the twenty cauldrons was emptying it self of hydrothermal melt water that builds up in them, resulting both in the increase conductivity and the harmonic tremor being detected as the cauldron empted it self. This does result in a minor glacier flood in Múlakvísl glacier river. I don’t know for sure what the case is here, but this type of activity has been happening consistently for the past few months in Katla volcano. Conductivity remains rather high in Múlakvísl glacier river according to latests automatic readings on Icelandic Met Office website.

Icelandic news on this

Brennisteinslykt á Mýrdalssandi (rúv.is)

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Ongoing earthquake swarm in Tjörnes fracture zone (TFZ)

Currently there is an ongoing earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. This earthquake swarm has been going on since 05-October-2017. Over 120 earthquakes have happened so far. Largest earthquakes have had the magnitude of 3,9 (05-October), 3,5 (06-October), 3,0 (06-October). There is a good chance that in recent hours a new magnitude 3,0 earthquake has happened or is going to happen.


The earthquake swarm in TFZ as of 23:15 UTC on 06-October-2017. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

The largest earthquake are felt by the local population in Grímsey Island and the magnitude 3,5 earthquake woke up the population last night (night of 06-October). No damage has happened so far in this earthquake swarm. I don’t know how far away from the population centre this earthquake swarm is happening but the distance is not that great. A 1 – 3 km at the most from the looks of it. Any large earthquakes are going to appear clearly on my geophones and they can be viewed here, the geophone station in Böðvarshólar gives the best signal if an earthquake with magnitude above 3,0 happens in TFZ.

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Article updated at 23:53 UTC. Minor text fixes.

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Earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano

On 05-October and 06-October-2017 there was an strong earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. The first earthquake had the magnitude of 3,7 on 5-October and the second earthquake had the magnitude of 3,4 on 6-October-2017. The first earthquake was in the south-west part of the caldera an area that for some reason does not see a lot of earthquake activity. The magnitude 3,4 earthquake was in the usual place of north-east part of the Bárðarbunga volcano caldera.


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

Few other earthquakes happened in this activity, they where all smaller in magnitude. Largest of the aftershocks had the magnitude of 2,2 and all other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude.

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Test article #2

This article is on the new server (I have confirmed that). Earlier test article is on the old server and does not appear on the new server.


Test image. Copyright of this image belongs to Jón Frímann Jónsson

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Magnitude 3,4 earthquake in Öræfajökull volcano

Today (03-October-2017) a magnitude 3,4 earthquake took place in Öræfajökull volcano. So far this earthquake has not resulted in any more earthquake activity.


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

This is the strongest earthquake in Öræfajökll volcano since the year 2005. This earthquake was felt on nearby farms and tourist areas.

Article updated at 00:41 UTC on 4-October-2017. Magnitude of the earthquake has been updated by Icelandic Met Office.

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Increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano

On the 01-October-2017 there was an increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano. This increase continues but bad weather is making it difficult to monitor this activity. The largest earthquakes so far had the magnitude of 2,6 (two) all other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude.


The earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

I have also started to detect low period earthquakes that are possibly from Katla volcano. The increase in that type of activity seems to follow increase in earthquake activity in Katla volcano. Why that happens is not known to me. For the past 48 hours the activity seems to be lower then two days ago, but the weather is bad in the area preventing good detection of small earthquakes in Katla volcano. It also seems that the bad weather has damaged Goðabunga SIL station. It might take a while until Icelandic Met Office can fix Goðabunga SIL station.

Server upgrade

In the next few days the server for this website is going to be upgraded and moved to United Kingdom since it is slightly cheaper to host it there. I don’t have the exact date on the transfer. I just hope it happens without a problem. If everything remains quiet this should happen without anyone noticing much. I expect the response of this website and everything else that I host to be quicker after the server upgrade.


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Earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone (east of Grímsey Island)

Yesterday (01-October-2017) an earthquake swarm took place in Tjörnes Fracture Zone east of Grímesy Island. Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2,6 all other earthquakes where smaller in magnitude.


The earthquake swarm in Tjörnes Fracture Zone yesterday. Copyright of this image belong to Icelandic Met Office.

Around 55 earthquakes happened in this swarm that appears to be over. This part of Tjörnes Fracture Zone is highly active and has several earthquake swarm every year.

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Continued earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

On 28 and 29th of September 2017 an earthquake activity took place in Öræfajökull volcano. Most of the earthquake that have happened are minor in magnitude, one magnitude 2,5 earthquake took place and on 29th September a magnitude 2,0 earthquake took place, this is automatic magnitude and might not be correct. The depth of this earthquake is the default one (1,1km).


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

It is extremely difficult to know what this earthquake activity means if it means anything at all. The reason being that this might be part of Öræfajökull volcano normal activity that is not going to result in a eruption. There currently is no way to know for sure what this means, since last eruption took place in the year 1728 and proper monitoring of Öræfajökull volcano only started few years ago. Current activity is however slightly above normal background activity that can be expected from a volcano like Öræfajökull volcano.