Category: Reykjanes Ridge

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Strong earthquake swarm deep on the Reykjanes ridge

Yesterday (11-January-2018) at 09:46 and 09:50 UTC two strong earthquakes took place around 780 km deep south west of Iceland. The earlier earthquake had a magnitude of Mw5,4 (EMSC information here) and the second earthquake had a magnitude of mb4,9 (EMSC information here).


Earthquake activity deep south of Iceland (green stars). Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Icelandic Met Office reports in total 7 earthquakes, including the two largest ones that EMSC did record but with lower magnitude. The EMSC magnitude is the correct one. This earthquake swarm starts at 08:37 UTC with a magnitude 4,0 earthquake. It ends at 11:11 UTC with a magnitude 3,6 earthquake. The exact location of this swarm is difficult to know due to the distance it is from any earthquake monitoring network. It is also difficult to know for sure what is going on at this location but the earthquake data suggests that this was just a normal earthquake swarm and not connected to any volcano activity. At this distance smaller earthquakes are not detected (below magnitude of Mw3,6).

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Magnitude 5,9 earthquake deep on the on the Reykjanes ridge on 10-September-2017

Yesterday (10-September-2017) at 21:40 UTC a magnitude (Mw) 5,9 earthquake (EMSC information here) took place deep south on the Reykjanes ridge. No aftershocks have appeared on USGS or EMSC that I am aware of. They must have happened but due to distance from land this earthquake activity was not detected.


The magnitude 5.9 earthquake deep on the Reykjanes ridge as it appeared on my geophone in Böðvarshólar. This image is under Creative Commons licence. Please see CC licence page for more details.


The magnitude 5.9 earthquake deep on the Reykjanes ridge as it appeared on my geophone in Heklubyggð. This image is under Creative Commons licence. Please see CC licence page for more details.

The distance this earthquake took place from Reykjavík is 1004 km. Only thing it did was to scare some fish at most. It is impossible to know if anything more happens at this location. It might or it might not.

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Article updated on 12-September-2017 at 00:56 UTC. Added a link that I had forgotten.

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Minor earthquake swarm on Reykjanes ridge close to Geirfuglasker island

Yesterday (22-August-2017) a minor earthquake swarm took place not far from Geirfulgasker island on the Reykjanes ridge (no GVP profile). This was a minor earthquake swarm as it was detected by Icelandic Met Office SIL network. There is a chance that more earthquakes happened then where detected. Largest earthquakes in this swarm had the magnitude of 2,4 and other earthquakes that happened where smaller in magnitude.


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

This earthquake swarm looks like it was mostly due to tectonic movements in this area. It is difficult to know for sure if a magma was at work here due to unclear earthquake signal. It can’t be ruled out. I don’t know when this area last erupted. I think it was sometimes in the time period between 13th and 15th century.

Update 1 on 24-August-2017

According to Rúv News the Geirfluglasker Island collapsed in 1972 but for some reason was still being used by Icelandic Met Office as a point in their system. It has now been updated to Eldeyjarboða area slightly more to the south. I will write about this are in accordance with this new information in the future.

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Amazon US/Canada changes

Due to changes in Iceland bank system it is possible that I won’t be able to use Amazon US and Amazon Canada for a while. The change is that my Icelandic bank is going to stop processing checks from 1-January-2018 (along with stop issuing them). I can keep using Amazon US and Amazon Canada advertisements until October (paid by November). I have contacted Amazon US and Canada about this and the word is that Amazon US is working on this. It doesn’t seems to be the case with Amazon Canada but I don’t get much income on it anyway.

What this means at once this change takes place I will go back to getting paid only when people buy something from Amazon UK/DE/ES since with those accounts I use direct bank deposit. This means a drop in income for me since the Amazon CPM advertisement pay considerable more than the advertisement that only pay once people buy something with the Amazon UK/DE/ES banners. I just have to hope that Amazon Europe adds CPM advertisements to Amazon UK/DE/ES so I can switch to it completely. I will start switching advertisement to Amazon UK/DE/ES by November if Amazon US has not resolved the issue by then. It is going to take me few days in November to move everything advertisement from CPM to regular advertisements that only pay when something is bought trough the banners.

Update to Amazon US/Canada payment problem (after 31-December-2017)

Amazon US is looking for a solution to this problem for international associates. Since this issue is not just hitting me. Europe has in general been making checks outdated, this applies not just in Iceland and Denmark. EU even makes a special note on this on their payment information website. What I am going to do is simple. I’ll just keep collecting payments on my Amazon US and Amazon Canada accounts until a new payment system is put in place by Amazon US/Canada. I don’t know how long this is going to take, but it might take a long while until Amazon US/Canada has a new payment system in place.

Article updated at 24-August-2017 at 18:35 UTC.
Article updated at 26-August-2017 at 14:15 UTC.

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Minor earthquake swarm on Reykjanes ridge not far off the coast

Yesterday (14-August-2017) and today (15-August-2017) there has been a minor earthquake activity around 60 km off the coast on Reykjanes ridge. The area has a volcano (not named as such), but the area is often named after island named Eldeyjarboði.


The earthquake activity close to Eldeyjarboði on Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake in this swarm so far had the magnitude of 2,8 and other earthquakes have been smaller in magnitude. There is a chance this earthquake swarm might increase in magnitude and number of earthquakes. The Icelandic Met Office SIL network has slight problem properly locating earthquakes at this distance (~60 km). Last eruption in this area took place on 1.May-1783 when a new island called Nýey was formed, it vanished few weeks later. Information on Wikipedia in Icelandic only (second language is Danish) can be found here.

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Please remember to support my work with donations. This month like any other month in 2017 and until the end of the year 2017 I am really broke. First part of 2018 is going to be better but I won’t get rid of this being broke until July-2018 and after that I should be free of my current money problems. Thanks for the support. 🙂

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Magnitude 4,3 earthquake on the Reykjanes ridge today (19.04.2017)

Today (19.04.2017) at 12:34 UTC an earthquake with the magnitude of 4,3 took place on the Reykjanes ridge. This earthquake was felt in Keflavík town and nearby areas. A swarm of aftershocks followed, none of them was above magnitude 3,0. Largest aftershock had the magnitude of 2,9.


The earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge. Green star is the location of the magnitude 4,3 earthquake. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity appears to be normal rifting activity in line with earlier earthquakes like this that have been happening deeper on the Reykjanes ridge over the past few weeks. There is a good chance that new earthquake activity is going to happen in this same area or nearby area in next days to months.


The earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Heklubyggð. This image is released under Creative Commons Licence. Please see CC Licence website for more details.

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Strong earthquake swarm on Reykjanes Ridge yesterday (02.03.2017)

Yesterday (02.March.2017) there was an strong earthquake swarm on Reykjanes Ridge. This earthquake swarm took place around 540 km away from the coast of Iceland. The largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,9 (EMSC information here), the second largest earthquake had the magnitude of 4,4 (EMSC information here). It is unclear what started this earthquake activity, nothing suggests that an eruption started and at this distance nobody would notice. The depth in this area is such that a ship might not get any surface clues about what is happening deep in the ocean.


The magnitude 4,4 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Böðvarshólar. This image is under Creative Commons Licence, please see CC licence for more details.


The magnitude 4,4 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Heklubyggð. This image is under Creative Commons Licence, please see CC licence for more details.


The magnitude 4,9 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Böðvarshólar. This image is under Creative Commons Licence, please see CC licence for more details.


The magnitude 4,9 earthquake as it appeared on my geophone in Heklubyggð. This image is under Creative Commons Licence, please see CC licence for more details.

More earthquakes might appear on SIL network or my geophone if they are strong enough. It is difficult to know for sure due to distance from monitoring networks.

Donations

I pad all the bills this month and I’m broke. If people like my work they can support it by sending me donations.

I have started to stack up the bills for April (due how the system works here in Denmark, I have found it to be good idea to this if I’m unsure about anything) and from the looks of it appears that April is not going to be easy billing month due to a cable bill I have [3.733,73 DKK], stupid decision to get it, since most channels just show reruns and more reruns, but I was just after two news channels that I have now figured out to get with a 40 cm satellite dish indoors (yay, knowing inverse square law of radio waves).

I have cancelled my cable subscription now with an email. Like with the internet bill in February, they are charging me for a six month period. I also think that next three month internet bill is in April (around 900 DKK for next three months according to my estimate). The only good news is that I have been saving up a little for this cable bill since I already knew it was going to be a big one, the sad part is that March bills upset that plan a little bit, thanks to a donation I can increase my saving up a little for that bill, making it slightly easier to pay the cable bill in April. It might however upset my plan for an upgrading a IPTV box (this upgrade has to happen, the old system closes down at the end of April) I have for Icelandic channels (in case of an eruption I have it, not because of good programming). I have to send it to the company I bought it from to upgrade it and that costs in total around 600 DKK in the mail both ways.

This, along with my heavy debt payment plans make keeping all this afloat a bit of challenge at the moment. The money situation is going to be little easier from June when the debt payments I have get lowered down a bit. Until that I guess I’ll have to ask for more donation and support. It might appear that my money problems have been going on forever, they have been going on since 2012 and I fully expect them to end in 2018. Adjustment takes a little time and I’m working hard on solving this issues I’m dealing with.

Thanks for the support. 🙂

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Earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge

Yesterday (12.02.2017) and today (13.02.2017) there has been a earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes ridge. For this area of the Reykjanes ridge, this earthquake swarm is normal. It doesn’t appear that it was due to magma movement and only tectonic in nature. The area in question is a fault valley according to ship survives (I think).


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

Largest earthquakes in this swarm had the magnitude of 3,1 and 3,2. Depth in this earthquakes swarm was from 17 km and up to 2,4 km (there is some error margin). It appears that this earthquake swarm is over for now. It might restart again with double or triple amount of earthquakes happening, there is also a equal good chance of that not happening. All that can be done is to wait and see.

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Overview of the earthquake activity in Iceland of the last few days

Over the past few days it has been quiet in Iceland. There hasn’t been overall lot happening. Biggest earthquake activity that is currently taking place is happening around 340 km north of Kolbeinsey Island (it’s a tiny Island, with nothing on it, not even birds make use of it).


The earthquake activity north of Kolbeinsey Island. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Largest earthquake have had the magnitude around 3,3.

Bárðarbunga volcano

Currently there isn’t much happening earthquake wise in Bárðarbunga volcano. Current earthquake activity has however exposed the ring fault in the caldera, suggesting that its moving upward at decent speed (few mm/month). This also means that Bárðarbunga volcano is inflating as is.


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

Deep earthquake activity is also around Trölladyngja (shield volcano). This deep earthquake under Trölladyngja is unusual and that is my view eruption might happen there soon. It is impossible to know when such a event happens.

Katla volcano

Earthquake activity in Katla volcano has been quiet. It is normal that earthquake activity drops in Katla volcano this time of the year. I’m expecting quiet few weeks in Katla volcano.


There is little earthquake activity in Katla volcano at the moment. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Hekla volcano

Two earthquakes appeared in Hekla volcano on 8-December-2016. No other activity happened after that.

Reykjanes ridge

A minor earthquake swarm took place on the Reykjanes ridge on 8-December-2016. Largest earthquake in this swarm had the magnitude of 2,9.


Earthquake activity on the Reykjanes ridge. The earthquake swarm is where the blue dots are. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

I think this is most of the earthquake activity that has happened in and around Iceland during the last few days. Due to software problems on my server and on my desktop computer I was unable to write an update about what was happening in earthquake activity for the past few days.

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Please remember to support my work with donations. It helps me keep on writing on this website and monitoring what is currently going on in Iceland. Thanks for the support. 🙂

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Strong earthquake swarm deep on the Reykjanes ridge

Few days ago an earthquake swarm started deep on the Reykjanes Ridge, this is as far as the Reykjanes ridge extends at the end of it. After that the north Atlantic ridge starts. It is close to impossible to know for sure what is going at this location, however the data suggests that an eruption is taking place there and it appears to be a big one. How big I don’t know and I’m not willing to guess it due to lack of data.

The earthquake activity has been interesting, with the largest earthquake having a magnitude 5,5 (EMSC info). Other earthquake magnitudes are 4,9 (EMSC info), magnitude 5,0 (EMSC Info), magnitude 4,9 (EMSC Info).

This earthquake activity is currently ongoing, since the distance from land is ~1100 km it is impossible to know for sure what is going on. There is also around 4 km deep ocean at this location. If an eruption is taking place at this location, it is not going to show in the surface of the ocean. I’m sure a lot of smaller earthquakes are taking place, they are just not being recorded by any seismic detecting network due to distance.

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Earthquake on the Reykjanes ridge

Today (15-June-2016) at 12:51 UTC an earthquake with the magnitude of 3,3 took place at Reykjanes ridge.

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The earthquake on the Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Iceland Met Office.

Only one earthquake happened and no other activity has appeared on the Reykjanes ridge following this event. There is a good chance that no further activity is going to take place in this area for the moment.