2800 earthquakes in three days

Since the onset of the earthquake swarm at Bárðarbunga at around 3 am on Saturday morning around 2.800 earthquakes have been detected with the earthquake monitoring network of the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO).

Of these around 950 have occured since midnight today. Several of these events were larger than magnitude 3.

The swarm initially started in the Bardarbunga caldera and has been migrating in two clusters towards the north and the east of the volcano.

On Sunday, August 17th,, these two clusters were active east and north of Bardarbunga. The activity in both clusters was migrating northeastwards. While strongest events were located in the northern cluster, the highest number of events were detected in the eastern cluster.

The strongest event since the onset of the swarm was detected on Monday morning 02:37 in the northern cluster. Detailed analysis revealed that its magnitude was 4.5 and it was felt in Akureyri and Lon.

Since this morning, activity has significantly decreased in the northern cluster. The eastern cluster remains active until now. Two stronger pulses of activity have occurred between 10:45 and 12:00 as well as 16:50 and 17:30 today.

Within the first pulse around noon, the cluster was again migrating northeastwards, most events are now located between Bardarbunga and Kverkfjoll. As reported earlier, GPS ground deformation data has evidenced that the earthquake swarm is caused by magma intrusion.

Throughout the whole sequence until now (8pm August 18th) the majority of events was at 5-10 kilometer depth. No signs of migration towards the surface or any other signs of imminent or ongoing volcanic activity have been detected so far. IMO is monitoring the area around the clock very closely and will update in case of any changes.

Visit the IMO website.