A new swarm of earthquakes has hit Iceland on the Reykjanes ridge, in the volcano called Reykjanes which is roughly 150 miles, (241 km) southwest from the earthquake swarm under the Askja volcano, which began on the 7th of November where more than a 1,000 earthquakes have been recorded at the volcano, in less than a week.
The new earthquake swarm started around noon 16th of November on the Reykjanes ridge. Roughly 20 earthquakes > M3.0 have been detected and around noon the largest earthquake of the swarm was a magnitude 4.5 at 13:17. The swarm is located 45 km SW of Reykjanes. Nearly 200 smaller earthquakes have been detected since and the swarm continues. The IMO has received reports of the earthquakes being felt in Reykjanes peninsula, the capital area and Akranes. Earthquakes of similar magnitude were last recorded in June 2018 and an intense swarm occurred in the same area in June and July 2015, then the largest earthquakes was M5.0 and seven earthquakes > M4.0.
The area that has having earthquake swarm is located at Geirfugladrangi a good 20 to 40 km off the coastline. This earthquake swarm is strong and might even get stronger. I don’t know yet if this earthquake swarm is due to tectonic forces or because magma has started pushing to upper levels in the crust. There are no clear signs of an eruption happening at this location at the writing of this article according to Iceland Geology
Meanwhile, Southern California's "swarmageddon" continues with more than a 100 small to medium quakes and almost 1,000 in the last 7 days. The largest swarm concentration is at the Ridgecrest "Mega-swarm" which started way back in June and has produced thousands of small quakes and is still swarming hard. A new swarm of small to medium earthquakes have struck near the California-Mexico border underneath the town of El Centro in Imperial County. Scientists are closely watching the cluster, which began at 6:07 p.m. Monday. Full story
Major Quakes
Home Page
