Þorbjörn on the brink

Volcanoes rarely follow human timescale and human planning. This time it is Þorbjörn that decided to ruin things just after Albert had published a truly nice read about Santa Maria. Þorbjörn better do as told below, otherwise Albert will have words with the volcano in question for ruining his article scheduling.   Background In the…

Strong tremor signal detected at Grimsvötn

At 19.03 local time the automatic SIL-system in Iceland picked up a strong tremor signal. When this type of tremor signal is visible in Iceland it is normally associated with either a large jökulhlaup (rapid glacial melt outflow) that can become larger than the output of the Amazon River, or it is associated with an…

Gunung Agung and the potential future

Most people have by now noticed that Gunung Agung has stopped erupting. And to understand why that has happened, and what will happen soon, we need to look at what happened during the eruption. We also need to look at what is currently happening. When a volcano is showing no visible signs of activity, we…

Unrest at Hekla

At 07.55.04 Hekla suffered an earthquake of M0.9 at 0.7km depth under the west slope of Hekla proper. After that followed two badly localized small tremors before a second earthquake with a temporary solution of M0.6 at the same place and depth. After that came a final (so far) small tremor. This follows after ten days…

Trembles at Tjörnes

Although the 2,265 volcano-tectonic earthquakes at Planchon-Peteroa as reported yesterday by Georges Vitton (Le Chaudron de Vulcain) is perhaps the more interesting news, our readers are probably more interested in the large earthquake swarms in Tjörnes Fracture Zone. What is happening? Is it an eruption, is an eruption imminent or can an eruption be expected…