The Icelandic Met Office, which also monitors seismic activity, recorded a Magnitude 5.4 Earthquake at a depth of 4.1 KM beneath the Vatnajökull Glacier slightly after 9.00 am GMT on Monday 24 November 2014. This is roughly 4.1 m to the northeast of the Bárðarbunga Volcano, which lies beneath the Vatnajökull Glacier and which began an active cycle at the end of August 2014, with magma apparently rising beneath the volcano then migrating to the Holuhraun Lava field, to the north of the glacier. Magnitude 5.4 Earthquakes at shallow depths are potentially quite dangerous, but the
remote location of this event makes it highly unlikely that there were
any casualties or damage.
The approximate location of the 24 November 2014 Vatnajökull Glacier Earthquake. Google Maps.
Seismic activity beneath volcanoes can be significant, as they are often
caused by the arrival of fresh magma, which may indicate that a volcano
is about to undergo an eruptive episode. Bárðarbunga last erupted in
about 1862, and has undergone several periods of raised seismic activity
since then, most recently in 1996 and 2010, so there is no reason to
believe that this weeks events will automatically lead to an eruption
from the volcano itself. Bárðarbunga began to undergo seismic activity
(Earthquakes) on 19 August, and lava began to erupt from a fissure in
the Holuhraun lava field, no the north of the Vatnajökull Glacier, late
in the evening of Thursday 28 August, and has continued since then, with lava flows now covering over 37 square kilometres of land.
Lava flows in the Holuhraun lava field. Arctic-Images/Corbis.
Iceland lies directly upon the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a chain of (mostly)
submerged volcanoes running the length of the Atlantic Ocean along which
the ocean is splitting apart, with new material forming at the fringes
of the North American and European Plates beneath the sea (or, in
Iceland, above it). The Atlantic is spreading at an average rate of 25
mm per year, with new seafloor being produced along the rift
volcanically, i.e. by basaltic magma erupting from below. The ridge
itself takes the form of a chain of volcanic mountains running the
length of the ocean, fed by the upwelling of magma beneath the diverging
plates. In places this produces volcanic activity above the waves, in
the Azores, on Iceland and on Jan Mayen Island.
The passage of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge beneath Iceland. NOAA National Geophysical Data Center.
See also...
The Icelandic Met Office recorded a
Magnitude 5.4 Earthquake at a depth of 3.9 km beneath the Vatnajökull
Glacier slightly before 7.10 am local time (which is...
Lava began to erupt from a fissure in the Holuhraun lava field, no the
north of the Vatnajökull Glacier in central Iceland, late in the evening
of Thursday 28 August, and has continued to do so for the next three
days. The lava field lies to the northeast of Bárðarbunga, a volcano...
The Icelandic Met Office recorded a
Magnitude 5.0 Earthquake at a depth of 3 km beneath the Vatnajökull
Glacier slightly before 8.15 am GMT on Thursday 28...
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