Photograph by our own Jamie. Tungnafellsjökull seen from Sprengisandur area. Notice that the Jökull is almost gone from Tungnafellsjökull, soon to become known as Tungnafjöll only.
There has been an earthquake swarm at the northern end of the Tungnafellsjökull during the evening and throughout the night. The swarm is still ongoing. There has been a lot of speculation out there in the blogosphere about it being volcanic in nature. It is not, it is purely tectonic.
As some of you know Iceland is divided by the Mid Atlantic Rift (MAR). The MAR in turn is divided in Iceland into two separate active seismic zones, the Eastern and the Western Icelandic Seismic Zone. Lately it has been the EISZ that has been most active of the two. But the WISZ is not in any way dead or dormant. Both of them are driven by the spreading of the MAR. From the WISZ the North American Plate is spread, and from the EISZ the Eurasian Plate is spread. In between them are two micro-plates that have formed by volcanism caused by the rifting.
The map is showing the Icelandic Volcanic Zones, where the MAR runs up into Iceland, where the MAR leaves Iceland and the more important volcanic features. The Icelandic Seismic Zones are corresponding to the volcanic zone.
Along both the WISZ and EISZ are lines of volcanoes spread, it is where the spreading causes magma to pour up and fill the spaces created by the spreading.
If you look at the map you see that WISZ runs from Hengill, up to Langjökull (2 known volcanoes), via Hofsjökull (at least one volcano), onwards through Tungnafellsjökull, and then ending up at the triple-junction at Bárdarbunga.
During the last few years the area of Tungnafellsjökull has been inactive, but there is ample evidence of it having been tectonically active, something that can be found in the Sprungur (tectonic faults) found in the area. The dormancy is likely due to the area having been locked at depth, probably by old magma that has solidified the area.
Various versions of tectonic faulting. Tungnafellsjökull is suffering from strike-slip faulting.
Lately the area has been subject to an uplift not seen in Iceland since de-glaciation after the last Ice age. This is due to the melting and diminishing of the glaciers of Tungnafellsjökull (almost gone) and Vatnajökull. This uplift process has accelerated during the last decade. It is now up to 3 cm year in the area according to Sigrún Hreinsdottir (source, private email). Yes, the famed inflation of Hamarinn is not happening, it is a combination of Grimsvötn motion and isostatic rebound.
This motion might have started to release the seismic lock at Tungnafellsjökull. If that is so, there is a risk that the swarm of earthquakes is just precursor quakes for a large earthquake.
This map shows the features discussed in this text in relation to the Bárdarbunga triple-junction and the hotspots location.
What makes this interpretation the more likely one is that there is no discernible evidence of any harmonic tremoring during the earthquakes. This makes it into tectonic seismicity, not magmatic seismicity.
If there would be a large earthquake that tears the rift-lock, then magmatic movements could start in the area, but not before that. Worst case scenario here is not a volcanic eruption; it is a 6M earthquake as the slip-lock disintegrates over a large area.
Another thing that I want to point out, the earthquakes are all of low probability and some of them are as I write this due to change after revision, and some of them will be removed due to being false representations of earthquakes, so called Ghosts. And as I wrote this IMO has started to revision the earthquakes, right now there is at least one at 3M.
CARL
