Most of us already know that there are certain areas of the world that are more prone to earthquakes than others, and that residents of those places, such as southern California, Indonesia and parts of China, are already quite used to it. One of those areas that is used to occasional tremors is the small island nation of Iceland.
There, earthquakes are common due to the country occupying two of the Earth’s tectonic plates, both North American and Eurasian plates. They remain divided by an underwater mountain range called the Middle Atlantic Range, which emanates hot molten rock from the depths of the Earth.
Although earthquakes are a common occurrence in Iceland, the country was unprepared for last week’s events, which included 18,000 mind-boggling earthquakes that hit the island in about a week. The earthquake swarm began on February 24 with a 5.7 magnitude earthquake, the largest to date, and was followed by thousands of smaller ones.
“I have experienced earthquakes before, but never so many in a row,” Auður Alfa Ólafsdóttir, a resident of Reykjavik, told CNN. “It is very unusual to feel the Earth tremble 24 hours a day for an entire week. It makes you feel very small and powerless against nature.”
What scientists have to say
Geophysicists and volcanologists say that seismic activity on the island has been intensifying since December 2019, and although volcanoes in southwest Iceland have remained quiet for about 800 years, they said the rest period may finally be coming to an end.
Experts say the intense sequence of earthquakes is the culmination of more than a year of intense seismic activity, and that similar tremors have been observed before volcanic eruptions in the past. The Icelandic Meteorological Office told The New York Times that magma movements were a likely cause of the earthquakes, and the agency warned that an eruption could occur in days or weeks.
“The two tectonic plates are moving away from each other and this movement created the conditions for magma to surface,” Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a research professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, told The New York Times.
Iceland has about 30 active volcanoes, but volcanologists have tried to alleviate citizens’ fear of an imminent eruption, saying that one in Reykjanes would not really threaten the peninsula’s inhabited areas.
Icelanders cannot be blamed for worrying, however, considering the catastrophic eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010. Releasing large clouds of black ash into the sky, the event was so intense that it caused one of the most significant air traffic disruptions in decades.
“Of course it worries people,” Þorvaldur Þórðarson, a professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland, told CNN. “For this region, this is quite unusual, not because of the type of earthquakes or their intensity, but because of their duration. It’s been going on for over a week. “
Experts said most of the damage expected from the possibly imminent eruption includes damage to the transmission line, and the road connecting the capital, Reykjavík, to the airport could be affected.
“The composition of the magma here is very different, the intensity of the explosive activity would be significantly less”, guarantees Þórðarson.
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