South-West Iceland's Been Hit by 17,000 Earthquakes This Week

Shafaq News/ More than 17,000 earthquakes have been recorded in the south-west of Iceland, in the Reykjanes Peninsula, during the past week.

According to sciencealert Website People living in the area have been advised to be extra careful due to dangers of landslides and rockfall. Many of the larger earthquakes have even been felt in Iceland's capital city, Reykjavik (where over half of the population lives), which lies only 27km away.

This has led to heightened concerns about the effects of even larger earthquakes and also of a possible eruption from the Krýsuvík volcanic system in the area.

South-west Iceland has a track record of centuries of calm, which we know can be broken by turbulent periods of intense earthquake activity accompanied by volcanic eruptions. It looks like we are entering the next turbulent period.

The most recent earthquake swarm is in fact the latest in a period of significantly heightened seismic activity that started over a year ago. The shaking of the Earth is the most obvious manifestation of the release of huge amounts of energy.

But magma has also been quietly accumulating nearer to the surface – and when this happens there is increased likelihood of the surface breaking and the volcanoes erupting.

On March 3, concern rose sharply as a type of earthquake activity characteristic of the movement of magma was detected, indicating that an eruption might be imminent. The Civil Defence and other authorities have held press conferences, closed roads and heightened visual surveillance of the area above the potential eruption site.

Of course, magma may move in the crust and then stop, but it is always wisest to plan for an eruption and then to scale back if nothing happens.

The biggest concern internationally about a volcanic eruption in Iceland is disruption to air travel. Not only can winds carry ash clouds swiftly towards western Europe, but ash clouds can get high into the atmosphere and into the stratosphere where commercial airlines travel across the busy Atlantic flight corridors.

But the volcanoes in south-west Iceland tend not to produce much ash, and so the risk to disruption of international air travel is considered very small. Should an eruption start, flights would be halted automatically at the Keflavík international airport, which is only 22km away, until a fuller evaluation has been carried out.