On Friday, Iceland’s meteorological office reported that the southwestern Reykjanes Peninsula has been experiencing a seismic swarm of small earthquakes over the last three days, with at least 5,800 recorded since it began and around 1,000 since midnight Thursday. According to the “Met” office, most of the quakes have been under magnitude 3, although two in the last three days were over 4. The largest tremor, on Wednesday, measured 4.5 north of the town of Grindavík. The Met office attributed the seismic swarm to stress changes in the earth’s crust induced by the flow of magma (molten rock) toward the surface beneath the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system. The earthquakes are a warning sign for a volcanic eruption sometime in the next 12 months, although predicting the timing of earthquakes is difficult.
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