[Rockhounds] In Iceland, 18, 000 Earthquakes Over Days Signal Possible Eruption on the Horizon

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Volcanoes in southwestern Iceland have been quiet for 800 years, but the
period of rest may soon be over: More than 18,000 earthquakes have shaken
the area in just over a week, leading scientists to believe that an
eruption could be imminent.

Geophysicists and volcanologists say the quakes are the culmination of over
a year of intense seismic activity, and although most of the tremors have
lasted a few seconds, with light shaking, they have rattled residents in
the capital, Reykjavik, just 20 miles north of the Reykjanes Peninsula
where they have occurred.

“People in Reykjavik are waking up with an earthquake, others go to sleep
with an earthquake,” said Thorvaldur Thordarson, a professor of volcanology
at the University of Iceland. “There’s a lot of them, and that worries
people, but there’s nothing to worry about, the world is not going to
collapse.”

Earthquakes are common in Iceland because it straddles two of the Earth’s
tectonic plates, the North American and Eurasian, which are divided by an
undersea mountain chain, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The ridge oozes molten hot
rock, or magma, from deeper in the Earth, forcing the plates to spread
apart and causing quakes on the island.

Most of the quakes, however, are small and occur far from Reykjavik and the
surrounding areas, where a majority of Iceland’s 368,000 residents live.
Dr. Pall Einarsson, a professor emeritus of geophysics at the University of
Iceland, said what usually fascinated scientists, was now riveting the tiny
nation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/world/europe/earthquakes-eruption-iceland.html