From Iceland — One Third Of Earthquakes In The Last 30 Years Have Occurred In The Last 12 Months

One Third Of Earthquakes In The Last 30 Years Have Occurred In The Last 12 Months

Published March 2, 2021

Photo by
Bæring Gunnar Steinþórsson

In the last 30 years, 66,348 earthquakes have shaken the Reykjanes peninsula. 23,210 of those earthquakes, have occurred in the last 12 months, Fréttablaðið reports.

Bæring Gunnar Steinþórsson, a computer scientist, has spent much of his free time working on a project that shows the graphical representations of earthquakes.

His interest began in 2014 when seismic activity in Bárðarbunga began rather abruptly. As a result of this, there was a growing interest in seismic activity both in Iceland and abroad.

Bæring decided to set up a special website that shows earthquakes in a way that is understandable to regular citizens.

Showing earthquakes in all three dimensions.

This is one of the videos that Bæring made which shows all of the seismic activity from the last 30 years.

The information all came from the Icelandic Meteorological Office and the National Land Survey of Iceland on earthquakes that have been reviewed.

The larger the quake, the larger the sphere and the colour of the sphere indicates age.

  • Red younger than 4 months.
  • Orange younger than 6 months.
  • Yellow under 1 year of age.
  • Green under 3 years.
  • Light blue is younger than 21 years.
  • Dark blue is from 21 up to 30 years old.

Nothing to fear, despite the world shaking uncontrollably.

The earthquakes in Reykjanes show no sign of calming down however representatives of the Civil Defense stress that there is nothing for Icelanders to worry about.

Buildings in Iceland are specifically designed to withstand the quakes up to a magnitude of 6,5.

Sigríður Björk Guðjónsdóttir, National Commissioner of Police, has stated that the Civil Defence has learned a lot from the past two years of wild weather activity and has strengthened infrastructure in response.

Below is a video representing the earthquakes that have occurred in the past two weeks.

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