Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Shaking...


On Monday, the North part of Langjökull glacier witnessed over a dozen of earthquakes with the biggest one reaching 4.4 on the Richter scale (see picture on the right).

Iceland being on the top of the Mid-Atlantic ridge makes it prone to have these earthquakes. If you check the Icelandic website www.vedur.is, you can see that about a dozen or more quakes and tremors are recorded on a daily basis. The location of the quakes is usually following the path taken by the ridge underneath the island as you can see below marked in blue.


The most dramatic place to see the ridge is the National Park of Þingvellir. This park is less than 1 hour drive from Reykjavík and is a place charged with history. One of the oldest parlement in the world, the Alþing, was taking place there around 930 AD. More about the rift in Þingvellir here.

On March 6th, 2006 an earthquake of magnitude 4.6 shook Reykjavík. It happened in the afternoon. I was at work and people came to see me to ask me if I felt the quake. I had to admit that I did not feel anything.

I'm out to the countryside with A for the weekend, just above Selfoss, on the ridge so maybe this time I will feel something. Anyhow, I did learn the golden rule in case of earthquake:


Weather outside: Mostly cloudy, 2°C

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