Recent earthquakes, Bláfjöll, SE Iceland
One of my most interesting courses is called Current Crustal Movements, taught by a well-known geophysicist, Páll Einarsson. Saturday, Oct 6th, we had a field trip to the location of a 3.8 magnitude earthquake at Bláfjöll the night before (just SE of us from Reykjavik). I felt fortunate to be in a group of all Icelandic students and the only foreign student, very cool. The woman who led our day was amazing! Her name is Gro, from Denmark, is only 30 yrs old & completed her PhD (pretty sure it's in geology). Currently, her post-doctoral is spent researching volcanic landforms on Mars and she does this research in Iceland because it is the most suitable environment on Earth to do such studies. A woman after my own heart, so curious and fascinated in our studies & loving being outdoors where it all is! She had danish licorice - wow, it was the best, very strong & shaped like old coins. I loved walking those lava fields. Very very inspiring.
Basically, we hiked for many, many km over lava fields measuring the locations of fractures occuring from earthquakes with GPS tools. The GPS was receiving & transmitting signals to 8 satelites to narrow our location to within 5 cm. The past couple months, there have been quakes in this location from magnitude 4.8 to the 3.8 mostly, although dozens of tremors occured. This research hasn't been completed in this area, so it'll be interesting to note the fracture & uplift zones. It's very possible a larger earthquake could occur so it was a great learning experience. Since the field trip, Gro thankfully sent three of her scientific papers written that are fascinating to learn more of another planet, its volcanos, processes & landforms.
It's common for Icelanders to wake up in the morning with their coffee and check the seismic activity that occurred during the nite, northern lights activity expected, etc at www.vedur.is. In the news, the earthquake zone we visited had an article http://ruv.is/frett/jardskjalfti-upp-a-38-i-blafjollum (just use copy/paste into google translate as it's in Icelandic).
I love spending time with people that're enthusiastic & curious about the Earth in this sort of way, it was a day of further stretching of myself, not only inwardly but an outer awareness - of culture, our alive planet & universe.
Basically, we hiked for many, many km over lava fields measuring the locations of fractures occuring from earthquakes with GPS tools. The GPS was receiving & transmitting signals to 8 satelites to narrow our location to within 5 cm. The past couple months, there have been quakes in this location from magnitude 4.8 to the 3.8 mostly, although dozens of tremors occured. This research hasn't been completed in this area, so it'll be interesting to note the fracture & uplift zones. It's very possible a larger earthquake could occur so it was a great learning experience. Since the field trip, Gro thankfully sent three of her scientific papers written that are fascinating to learn more of another planet, its volcanos, processes & landforms.
It's common for Icelanders to wake up in the morning with their coffee and check the seismic activity that occurred during the nite, northern lights activity expected, etc at www.vedur.is. In the news, the earthquake zone we visited had an article http://ruv.is/frett/jardskjalfti-upp-a-38-i-blafjollum (just use copy/paste into google translate as it's in Icelandic).
I love spending time with people that're enthusiastic & curious about the Earth in this sort of way, it was a day of further stretching of myself, not only inwardly but an outer awareness - of culture, our alive planet & universe.