Öraefajökull, Iceland's highest peak, is probably Iceland's most violent volcano. A major silicic eruption in 1362 was Iceland's largest historical explosive eruption. It and another eruption during 1727-28 were accompanied by major jökulhlaups (glacier outburst floods) that caused property damage and fatalities.

Öraefajökull volcano news & activity updates

Öraefajökull volcano (Iceland): continuing seismic unrest cause worries about potential reawakening

Thursday Oct 25, 2018 15:56 PM | BY: T

Earthquakes under Öræfajökull during the past 7 days

All news about: Öraefajökull volcano

Information about: Öraefajökull volcano

Previous news

More on VolcanoDiscovery

The volcano is continuing to show signs of unrest. Over the past months, elevated numbers of small earthquakes have continued to occur beneath the glacier-covered volcano, suggesting that fresh magma has been accumulating at shallow depth around 5 km.This could be precursory sign of a new eruption in a not-too-distant future, but it cannot be predicted whether and when it might occur, which could be months or several years from now.The volcano is one of Iceland's most dangerous for its history of very violent explosive eruptions. The greatest hazard in case of a new eruption would probably be the occurrence of large glacial floods as magma melts part of the massive ice shield covering the volcano's caldera.Fortunately only that the area the volcano lies in is not densely populated and evacuation efforts would be comparably easy to handle.