Two stars for Katla (a volcanic intensity scale)

Having just finished the post on Eastern Canada, I glanced at the Icelandic Activity Map, on my way to shutting things down for the evening. Katla, the volcano that lies under the Myrdalsjokull glacier has seen a steadily increasing level of earthquake activity over the summer, as I have been noting. This now seems to be picking up a little more with two quakes in the caldera region that have reached a level of 3 or more. (Signified by a star rather than a dot). The younger (green) of the two shown was a 3.3, while the older is reported at 3.0.

Earthquakes in the region of the Katla volcano over the past 24 hours (Icelandic Met Office)

UPDATE: And just as I finish the post on Western US temperatures, and check with Katla, the activity seems to be picking up even more with a 3.9 earthquake sitting on top of the earlier 3.3 (you can see it as a yellow star in the background). But there is also a considerable amount more activity in the caldera, which has to be worrying.

Activity on the evening of the 5-6th October (Icelandic Met Office).

Jon is posting some of the seismic information on the quakes at the Iceland Volcano and Earthquake site, and the Icelandic Met Office has now issued a statement which also shows the unusual nature of the current activity, in that it includes a number of earthquakes above a level 3, and that the activity still appears to be increasing. A more distributed graph of the recent activity can be found here.