The earthquakes the Icelandic Met Office has recorded near Selfoss lately — with the fault story behind the shaking and what to do when the ground moves.
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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/selfoss-sveitarfelagi-arborg-is/earthquakes
Selfoss sits in the South Iceland Seismic Zone, where the ground is almost never completely still. This page lists the earthquakes the Icelandic Met Office has recorded near town lately — most far too small to feel — so you can see for yourself what's normal here, and what isn't.
Strongest in this window
M3,4
41 km west of the Selfoss area · Not reported ·
33 earthquakes of magnitude M1,0 or larger within 60 km of town in the last 30 days.
Recent earthquakes
Magnitude
Where
Depth
Shaking
When
M1,3
54 km west
5 km deep
Not reported
M2,4
25 km northwest
5 km deep
Not reported
M1,1
23 km northwest
4 km deep
Not reported
M1,3
22 km northwest
4 km deep
Not reported
M1,1
15 km northwest
5 km deep
Not reported
M1,2
19 km northwest
2 km deep
Not reported
M1,9
27 km northeast
0 km deep
Not reported
M2,3
41 km west
6 km deep
Not reported
M1,7
41 km west
5 km deep
Not reported
M3,4
41 km west
7 km deep
Not reported
M1,2
53 km west
4 km deep
Not reported
M1,4
49 km east
9 km deep
Not reported
This page is not an earthquake warning
Every quake here was recorded after it happened — no one can predict earthquakes, and this page cannot warn you of one. What it can do is show what the ground has been doing lately. If you feel a long or violent quake near the coast, act on the advice above without waiting for any alert.
Selfoss lies on the South Iceland Seismic Zone, a wide east–west belt where two of Iceland's tectonic plates grind past each other. The strain builds up over decades and is released in bursts, so a steady trickle of tiny earthquakes — often dozens a week that no one feels — is the completely normal background state, not a warning sign.
Two big releases are within living memory. On 17 and 21 June 2000, two magnitude-6.5 quakes struck the zone. On 29 May 2008 at 15:45 a magnitude-6.3 quake hit with its epicentre under Ingólfsfjall, between Selfoss and Hveragerði: the town rose about 6 cm and shifted around 17 cm to the southeast, walls cracked, shelves emptied, and there were roughly 4,000 damage sites — but no one was killed, and about 30 people were hurt. Buildings in Iceland are engineered for this.
Scientists expect the zone to produce another large quake eventually; no one can predict the day. That's exactly why it's worth knowing the safe response before it happens — and why a quiet week on this page is good news, not a countdown.
Checked 12 October at 11:08. Earthquake data from Icelandic Met Office (Veðurstofan Íslands (Icelandic Met Office), CC BY 4.0). Magnitude, depth and felt intensity are revised as analysis improves, and very fresh quakes can take minutes to appear.