“He just came into the world with a big bang—just like the earthquake,” Ólafur Eyjólfsson told the local paper about his son, who was born at the national hospital in Reykjavík while an earthquake shook the southwest of Iceland on May 29. The baby’s mother, Berglind María Kristinsdóttir, said it had been very odd to give birth during an earthquake, but all went well and the baby was nicknamed Eyjólfur “Skjálfti,” Eyjólfur “The Earthquaker.”

Published in the 2008 summer issue of Iceland Review – IR 46.02. By Bjarni Brynjólfsson, photos by Páll Stefánsson.

Homes in Selfoss wasted by the earthquake.

The earthquake measured 6.3 on the Richter scale—a typical size for the region, which has been struck regularly by large earthquakes since Iceland’s settlement in 870, caused by the same right-lateral motion of the earth’s crust. In Iceland these earthquakes go by the name of sudurlandsskjálfti or “southland quakes” and can be expected anytime in the region that stretches from Ölfus district to the Vatnafjöll mountains.

“We believe there were two earthquakes that happened simultaneously,” says Matthew J. Roberts, a scientist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office in Reykjavík. “The first earthquake had its epicenter under the roots of Mount Ingólfsfjall. Seismic waves from the first earthquake, traveling at thousands of meters per second, triggered the second larger earthquake midway between the towns of Hveragerdi and Selfoss. This type of response is known to seismologists as dynamic triggering. The earthquakes caused right-lateral movement on two north-south trending faults. In other words, if you were standing on the fault and looking along its length, the right side would have moved toward you by strike-slip faulting,” said Roberts. A farmhouse at Kross was severely damaged due to its proximity to the second fault. Although the entire roof collapsed, nobody was hurt.

You can read the remainder of this article in the 2008 summer issue of Iceland Review – IR 46.02.

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