A Harmonized Instrumental Earthquake Catalog for Iceland and the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge

A comprehensive catalogue of historical earthquakes, with accurate epicentres and homogenised magnitudes is a crucial resource for seismic hazard mapping. Here we update and combine catalogues from several sources to compile a catalogue of earthquakes in and near Iceland, in the years 1900–2019. In particular the epicentres are based on local information, whereas the magnitudes are based on teleseismic observations, primarily from international on-line catalogues. The most reliable epicentre information comes from the catalogue of the Icelandic Meteorological Office, but this is complemented with 5 information from several technical reports, scientific publications, newspaper articles, and modified by some expert judgement. The catalogue contains 1272 MW ≥ 4 events and the estimated completeness magnitude is MW 5.5 in the first years, going down to MW 4.5 for recent years. The largest magnitude is MW 7.01. Such melting of local and teleseismic data has not been done before for Icelandic earthquakes, and the result is an earthquake map with no obviously mislocated events. The catalogue also lists additional 5654 earthquakes on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, north of 43◦, with both epicentres and magnitudes determined 10 teleseismically. When moment magnitudes are not available, proxy MW values are computed with χ-regression, normally on MS , but exceptionally on mb. All the presented magnitudes have associated uncertainty estimates. The actual combined seismic moment released in the Icelandic earthquakes is found to be consistent with the moment estimated using a simple plate motion model. The catalogue is named ICEL-NMAR and it is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/7zh6xg22cv.1.