Iceland: from plate motion to seismic data
As part of my studies at VŠB, I am planning a thesis analysing seismic events around the Iceland hotspot over an extended period and examining their relationship with volcanic eruptions in recent years.
Lithosphere, plate motion and the hotspot
I want to connect the lithosphere with mantle processes and examine the Iceland hotspot in its broader tectonic context.
- Directions and rates of plate movement, vectors and relative motion.
- Forces, stress, deformation and mechanisms of energy release.
- Mantle processes, melting and volcanic activity; comparison of available hotspot models.
Plate boundaries and Icelandic eruptions
This section will explore lithospheric plate boundaries and how the tectonic setting relates to eruption types in Iceland.
- Plate-boundary characteristics, rift zones and fault systems.
- Eruption types, their development and geological setting.
- Comparison of selected recent eruptions with seismic activity before, during and after them.
Geological evolution at two timescales
I plan to examine regional evolution over roughly the past 40 million years, then focus in more detail on the past 20 million years.
- 40 million years: North Atlantic, plate-boundary and hotspot evolution, without assuming the present island existed throughout this period.
- 20 million years: the emergence and development of Iceland. I will refine the working estimate of formation around 17–20 million years ago using the literature and distinguish it from the age of the oldest surviving rocks.
Practical analysis and AI for geologists
The practical section aims to connect earthquake catalogues with eruption records and develop a reproducible workflow for other students.
- Source selection, catalogue quality and completeness checks, and consistent times, coordinates and magnitudes.
- Analysis of event location, depth, frequency and size against an eruption timeline.
- Tables, charts and maps, with a time-based animation if feasible.
- AI assistance with writing and explaining code, data handling and visualisation; every output must be checked against the data.
What I hope to share with future students
The intended result is a reusable collection of experience and workflows: data documentation, analytical scripts or notebooks, tested AI prompts, validation steps and example maps. Students could supply this package as context to an AI model for their own analysis, without needing to retrain the model.
The aim is to explore relationships, not to promise eruption prediction. Temporal coincidence does not establish causation; data quality and uncertainty will be essential.