INTRODUCTION

The objective of this paper is to start discussion on a multidisciplinary approach to model the South Iceland seismic zone (SISZ) earthquake processes. It is hoped that it will encourage discussion especially within the PRENLAB group, and help to define new subprojects for a more quantitative approach to the goal in various fields. Because of this purpose of the paper I prefer to open it for discussion at this stage. I am aware of that many references in significant work are lacking, also that there are many more features of the SISZ which should be taken into account than I do here. However, the tentative model, which I present, is answering so significant questions that I claim that one should use it as a starting hypothetical model in further work to model earthquake processes. The questions which we aim at answering in the PRENLAB project are: where will the next large earthquake occur, how will it be, size, rupture characteristics, etc.; and when, i.e. when it is likely to occur on a long-term basis and will it be possible to issue short-term warnings for a probable first large earthquake and/or for the following earthquakes if there will be a sequence following the large one.