Volcanoes in southwestern Iceland have been quiet for 800 years, but the period of rest may soon be over: More than 18,000 earthquakes have shaken the area in just over a week, leading scientists to believe that an eruption could be imminent.

Geophysicists and volcanologists say the quakes are the culmination of more than a year of intense seismic activity, and although most of the tremors have lasted a few seconds, with light shaking, they have rattled residents in the capital, Reykjavik, just 32 km north of the Reykjanes Peninsula where they have occurred.

"People in Reykjavik are waking up with an earthquake, others go to sleep with an earthquake,” said Thorvaldur Thordarson, a professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland. "There’s a lot of them, and that worries people, but there’s nothing to worry about, the world is not going to collapse.”