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Earthquake Swarm (11000+) El Hierro, Canary Islands
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cherryghost wrote: »Mal can you figure out why the swarm location has changed recently. Most swarms prior to August were on the North side of the island but the bigger ones have been to the south-west of the island instead. Are we dealing with the magma moving across a vent or is there 2 large chambers?
Not really sure what is happening. It's interesting that trend has been for the earthquakes to be getting slightly deeper, instead of more shallow. I guess the magma is on the move down there, breaking up rock and looking for weaknesses but hasn't yet found an easy route upwards. So either things change and the earthquakes start to get more shallow or this will just settle back down again without an eruption at all.
At the moment, there hasn't been a squeak since that 3.8 happened about three hours ago.0 -
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A new phase has kicked off this afternoon, so far the earthquakes arent quite as intense as a few days ago, but the rate is quite high.
It also looks like they are trending slightly more shallow but its too early to know if this will continue or not yet.
Here is the seismogram of the last hour :
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This is 50km or so from La Palma.
Is there any indication that an eruption at El Hierro could affect the apparently unstable 1/6th of the island that's meant to collapse at a moment's notice??
No chance. The theory with La Palma is that an unknown repeated number of eruptions on La Palma would lead to water heating & cooling inside the rock, weakening it until part of the island would collapse. Its only a theory and it is disputed by other scientists, but even if it did happen it would probably take thousands maybe millions of years to happen.
However, El Hierro itself has suffered several times from parts of the island collapsing into the sea. The biggest and most obvious has left an area called El Golfo, you cant miss it, looks like a huge bite on the northern half of the island!
I dont know enough about what exactly triggered the previously landslides on El Hierro and the situation at the moment is still evolving so I dont really know what a potential eruption with potential large volcanic earthquakes might do.
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Earthquakes have been slowly getting more shallow over the past few days but are still deeper than where they were in early Septemeber. Remains to be seen if they contine to get more shallow or if they will just plateau around the 10km mark again.
Meanwhile : (adjusted Google translation)Renowned volcanologist Juan Carlos Carracedo, indicates that "magma is forming a mushroom head," so that "if there is no change, it will be completed without breaking the crust. " That is, he added, "it has all the earmarks of being stalled" without coming to the surface and cause a eruption.
http://www.canarias7.es/articulo.cfm?id=2322590 -
October 7, 2011 – CANARY ISLANDS – Intense swarms of tremors beneath one of the volcanic Canary Islands has placed residents of El Hierro on alert for a possible eruption. Spain’s Instituto Geografico Nacional (IGN) reported the 9,300 seismic movements on the island since July 17 have caused measurable changes in the terrain. El Hierro’s only eruption during recorded history was in 1793, when the Volcano de Lomo Negro vent rumbled for a month and produced lava flows. Seismologists say they don’t know if the rising ball of lava causing the latest rumblings will break through the surface, but they have issued a “yellow” alert as a precaution. IGN Director Maria Jose Blanco told reporters that any eruption would most likely have a “low explosive value.” Tremors about 50,000 years ago produced an enormous landslide that cascaded into the ocean, creating a large tsunami that probably reached the North American coast. –Earth Week
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The upwards trend has slowly continued for the past few days. Interesting that after that big earthquake last night there has been a cluster of shallow quakes....
Local media says the 4.3 has caused landslides on the road between the towns of Tacorón and La Restinga, which is now blocked at some points, and the outer slopes of Los Roquille. No injuries reported.
The alert level remains the same at the moment, but I think that if we see more large earthquakes like this then there is a good chance we are entering the final phase before a potential eruption.0 -
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