El Hierro, Canary's - Red-Alert, Eruption Underway

[GCANE]

http://earthquake-report.com/2011/07/28 ... nds-spain/


Over 1,000 tremors since Jan 1, 2011.

List for last 10 days:
http://www.01.ign.es/ign/layoutIn/sismo ... ad_dias=10

Latest tweets here:
http://twitter.com/#!/search/Teideano

[GCANE]

El Hierro Earthquake Swarm Enters Third Week

The intensity of earthquakes recorded on the smallest of the Canary Islands, El Hierro, has increased slightly during the last 24 hours. However, the total number of earthquakes recorded daily has lessened since the earthquake swarm initially began on 17 July.

The total number of tremors recorded during the past two weeks has now exceeded 1,050, according to the Instituto Geografico Nacional (IGN).

The majority of the earth tremors ranged between 1-2 magnitude, but during the past 24 hours there have been least five tremors measuring in excess of 2.0 magnitude on the Richter Scale. A 2.4 magnitude earthquake was recorded at 4:56 p.m. local time on Sunday (31 July 2011).

Approximately 50 earth tremors were recorded on Sunday, according to local earthquake monitoring agency Actualidad Volcánica de Canarias (AVCAN). The number is slightly down on the number of tremors recorded on Saturday and significantly less than the 195 earthquakes recorded on 22 July.

The vast majority of the tremors have been recorded in the northwest of the 278.5-square-kilometre island at El Golfo, the location of a massive landslide that created a 100-metre high tsunami almost 50,000 years ago.

http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/ ... 29291.html

[GCANE]

The Swarm of earthquakes which started during July of 2011 have continued into August with 3277 earthquakes being recorded since August 1st 2011 until 23rd August 2011, this is a significant rise of earthquakes and has Experts keeping a close eye on the island.

The news may have lost interest when the swarm started in early July with over 1300 earthquakes being recorded for the month which was a huge increase in activity compared to the average 300 micro-quakes the area experiences a month.

But burying these facts wont make it go away, as figures and records show it is getting much worse with already 3277 Earthquakes being recorded in just the past 23 days. These are the figures that should cover the whole YEAR not 23 DAYS.

2010 the area registered 3661 earthquakes for the year.
2009 the area registered 4536 earthquakes for the year.
2008 the area registered 5158 earthquakes for the year.
2007 the area registered 5384 earthquakes for the year.
2006 the area registered 3689 earthquakes for the year.
2005 the area registered 4229 earthquakes for the year.

For 2011 the total stands at 6614, of which 4617 have happened in just the past 7 weeks.

2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull saw thousands of Micro-quakes prior to the Eruption of this volcano.

(A microearthquake (or microquake) is a very low intensity earthquake which is usually three or less on the Richter scale. Microquakes occur often near volcanoes as they approach an eruption, and frequently in certain regions exploited for geothermal energy)


El Hierro Volcano: Is one of the Smallest of the Canary Islands, the origins of the Island date back some 100 million years when the Ocean floor shifted with the movement of the Earth's mantle. The crust cracked into a three pointed star releasing flows of Magma.

After 3 Eruptions, the island emerged from the ocean as an imposing volcano more than 2,000 Meters high.

It has now been over 200 years since the last Eruption but El Hierro although being the smallest Island has the Largest number of Volcanoes with over 500 open Sky Cones and another 300 covered by the most recent outflows.

There has been uncertainty surrounding reports of a historical eruption taking place in 1793.

[Nightwatch]

Hmm...i really wonder what's going on there... lots of tremors :{

might be nothing... might be something dangerous

[angelwing]

Hmmmm...interesting, thank for the info!

[Nightwatch]

Small quake (3.4) strikes offshore Playa del Ingles

More than 1,000 calls were made to the emergency number after the quake on the south east of the island. There was no damage or injuries

The 112 emergency number on the Canary Islands received more than 1,000 calls from concerned members of the public after an earthquake in Agüimes, on the south east of Gran Canaria, on Monday afternoon.

None reported any injury or damage to property however.

The quake at 2.15 pm was a 3.4 magnitude on the Richter scale, with the epicentre at sea off the coast of Playa del Inglés. Its effects were also felt in Santa Brígida, Telde, La Aldea de San Nicolás and Santa Lucía de Tirajana.

There was a small tremor on El Hierro earlier on Monday, where EFE notes more than 3,700 seismic movements have been detected since July 19 this year.

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_31714.shtml

Could this be related? Or is this something different?

[GCANE]

August 24, 2011 – Canary Islands

Well, we’ve been wondering when we might see more signs of magma rising underneath El Hierro in the Canary Island and now we seem to have got some.

Over the last month, the island/volcano has experienced thousands of earthquakes that have waxed and waned in number, but seem to be increasing over time.

A GPS survey of the area effected by the earthquakes has now found deformation – namely inflation – over part of the volcano.

This inflation is on the order of ~1 cm over the last 20-25 days according to the Instituto Volcanologico de Canarias. There are also slightly increased carbon dioxide and temperature (above background) at the volcano as well.

All of these signs add to up new magma rising in the volcano – so the big question becomes “does this mean an eruption is around the corner?”

Well, my answer to that is a resounding “maybe.”

Sure, these are all signs of magma emplacement, but there is likely as much chance of it all “stalling” in the crust as an eruption occurring.

It will be how these factors – earthquakes, deformation, gas emissions, temperature – change over the next weeks to months that will give us a better idea of whether we will see the first documented eruption at El Hierro since 550 B.C. (or 1793 A.D., depends on if you trust the historical reports from the late 18th century).

http://bigthink.com/ideas/39899

[GCANE]

Motion plots

[GCANE]

[GCANE]

New tweet in:

Seismicity on the rise again, 5600+. a 2,6 quake plus some others between 2,0 & 2,3 Richter. More than 100 today.

[GCANE]

Canary Islands government raises alert level on El Hierro volcano to yellow

September 23, 2011 – CANARY ISLANDS – Considering the volcanic hazards involves a series of actions to be undertaken sequentially has established a worldwide warning system for the population based on the selection of three colors (green, yellow and red). In this way the population may adopt certain behaviors based on a symbol that are easy to understand color. We must continue in the case of each of them, the recommendations for the same. The Canary Islands government brings to light yellow-volcanic earthquake situation in El Hierro.

http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/dgse/ ... ierro.html

[GCANE]

#Volcano Another day at El Hierro, activity speedin´ up. 8100 quakes, and still some more to come.

http://twitter.com/#!/teideano/status/1 ... 72/photo/1

[GCANE]

El Hierro is preparing for a possible volcanic eruption

The island of El Hierro has suffered a total of 48 earthquakes just this weekend. The latest was last night when, around eleven in the NCOH movement was a magnitude 3.4 that could be felt throughout the island.

http://translate.google.de/translate?hl ... usoc_1/Tes

[GCANE]

Rate of quakes has picked up since the 20th.

[angelwing]

Thank you for the updates!

[GCANE]

Thank you for the updates!

You're welcome.

[GCANE]

Island of El Hierro prepares for potential volcanic eruption


September 26, 2011 – CANARY ISLANDS

The island of El Hierro in the Spanish Canary Islands is bracing itself for a possible volcanic eruption.

Situated in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Africa, the Canary Islands are all volcanic, but there has been no volcanic activity on El Hierro since 1793.

However, a series of small earthquakes have been registered by sensors in the past two months and a quake of grade 3 on the Richter Scale registered last Thursday have caused the threat of volcanic activity to be raised from green to yellow for the first time in recent history.

Saturday produced another stronger tremor of 3.4 on the Richter scale which was felt all over the island.

Speaking to the El Pais newspaper, volcanologist, Juan Carlos Carracedo admitted an eruption on El Hierro would not be a major surprise. “It is the youngest of the Canary Islands,” he explained. “There is a ball of magma which is rising to the surface and it is stationed at the limit of the earth’s crust.

At the moment we do not know if that ball of magna will break the crust and cause an eruption.

” Rather than having one large crater, the volcano on el Hierro consists of around 250 small craters. “Any eruption would form cones on the high zones of the island and lava flows which would flow to the sea, although they would do so at a speed that would be slow enough for the population to be evacuated.

It is something that could happen in days, weeks or months,” said Carracedo.

El Hierro currently has a population of around 10,000 and regional government officials have begun informing them of evacuation protocols in case the worst should happen.

The last volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands took place on the island of La Palma in 1971, while the mainland town of Lorca was devastated by an earthquake of 5.2 on the Richter scale in May this year.

http://english.cri.cn/6966/2011/09/26/2724s660056.htm

[GCANE]

New tweet - situation worsens:

http://twitter.com/#!/teideano/status/1 ... 20/photo/1

[GCANE]

Wow. Activity really picking up.

http://m.emsc.eu/earthquake/latest.php? ... omed=World

[GCANE]

I wonder if the eruption will occur offshore, south of the island.