Posted on by Jón Frímann

Eruption starts again then stops again in El Hierro volcano

Few weeks ago the eruption in El Hierro volcano stopped for few hours. Before it did restart at lower levels for few days. Then it stopped again. This type of behavior is not so unexpected as it seems that El Hierro volcano did get some minor magma injection in past few days and around the time the eruption did restart. But this injection of new magma was followed by minor earthquake swarm in El Hierro volcano, with one of the earthquake having the depth of 34 km (automatic depth estimate I think). But this new injections of magma seems to be small compared to the amount of magma that has already been injected into and erupted already in El Hierro volcano.


Harmonic tremor yesterday (03-01-2012) in El Hierro volcano. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).


Harmonic tremor today (04-01-2012) in El Hierro volcano. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).

Current level of harmonic tremor in El Hierro volcano suggests an small eruption in the area. But there is now an highly active hydro-thermal area where the eruption started and has been taking place for the past three months. But it is going to take several weeks and up to years for this area to cool down. Then there is also the chance of hydro-thermal activity in the area if there is an dike intrusion into the rock of the El Hierro volcano that has not erupted. If that is the case as might well be. It is going to decades and up to hundreds of years to cool down.

For the moment however the main eruption event in El Hierro volcano is over and it is going to remain like that until new magma is injected into volcano. But that might not happen for hundreds to thousands of years if the current sequence of events that led to current eruption is over. But only time is going to tell us what happens next is El Hierro volcano. As volcanoes are unpredictable in there nature.

17 Replies to “Eruption starts again then stops again in El Hierro volcano”

  1. I just want to say that the eruption at El Hierro is not over at all.
    Although harmonic tremor is very low, several smoking lava stones have been seen and collected in the past few days…

  2. Interesting.

    If the jacuzzi activity is hydrothermal, does this mean that it will continue for sometime. Or do you expect it to stop soon.

    1. I saw a interview with a Icelander who lived in Concepcion when the quake hit Chile in 2010. He said that he had been in bed when this happened and mentioned that he had seen green lights in the sky just before the quake happened.
      I wonder what that was, possibly something that’s common during large quakes but rarely noticed.

  8. Magnitude ML 3.5
    Region CANARY ISLANDS, SPAIN REGION
    Date time 2012-01-05 17:05:56.0 UTC
    Location 29.07 N ; 14.24 W
    Depth 30 km
    Distances 159 km NE Las palmas (pop 378,495 ; local time 17:05:56.8 2012-01-05)
    59 km W Tias (pop 16,246 ; local time 17:05:56.8 2012-01-05)
    49 km W Yaiza (pop 8,777 ; local time 17:05:56.8 2012-01-05)

  10. I’d say there is still a lot of fresh Magma under El Hierro, it doesn’t seem to have deflated much, if and when it erupts ….

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