Posted on by Jón Frímann

What is happening in El Hierro volcano

This is a special blog post about the volcano El Hierro in the Canary Islands. The resons for this blog posts are those that this activity is interesting and there is not a lot happening at the moment in Iceland due to bad weather (nothing gets recorded in this bad weather).

Currently El Hierro volcano is a phase that I personally call a magma intrusion phase (I have no other word for it). But that means that magma is currently coming from a depth, that is more then 20 km below the volcano and up the crust directly below the volcano. It is impossible to know how long this phase is going to last. As a example this phase for Eyjafjallajökull volcano lasted for good part of 17 years (with some breaks). When the pressure is high enough in the sill that is now forming in El Hierro the magma is going to break up the surface.

This pattern can clearly be seen on this image here.


The magma is flowing up into the volcano at around 30 degree angle from the depth of more then 20 km. When a new magma injection starts, a new earthquake swarm starts in El Hierro. This magma injections are different in size and length. But as more magma collects into the bedrock in El Hierro the stronger earthquakes are going to take place. But this increases the pressure on the rock and inside the magma chamber that is now forming and can clearly been seen with the earthquake pattern. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

I did see a picture that was made on Eruptions blog that did show his clearly, both the feeder channel of the magma and the magma chamber that is currently in the making. It seems that magma inflow into the new magma chamber or the sill in El Hierro is stable at the moment. But I base that view on the constant earthquakes that are currently taking place. But this magma inflow seems to have been stable since 16 July, 2011 when the magma started to push upwards into El Hierro.

Earthquakes that signal new inflow of magma do not need to be strong in size. But they are deep, with the most depth around 20 km. But the crust in this area is around 10 to 26 km thick. As this is a ocean crust in this area. But the Canary islands are the thickest crustal part in the area. But it is also important to notice that the magma chamber or the sill is expanding in all directions, not just upwards. That in it self is also going to create deep earthquakes. But those earthquakes should remain a bit outside the main area of the deep earthquakes that are currently taking place in the area.

I am expecting a lot more earthquake activity when or if El Hierro starts erupting. But when that might happen impossible to know for the moment. The only thing that can be done is too wait and see what happens.

Update 1: Here is the earthquake activity for today (30 September, 2011).


Earthquake activity of today (30 September, 2011). There is less earthquake activity today. This happens when magma flows into a volcano. This did also happen with Eyjafjallajökull volcano in the year 2010. If anyone has the direct link too this plot, please leave it in the comments. Thanks. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

Update 2: Links too El Hierro information can be found here.

Update 3: The Spanish news channel Canal 24 can be found here and it is live.

Update 4: Here is a news in english about the evacuation of El Hierro. It is from 28 September, 2011. Evacuation of El Hierro begins as fears of volcanic eruption grow. Thanks to Dr. John v. Kampen that did send this to me with a email.

Note: There are new pictures of Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Fimmvörðuháls craters here. They show the difference from the year 2010 and in the year 2011. The text is in Icelandic.

Also. Please support my effort so I can buy two new geophones and add them to my monitoring network in Iceland. Thanks! 🙂

Blog post has been updated 30 September, 2011 at 22:12 UTC.
Blog post has been updated 30 September, 2011 at 22:25 UTC.
Blog post has been updated 30 September, 2011 at 23:08 UTC.
Blog post has been updated 1 October, 2011 at 14:48 UTC.

185 Replies to “What is happening in El Hierro volcano”

  1. If / when there is an eruption at El Hierro, is there a risk for a landslide and resulting tsunami? I have read and seen the analysis of La Palma which some scientist think is at risk of a major flank collapse / landslide and large devastating tsunami, but I haven’t seen much about El Hierro and don’t know if this is also a risk for this volcano.

    1. According to Dr. Boris Behnke and other volcanologists from Europe, the possibility of a landslide/tsunami is very low at Hierro, because the terrain seems to be very stable, differently from La Palma, where cracks show more unstable cliffs.
      And like Jón said, there is indeed magma influx into the chamber, which by no means indicate that an eruption is underway. 🙂
      I think this “tsunami mongering” is being responsible for all the hype around El Hierro, but I wonder how many of such intrusion have been taking place in the past, before all the monitoring facilities were available.
      I believe we might be seeing a nice effusive event from Hierro still during our life times.
      But not much different from what we saw in Fimmvorduháls or Piton de La Fournaise.
      Of course, this is a rank amateur guess. 🙂

      1. Well, that’s not what I heard last night from Mitch Battros of EarthChangesMedia. And a little google search also discovered that El Hierro eruptions have caused super tsunamis three times before in its history, and based on past history it can be assumed that it could happen again. The risks from El Hierro are clearly understated right now. .

      1. For all, I strongly agree with Jon’s take on this.

        The El Golfo and El Julan slides have already removed the most hazardous material. The San Andreas failed slide is on the other side of the island and is not near where the quake activity is at.

        My post below looks at the dynamics of how a slide’s energy would propagate. Not if a slide is going to occur.

      2. Caveat! El Hierro is a tri-rift system. Basically, it is riven with potential faults running parallel(ish) to the rifts.

        Whilst, as Lurking points out, the ‘big chunks’ have already fallen away in geologic history, there is still potential for headwall landslides (ranging from small to partial collapse).

        Not the stuff to make ‘mega-tsunami’ nightmares, but definately a risk to anyone unfortunate enough to be beneath a headwall should a quake loosen a slice. Hence the precautions currently being taken by the Canary Islands authorities with their staged emergency plan (raised to Yellow).

        According to AVCAN Facebook site, should any EQs of 4.2 mag or greater occur, the plan goes to Red – primarily because of the increased risk of landslides and cliff collapse. (The lava they can live with!!)

        I would add that IF the seismic events trend back North (toward El Golfo again) or IF they headed North-East toward Las Playas/San Andres, then that would have potential to unlock the San Andres Landslide, an incomplete or aborted slump-like failure of the ancient Tinor volcano structure.

        At that stage (which seems unlikely or at least a long time away), it would significantly increase the risk to coastal inhabitants along the shores of Morrocco/Western Sahara.

        If you can find them, have a look at:

        Münn, S. et al. (2006) Gravitational spreading controls rift zones and flank instability on El Hierro, Canary Islands. Geological Magazine, 143(3): 257-269. DOI: 10.1017/S0016756806002019

        and

        Masson, D.G. et al. (2006) Submarine landslides: processes, triggers and hazard prediction. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A, 364(1845): 2009-2039.

      3. The landslides most people speak about here are (said to be) caused by volcanic eruptions which warm and expend vertical water layers inside the mountain and therefor making the slope unstable.

      4. “I do not think that there is any risk of flank collapse” – Jon [Regarding El Hierro]

        You are rounding probability off to zero? I think you must agree there is some chance of a flank collapse, but since you think it is “very low”, whatever that is, you round it off to zero chance.

    3. It’s a risk for any ocean island volcano. Throughout geologic history Hawaii does it quite often. In fact, the Tuscaloosa seamount is the largest single block that I know of that fell off a volcano intact. It’s has a volume of about 230 miles³, or 959 km³. It was part of the Nu’uanu slide about 500ka ago.

      Tsunamis have a lot of variable that determine how they propagate. In general, they can be categorized as planar or point source. A megathrust quake would be planar, and chunck of island falling in the ocean would be a point source (unless it’s the size of the Nu’uanu slide where a whole face of the island fell off)

      Now… a bit of cross discipline logic.

      In RF antenna theory, there are two principle zones of the energy field. These are the near field, where energy density and beam direction are in flux, and the far field where all of the interfering items in the near field have worked out the different phase relationships and the actual designed beam forms up and can be detected as such. As a rule of thumb, this is about 10 wavelengths from the antenna.

      The wavelength of a tsunami is dependent on the water depth. Around El Hierro, the water adjacent to the island is about 3000 to 3700 meters deep. This yields a wavelength of between 18.8 to 23.2 km. So, at about 188 to 232 km any tsunami that is generated should start to follow a predictable dissipation curve.

      This plot should be within the ballpark in estimating what the wave height will be once the tsunami propagates away from the source.

      http://i52.tinypic.com/mmy5w1.png

      (as a function of initial wave height)

      Other effects will cause deviations from this, interference from reflections, direction of initial mass fall, undersea topology etc.

      And even more important, tsunamis gain their destructive strength at the destination as the ocean becomes shallow and the water starts piling up.

  2. hello, is this eruption (when/if it happens) going to be just lava flowing like in Hawaii or is there an explosive eruption likely, like in Katla?

  3. Thanks Jon and some good photos of Eyja. Most interesting about the red colouration. I cannot quite understand why this colouration has occured unlrss it’s oxidation of a particular mineral on exposure to air and rain. Giggle translation still insists on calling it Merapi!!

    1. The red colour is coming from the iron-content of the lava. It’s more or less the same as the rust on technical iron-structures. You see the same colours in quarries working on the ancient scoria cones of the Eifel volcanoes here in Germany.

    1. This are signs that eruption might well happen. But as always, we just have to wait and see when eruption might happen. But this signs are pointing towards a eruption soon in my opinion.

    2. @ luisport and Húsafell:

      Did you find out anything more about the “strange noises from the sea” at La Restinga, the village at about the southermost point of the island of El Hierro?
      Were they recorded, and are they still going on?
      I am wondering if whales or dolphins might possibly have made them, as a warning to other creatures.

      1. Regarding another corner of the animal kingdom…

        From AVCAN Facebook thread (Google Translate):
        Maria Mathamel A friend told me that Tenerife ants are behaving oddly, that there are a lot and have appeared suddenly, as I read these bugs they sense when you have a change in their habitat as heavy rain and earthquakes in and out of nests eggs run.

        Original: María Mathamel Una amiga de Tenerife me dijo que las hormigas se estan comportando de manera extraña, que hay muchisimas y han aparecido de pronto, según he leido estos bichitos intuyen cuando va haber un cambio en su habitat como lluvias fuertes y terremotos y salen de los nidos con los huevos huyendo.

        http://www.facebook.com/pages/Actualidad-Volc%C3%A1nica-de-Canarias-AVCAN/163883668446

  5. Hi Karyo . :)I am not an expert but I think I have read it will be more of a lava flow, Maybe a small explosion to start but as it has no water from an icecap like Katla only water that may have collected in the rocks, so the risk of an explosive eruption because of water is minimal. Others will be more knowlegeable than myself but certainly not a huge Krakatoa type eruption is forecast. However we shall have to wait and see what happens.
    Here is a webcam picture looking towards the main ridge where the ‘Quakes are occurring, It is night at the moment so save for daylight tomorrow.
    http://www.wunderground.com/webcams/onalita/1/show.html

  8. There seems to be some activity in Katla volcano caldera. But it is hard to see because of the storm that is ongoing in Iceland at the moment.

  9. Saturday
    01.10.2011 00:28:32 63.651 -19.046 24.2 km 0.5 72.02 8.3 km NNE of Hábunga
    Saturday
    01.10.2011 00:24:01 63.645 -19.071 1.1 km 1.5 81.37 7.4 km N of Hábunga
    Saturday
    01.10.2011 00:21:51 63.648 -19.098 1.3 km 1.8 35.99 7.6 km E of Goðabunga

    The first at 24.2 Km seems very deep. However it is a very small quake and it is Friday Night/Saturday Morning!

    1. The depth might not be exactly 24,2 km deep. But I would think that the depth is about 10 to 20 km, or in that range anyway.

      That might not be a good sign. But the bad weather is blocking the recording of what is going on in Katla volcano.

    2. Still Friday night in Rio, so we are still on schedule!
      Someone stumbled into an ink pot at Jón’s geophone’s house?

      1. Really bad storm in Iceland. Then I mean bad. Garage roofs have been blown off tonight, among with everything that is not properly tied down.

      3. At the moment the weather is not at the worst in my part of Iceland. But it is going to be early morning and later tomorrow in my part of Iceland.

        But I do not know how the mountains effects are going to be. They might cancel the effects of this weather greatly…or not if things are bad in this wind direction where I currently life. But the wind direction is North-West.

    1. Hi June,I don’t think there is anyone in the world who could answer to your question, because there are many other questions involved, most of which we have no idea of the answers so far:
      Will there be an eruption, at all? If so, when? An explosive eruption? How much ash will it produce? In which direction will the winds blow?
      Probably we have very little to say about it so far, but that the winds during the Atlantic hurricane season (up to November) tend to blow westwards at these latitudes.

    2. No, not at all unless the entire windpattern on this part of the globe changes.
      Only air traffic that will be affected is charter tourists going to the islands.
      The prevailing winds there are the most stable on the planet, ie. the trade winds. They always blow from Sahara to the caribbean sea. It is the same conveyerbelt that moves thos pesky hurricanes to the US. And no, the US will not be affected due to distance.
      Secondly, this will most likely be a rather un-ashy affair.

  12. Jon, in your earlier post ‘The depth might not be exactly 24,2 km deep. But I would think that the depth is about 10 to 20 km, or in that range anyway.’

    Are you refering to El Hierro or Kalta?

  15. There is a spike showing at many of the sil stations. Only problem is that I don’t see which one is what sil station, cause i’m on my phone. But there is at one of the stations is showing higher. Anyway, spike looks wierd, can someone see if they can find the same, and explain to me?

    1. Hengill seems to be getting a bit shaky again. They don’t usually do the pumping of water into it at weekends though, do they?

      1. Yes, they have pumped water recently during the weekends.

        And it looks like they are doing it again this weekend, but may be not as much so far.

    2. Midnigh Spike at stations around Katla. I see this spike on all stations around Katla, at Godabunga it went out of the plot, so the red top of the spike might be there but cannot be seen. Having a close look it can be seen at stations further away in small size, as, for example, at Vatnsfell, or, even at Grimsfjall (very small).

    4. There also were some eqs at approximatly the same time at Katla, and the tremor plot of godabunga shows falling frequency bands on all frequency bands since then, maybe thats not only due to better weather?

  16. Jon, I’m trying to understand the idea of the feeder channel and the magma chamber and the 30 degree angle ideia, but the occurrence of earthquakes is not reversed? First, many earthquakes occured at 8-14km (chamber ?) and only later at 14-18km (feeder channel ?)

    1. The earthquake move up into the crust as the magma goes higher. For the moment however the magma continues to be on 12 to 18 km depth. While it is at that depth. There is not great danger.

      But that might change without any warning at any time.

    2. Pure speculation on my part: magma moves upwards at the higher level to be followed by an injection from the lower level (the former may have also been preceded by a lower level injection which is not shown on the recent data provided); and / or, El Hierro is on a fault line so we are also seeing a downwards movement of a plate edge.

      1. Slight problem. There is no plate edge.

        The nearest place were there could be some sort of transition area is over along the coast of Africa where the oceanic crust joins the continental crust. (two different densities) But the those two segments have been effectively welded together and moving as one piece for quite a long time.

        There is some speculation that the Canary chain is roughly connected with whatever formed the Atlas mountains up in Morocco, this is mainly due to the alignment of the two features.

        My guess is that if this is true, then it would probably be a slight wrinkle in the crust propagating to the southwest on a millions of year timescale. That wrinkle causing decompression melting and volcano formation along the way. The age distribution of the Canary islands supports this, but I’m not a geologist and probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

        What is known is that there is a hotspot in the area of the Canary Islands… and I don’t see anything in the quake data that even hints at a fault. The overall quake plot does show a broad sheet of disuse quakes dipping off to the North, and that could indicate some structure of the crust itself. But that’s a different story that some up and coming grad student should take on board.

  17. Dear Christina,

    I saw it too, the biggest spike was visible at Slysaaldat (sly) which is related to Katla, but the spike was also good visible at Eystri-Skogar (esk) and Alftagrof (alf).
    To my amateur eyes it’s not related to the bad weather, because it goes way above the background noise.
    Maybe it has to do with the earthquakes of last night.
    Jón, is it harmonic or because of the earthquakes?

    Kind regards,

    Henk Weijerstrass
    Holland

  18. I’m really terrible with typing which is clearly visisble, because I can’t even spell my own name right!

  19. Dear Christina,

    I saw the spike too! The spike was most clearly visible at Slysaalda (sly) which is related to Katla if I’m right. But the spike was also good visibleb at Eystri-Skogar (esk) and Alftagrof (alf).
    It’s maybe related to the earthquakes of last night.
    In my amateur eyes the spike(s) are not caused by the bad weather, because the spike(s) are clearly above the background noise.
    Jón, is this harmonic or just because of the earthquakes?

    Kind regards,

    Henk Weijerstrass
    Holland

  20. Please remember about the donation plea that I have ongoing so that I can buy two new geophones and add too my network. So I can monitor Katla volcano and Reykjanes and SISZ.

    So far the donations total 3,926.44, so I am still missing a bit until I can buy the geophones.

    http://icelandgeology.net/?p=1548

    1. OK Jon!

      A little bit more coming now!

      Is there asny significance to the depth of the latest Katla EQs?

      1. Most depth of earthquakes in Katla volcano is down to about 20 km. But often there are dike intrusions at that depth, they do not make any changes to the surface of Katla volcano. But sometimes signal more activity soon.

    1. Not exactly skyrocketing, but if the pace is kept up, GFUM will reach the pre-eruption levels in 2013-2014…

    1. It is a question if there is a small pocekt of magma has risen high up enough in the crust to boil away the water in the rock.

      But for the moment it is hard to know for sure. But there is some lack of data that I am getting.

    2. Don’t understand why these things are not even being mentioned in the official news, only on Facebook. The authorities should take the inhabitants seriously, listen to their concerns, very soon try to find out what is going on, inform people and take action. – I hope they do, even if we do not hear about it.
      As for myself, I would be worried in a situation like this if there were ground deformations around my house. And I really would like to know where the sounds come from.

      1. But the authorities and the volcanologists are informing the population, see e.g. http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/telecanarias/telecanarias-fin-semana-01-10-2011/1212181/ (television in Spanish language) or http://www.intereconomia.com/noticias-gaceta/sociedad/hierro-registra-un-nuevo-seismo-superior-los-3-grados-magnitud-20111001 (online news in Spanish) or for example this one in English: http://www.tumbit.com/news/articles/3834-el-hierro-volcano-update-1st-oct.html.

      2. Yes, there is a lot of inormation about the earthquakes, their location, number, magnitude and depth. The alert is risen to yellow and some people have even been evacuated. The authorities seem to be well prepared. So far so good.
        What worries me: “Population say that the noises are growing and grownd deformation grow too…”. These events do not seem to reach the news (to me). I follow the news about El Hierro in several languages (my spanish aknowledge is rather poor) but did not hear/see anything about ground deformations or strange noises from the sea yet. However these events are reported on facebook.
        But for the inhabitants of the island, these events are probably of great importance. That is why I think the events should be explored and the results being published on the news.
        If anybody finds news about this in the english language, I would be happy to get links to it.

  23. The GFUM GPS station is at Grimsvotn and the plunge downwards was just after the eruption there earlier this year.

    2. I was referring to the last datapoints. It looks like vertical inflation is accelerating.

  24. Jon’s geophone page seems to be down, anyone else have problem, or is it just me?

      1. The weather in Iceland has been pretty crazy for the past 36 hours or so. I’d bet on wind too 🙂

    2. It was my computer again, had to reboot it and clear browser memory, now the page opens again 🙂

  25. The funny thing is that there are several ls last 48 with a depth from 6.9 km to 24.2 km in Katla
    Saturday
    01.10.2011 09:03:52 63,662 -19,071 18.5 Km 1.4 99. 0 9.2 km ENE of Goðabunga
    Saturday
    01.10.2011 05:12:14 63,584 -19,148 16.2 Km 1.3 99.0 2.4 km WNW of
    Hábunga
    Saturday
    01.10.2011 04:13:01 63,598 -19,123 6.9 0.8 99.0 km NNW of Hábunga 2.3 km
    Saturday
    01.10.2011 00:28:32 63,650 -19,054 24.2 1.2 99.0 km NNE of Hábunga 8.1 km
    Thursday
    29.09.2011 22:17:05 63,496 -19,188 12.0 Km 1.2 99.0 10.3 km SSW of Hábunga

    1. This deep earthquakes in Katla volcano suggests a new inflow of magma from depth into Katla magma chamber.

      This is not a good sign in my opinion.

  26. Seems to me that the El Hierro earthquakes are getting deeper. On the image the red dots are the most recent. Data from IGN confirms this. Can it be that magma rises and simultaniously quakes are getting deeper?

    1. Other than some visual cues in the historical quake plot, I think that if there was a pulse of magma, it came up from the south diagonally to the north, and that you are seeing it back to the south along a shallower strata. There aren’t a whole lot of quakes in the plot to support this.

      That’s one way of looking at it.

      Another way is that this melt formed in place from decompression melting and we just happened to be around and watching as the overall structure of the area made the transition to a higher percentage of melt. The problem with that is it would not account for the inflation. Logically, if the supportive structure shifted to a higher melt percentage it would not be able to hold the overburden as well, and you would see deflation.

      With the reports of noises and the supposition that it’s steam and moisture being forced out of the rock… the hydrostatic pressure of water will not allow the water to flash to steam below about 2.75 km depth. I don’t think that would be a source of noise… unless the water is retaining it’s heat as it percolated to the surface of the open ocean. (which would be a very odd occurrence, water mixes.)

  27. I keep posting links to you blog on my ‘Katla’ Facebook page Jon, trying to let more people know about your blog! 😉

  28. Saturday 01.10.2011 20:12:09 63.561 -19.113 1.1 km 1.0 35.96 2.2 km SSW of Hábunga

      1. Good one Lurking. I admit to feeling a little dizzy towards the end! It really shows El Hierro’s chamber well. What a busy little Volcano!

      2. I saw some of yr. plots, Lurking, linked to Klemetti and found them exceptionally well done and informative.

  31. Could this be the Tsnami that was predicted by numerous prophets such as American born Edgar Casey? The second largest tidal waves recorded were due to earthquake caused landslides. What would one of these monsters do to the east coast of America?
    do you believe the west coast is over due and or could a Mega Quake be imminent?

  32. Hello. I came across this site by accident while searching for information on seismic activity in El Hierro. I am not a seismologist, scientist of any sort – just a curious reader. My mother lives in Tenerife and this makes me a little anxious when I read about earthquakes/volcanoes in the Canary Islands ! Sorry to drop in on you folks. I was also curious to read about ‘strange sounds’ coming from the ocean ?? Haven’t there also been unexplained strange sounds emanating from ground in other parts of the world ? I believe Windsor (Ontario) experienced strange sounds that nobody could explain. Thank you for letting ‘drop in’. Michelle

    1. Hi Michelle 🙂
      I can understand your worries. If you read the first few posts on this latest Blog it may help stop your fears a little.
      On reading the local information the authorities are more concerned about landslides in the area , particularly the fact the road that joins the two communities on the island runs through a tunnel. Therefore they have advised certain at risk members of the island community to evacuate. This of course will not affect Tenerife

    2. “Strange Sounds” are enigmatic. The greatest problem is that the term does not convey any information that can be used to help the reader get an idea of what was strange about the sound.

      Last night I ran across a radio program that specializes in the odd, discussing “Strange Sounds.” They played an audio clip of the low frequency rumble and to me, it sounded like an air handler. You know, that part of an industrial air conditioning system that pushes the air around. I’m familiar with them since I have a permanent partial hearing loss due to 3 years of sharing an office with a trunk fan. Up close they don’t rumble.

      But, this is just one case of “Strange Sound.” Another is the occasional boom or rumble that is heard in Florida. Checking the closest seismo station up in Atmore doesn’t show anything, and activity over at Eglin is ruled out since they aren’t doing anything. These could be the ceilings of subterranean caverns collapsing since much of the area East of here have a lot of kharst features. The Port St Joe fault having fractured the limestone and allowing water to percolate through, carving out caverns that sometimes manifest as sink holes. But you would expect a seismo to pick that up. So that’s a wash.

      As for El Hierro, it gets to be problematic. Below about 2.75 km depth, the water pressure is above the supercritical point. The gaseous phase of water is indistinguishable from the liquid phase. That means that it can’t “flash” to steam and bubble to the surface. CO2 or SO2 releases are a possibility, but with out some sort of description about what the “Strange Sound” sounded like, its pure speculation as to a cause.

      It could even be exploding fish for all I know. 😀

      1. Actually, it is quite simple.
        When waves propagate through water hitting rocks and some such you get amplification of higher frequencies and high order distortion in audible frequencies. This noise then quite easily goes through the side of a small boat.
        That is why you can easilly hear a 50 revolution propeller as a 1500hz noise 10s of miles away out on the ocean…
        When I was at the Azores I heard them all the time, same when I was sleeping in my yacht in the harbor of Santorini. Guess what, you do not sleep well when hearing quakes going off all the time… 🙂

  33. Wind speed decreasing and Katla is increasing !
    @Larry I suggest that the first 8 posts of this latest blog will answer your questions about tsunami activity.
    No volcano or earthquake is “Over due” There may be some evidence of cyclic behaviour but they don’t tend to stick to a schedule. If they did we could accurately predict eruptions or earthquakes.
    Imminent in geological time could be 10 years,100 years or over a thousand.
    All even the most expert vulcanologist can do is to use data available to make an informed “guess”.

  34. So far it is just earthquakes in Katla volcano. I am not seeing any changes in harmonic tremors. But the weather is rather bad in this area at the moment. Wind continues to be strong all over Iceland for many locations.

    1. Katla! :
      Sunday
      02.10.2011 09:41:17 63.621 -19.127 1.1 km 3.0 90.02 4.7 km NNW of Hábunga

  36. Sunday
    02.10.2011 09:41:17 63.621 -19.127 1.1 km 3.0 90.02 4.7 km NNW of Hábunga

    Here it goes again. Could be or might not be reduced in size. Checking the temor chats and waiting for a update. My money is on the 3.0 been reduced.

    1. Puts allot of extra weight behind the Idea of deep EQ’S as a sign of magma rasing up and putting extra pressure in the area. If it was not for the storm, we might of seen allot of extra deep EQ’S in the area?. Jon, I will send something today.

  37. Sunnudagur
    02.10.2011 09:41:17 63,621 -19,127 1,1 km 3,0 90,02 4,7 km NNV af Hábungu

    1. Was this a low frequency EQ? It isn’t very visible on Jon’s Helicorder (if at all), but it’s got a >90% Quality.

      1. There are 2 quakes

        09:40:51 63.618 -19.118 2.1R 4.3 km NNV af Hábungu
        09:41:17 63,621 -19,127 1,1 km 3,0R 90,02%

      2. And something strange is showing up on Jóns Helicorder at Hekla at ~09:54, 09:55 & 09:59

    1. I’m afraid this question cannot be answered by anyone, for all we know, it could erupt in an hour, or in 1000 years. 😉

  39. Hi Jón
    I just upgraded my computer. So I was wondering if you still needed some computer hardware. I have a Gigabyte motherboard it is about 3 years old and still works fine. It has a 2.5 or a 2.8 GHz AMD processor and 4 gig ram. Let me know if you can use this.

  41. There are some descriptions of the El Hierro sounds to be found on internet.

    http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Escuchamos/rugidos/mar/elpepisoc/20110929elpepisoc_4/Tes (Spanish, translated with Google)
    02.10.2011

    “We hear rumblings beneath the sea”

    “The divers of La Restinga, south of El Hierro, know that something abnormal happens. “Some days ago we were about 30 meters when we heard a strange noise. Trrrrrrrrrrr. So for a few seconds. As if the rock broke. Rumblings were heard under the sea. It is very rare,” says Beatriz Delgado Cánovas, a geographer in Madrid that three years ago came to the island to stay.”

    “Joseba, a leading Bilbao two years as a monitor of diving on the island, says that in about 45 minutes yesterday dip seven times heard the roar. “It sounds as if a ship was making a strange maneuver just above you. It is reassuring that the fish are very placid.”

    On this site this information is found also:

    “Encouraged by the scientists analyzing the seismic-volcanic crisis, divers are now searching for signs of exhaust gas and measure the water temperature. So far, no abnormal signs.“

    1. On the other hand, there has been an increase of gaz emission as well as an expansion of terrain on the island of El Hierro itself by about 4 cm in some areas within the last 2 months acc. to the a.m. article:
      “la isla se ha expandido en algunas zonas unos cuatro centímetros y el flujo de dióxido de carbono (CO2) del subsuelo se ha triplicado en dos meses” (my own translation).

    2. No, you can hear earthquakes extremely well in water.
      By ear only you can hear quakes tens of kilometres away and down when inside a sailing boat.
      With the right equipment you can hear quakes in Iceland when the submarine is in the antarctic. That is why filtering them out is so important when chasing subs…

  42. The CO2 emissions even tripled compared to before the beginning of the unrest period.

  43. PS: Could you remove this “Chinese girls” advertisement, Jón?

    I like yr. website, but I won’t engage in a website nor recommend it which could be open to strange ads like this one.

    1. This is Google Adsense how controls this ads, they are targeted ads so I might not see the ad that you are seeing. I am going to look into blocking date site ads that Google Adsense has. I have some control over what appears in the ads.

    2. Google AdSense gives you the ads it thinks interest you most. This guess of your interests is based on your browsing habits that are collected from your Google searches and by any Google software from your PC.

      2. I am really worried now! The ads I get are for heat shield cooling vest, First aid supplies, Survival kits and emergency food supplies! Does Google know something I don’t? ….and before anyone asks NO! I don’t frequent conspiracy theory or Doom mongering sites!!

      3. @Diana Barnes

        “… heat shield cooling vest, First aid supplies, Survival kits and emergency food supplies! ”

        Funny, I get disaster preparedness, Kindle hype
        (probably from all the pdf searches), Vampire movies (I keep searching for music by Collide and Emigrate who did the score for several of that genre) and womens shoes.

        I haven’t figured out the shoe bit. I did work in a shoe store 30+ years ago, but that was for Florsheim.

        Note to Húsafell: This doesn’t mean that you have an interest in the subject that came up in the ads, but that a piece of software/malware/click redirect or someone using your computer had an interest in a similar or vaguely similar subject.

      4. I can understand the survival, disaster preparedness, emergency and heat shield vests as I am always clicking on Volcanoes!………
        I am sorry Lurking…… but women’s shoes? ROFL
        I can just see those pretty, red leather, six inch high heels picking their way across the lava fields.

        Oh my! We have so much in common! Rofl. 🙂 I too get book and Kindle blurb.

      5. The Amazon Ads are more static then Google Adsense ads. But the Amazon ads are based on what is sold. Rather then what is viewed. So I get less from those ads then Google Adsense ads.

      6. That can also be due to if Google “knows” (read: thinks) Husafell is a bachelor…

  45. I read about this too but I certainly do not understand everything, not even with the help of Google :(. So I did not understand where the CO2 comes from and not where it has been measured, in the water or in the air. Is it being emitted through the sea bottom and bubbles up through the water (this also makes me think about Kleifarvatn a little), or does it come through the soil / sand on shore, or maybe both?

    1. This was meant to be a reply to the comment of Húsafell at
      October 2, 2011 at 15:15.

  48. Have to wait until the quality improves to see what is happening.

    02.10.2011 17:50:03 63.647 -19.086 1.1 km 2.0 90.06 7.5 km N of Hábunga
    02.10.2011 17:47:06 65.039 -16.436 7.0 km 1.8 76.78 5.9 km SSW of Herðubreiðartögl
    02.10.2011 17:09:23 63.593 -19.101 4.7 km 3.0 66.45 1.4 km N of Hábunga

    http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/#view=table

    Movement showing on SIL at ALF and GOD but what it means is another thing (prob nothing).

    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/alf.gif
    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/god.gif

  49. For those who follow El Hierro developments…

    Some good/interesting reporting (2/10/2011) on the El Hierro situation (if you can stand so much Google Translate quirks, e.g. “erupción” translates to “rash”):

    Crisis sísmica de El Hierro 2011 > José Miguel Pérez García
    http://www.diariodeavisos.com/2011/10/02/actualidad/crisis-sismica-de-el-hierro-2011-jose-miguel-perez-garcia

    Viaje al mar de los epicentros
    http://www.diariodeavisos.com/2011/10/02/actualidad/viaje-al-mar-de-los-epicentros

    (For other articles: see Diario de Avisos homepage
    http://www.diariodeavisos.com/)

    Other sources of news from El Hierro:

    Actualidad Volcánica de Canarias (AVCAN) Facebook site with plenty of comments each hour, many from the frontline
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Actualidad-Volcanica-de-Canarias-AVCAN/163883668446

    El Hierro Digital for daily news (and the social-political perspective)
    http://elhierrodigital.es/

    1. @ Andy was wondering everytime I translated what “rash” was, thanks so much for explaining that.

    2. It is impossible to know why this did happen. But one idea that might explain this is that in the beginning of this there might well have been two feeder channels into El Hierro. But without some real research into this it is hard to know this for sure.

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