Posted on by Jón Frímann

Special report: Update 3 on El Hierro eruption in Canary Islands, Spain

I am going to fully integrate Canary Islands into my watch volcano monitoring system in the beginning of next month, but Canary Island won’t be part of my emergency system until I move to Canary Island (that is because of technical reasons mostly). When that happens, blog post regarding earthquake and volcano activity won’t be a special report. Just a normal blog post as with Icelandic volcanoes. I am doing this as I plan on moving to Canary Islands in about 10 years time (+- maybe few years depending on how my plans work out). A name change on this blog is planned in the beginning of the year 2012. But it takes a while for me to think up a new name for this blog.
******

The eruption in El Hierro volcano continues at the same phase as before. With little change so far. Currently the eruption seems to be in two vents, as it did when it started on Monday. There have been unconfirmed reports of new vents opening up closer to the coastline. But given lack of direct evidence that should be there. I do not believe that a new vents have opened up closer to the coastline so far.

Deep earthquake continue in El Hierro volcano. But that means a new magma is coming in from the mantle and is flowing upwards into the volcano. For long as deep earthquakes are being recorded the eruption is going to continue. It is impossible to know for how long this inflow of magma from the mantle is going to continue. But this means that the eruption is going to continue for time being. With the risk that new vents might open up at any time on and around El Hierro volcano. This inflow of new magma has also been confirmed by GPS measurements on El Hierro volcano (the island). But since the eruption did start, no major change has been seen on the GPS real time data.


The harmonic tremor in El Hierro volcano yesterday. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.


The harmonic tremor in El Hierro volcano today (until 21:20 UTC about). As can be seen by comparing the pictures between today and yesterday. Not much has changed since yesterday in terms or harmonic tremor. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

If a eruption vents open up on a land. The following eruption is going to be lava only. No volcano ash and no explosions as El Hierro is a shield volcano like the one on Hawaii and that means only lava eruptions. If a eruption vents opens up on the shallow coastline, there are going to be explosions for as long the ocean water can get into the crater. The moment it closes up the explosions stop and lava eruptions starts.

Please note that I am on slow internet connection (3G). So I am not going to post anything if the internet connection is really slow, as sometimes seems to happen. I am going to try and solve this issue by using my 3G phone and connect that way. At least I am going to try and see what happens.

Blog post updated at 03:20 UTC on the 15 October, 2011.

598 Replies to “Special report: Update 3 on El Hierro eruption in Canary Islands, Spain”

  1. Hi crew,
    I’ve been lurking ,reading the blog ,here, for a couple days now…..
    I’ve also noticed more activity on/near Mt. Rainier, Washington……..
    things are heating up……

  2. Have been away from internet access for a day and a half and I can see it’s been lively here ! Smoking pumice on the surface now – I take it we’re no longer talking about de-gassing and that something has indeed opened up ? I can also see that activity has increased since about noon today. Are we likely to see a baby El Hierro in the next day or two ?….and how are Captchas created – this one was ‘Psycho-Analy’ – does this describe someone after having a good curry ?

    1. The captchas are created from scanned books. You are when running captchas borrowing out a slight amount of computer time to a project that is trying to make computers understand old texts.
      Psycho-analy, isnt that when the head is stuck up the ol’ wazoo?

  3. Sounds like how we could describe some of the media commentators on what’s been happening at El Hierro.

    1. I am watching it closely, seems like something might be changing in the innards of EldfjallþessierþekktursemBob.
      The fissure could have widened, or the magma has started to run to a new place. Or a new vent just opened up.
      Right now I am giving EldfjallþessierþekktursemBob a week before we start to see some activity from the current vent showing for real on the surface. Question is just how fast EldfjallþessierþekktursemBob is building up towards a new Island?

    1. As I’ve said, an earthquake at that size happening next to the magma-reservoir of Hengill would most likely make Hengill start to poop all over the place.
      The fracking is the single most stupid thing Iceland have ever done.

      1. Does anyone know if they have started injecting CO2? – the ‘Carbofix’ experiment was due to start about now at Hellisheidi?

      2. I do think they have started that now. But I am not sure.
        I heard earler this wee that the IMO had asked the Energy Department to set up a moratorium on the current activities, but it seems like they didn’t get it stoped anyhoo.

      3. wee (2) Brit, Austral, and NZ informal n

        (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Physiology)
        a. the act or an instance of urinating

      4. BTW, I jest.

        It reads correctly either way, it’s just that my interpretation was funnier.

      5. I dont think the Energy department, IMO or the Ministry of Energy will have any influence.
        This has to do with a dream some bankers have, to sell energy to Europe trough a cable, among other things.
        No politicians have the power or will to stop this.

      6. Actually, I am the one to blame for the cable… That was one of my pet-projects back in my former life.
        But, that one was not even open for discussion. Iceland refused it when we proposed to build it from Helisheidarvirkjun to Scottland.

      7. The people who were selling this cable idea were guys like Heiðar Már Guðjónsson, best friend and co worker of Bjorgolfur Thor, former owner of the “Icesave”Landsbanki and other failed financial disasters.
        Guys like that dont give up, if things dont go their way, they try something else.

      8. Actually the idea was not theirs.
        The idea was a co-venture between ABB – Cable Systems, SS&E and Vattenfall.
        Even before the crash there was quite simply not enough money on Iceland for a project like that. You need big companies to solve problems like that. The Icelandic banks caused a bit of problems for Iceland, but they where actually just fly speck banks even back in the glory days.

      9. The Swedish Wallenbergs own a slice of ABB, they have also bankrolled some of Bjorgolfs adventures.
        They were supposed to bankroll the Bjorgolf owned Actavis takeover of Rapidoharm Germany, but backed out for some reason and Deutsche bank took the whole thing over.
        When that happened Bjorgolfur made a deal with his creditors to work for them, and i am sure thats what he is doing.
        Landsbanki was always a fly spec bank, but worked with all kinds of people.

      10. The Wallenberg familly is the largest owners of ABB, and as such they more or less run the show.
        But that was not my point. The point is that ABB invented a new type of power cabel that would make it economically viable to run the power for that distance, because you need to run power on ultra-scale to minimize the effect losses. ABB invented it to run it from a Sahara sun-farm to Italy. That project never happened, but I nicked the cable-idea and came up with the idea of instead running it from Iceland to Scottland, then I got SS&E onto the train. We then went to Iceland where I had the distinct honour to have a meeting with the then minister of the Energy Department. I presented the idea, and then me and the rest was kindly told to do something physically rather impossible and thrown out of the office. That kind of killed the idea.

      11. When the Bjorgolfs bought Landsbanki they had a sidekick called Magnus with them, who was responsible for a third of the bank as a owner.
        That same Magnus had 2 old trawlers changed into marine research wessels in 2008-9.
        A great asset to someone who needs to lay a under sea cable.

      12. If the idea is really dead, then why is it so important to make this IDDP project work ?

      13. Donald Rumsfeld was on the ABB board a few years ago, protecting interests of Wallstreet bankers i guess.

      14. The IDDP has many reasons. One of them is that it is a rather nifty way to make power. When they tested it at Krafla the result was really good.
        IDDPs are probaby going to be the next “hot” item in hydrothermal powerproduction, but they need to test it first on a rather harmless volcano like Krafla, not going full brunt at the much more dangerous Hengill.
        Second of all, Helisheidarvirkjun is not a regular IDDP, it is a project by for by the US to try to “hide away” CO2 by creating limestone.
        The actual reason for increasing powerproduction on Iceland is not to export it, it is to have power for the new Alcoa plant, and also for a magnesium silicothermic Pidgeon-process reduction plant.

      15. You mean the Aluminum plant in Helguvik ?
        That is Century Aluminum, they need 150 mw more power to power the plant, i think Landsvirkjun will supply that.

        There are plenty of possibilities to increase power production, deep drilling and fracking Hellisheidi is unnecessary.

      19. Along those same lines… the solubility of CO2 in water is heavily influenced by temperature.

        At depths above ≈ 2.75 km, water can flash to steam… and as the temperature of the CO2 laden water goes up, the amount of CO2 in solution that wants to come out of solution goes up.

        It’s like having your TNT and getting to eat it too!

      24. Peter Cobbold @ 23:45

        They (the companies) say not and according to the location given they haven’t, last time I drove through there.ote

  8. And a revisit of my error ellipse thoughts… (El Hierro)

    This is another graphic, hopefully conveying the idea. (as insane as it might be)

    http://i52.tinypic.com/126bgj9.png

    But first, let me re-state that this is not what the error ellipses are for. They are intended to indicate location errors in the localization data of the quake. The size and the shape of the ellipse is determined by timing errors and uncertainties from travel time and from the spatial orientation of the detecting seismograph stations.

    My hair-brained thought is that the quake locating data will have greater error along the plane of the fault/microcrack that generated the quake, and less error tangential to the fault/microcrack.

    If this is the case, then you can infer something about the structure of the area where the quake occurred. It would be NOWHERE near as accurate as a proper focal mechanism solution, but when you are grasping at a clue, you grab what you can. That’s what this is.

    If you will notice, the azimuth errors tend to occur in groups, depending on what the system is up to and where the quakes are occurring. They don’t seem to have errors related specifically to the where the quake is at in relation to the seismos, so my hare-brained idea may have some merit.

    The green quakes are the ones related to the submarine eruption area, and appear to be aligned with the probably structure of the island’s contour.

    The deeper ones seem to be aligned more closely to what I believe is the crustal structure that was put in place as this region formed back when it was along the MAR. That would account for the North/South trending.

    Anyway.. use with caution, I’m just some random internet idiot yammering about a field in which I am not trained. (in other words, I’m not a geologist)

    1. As I wrote yesterday. You are onto something.
      What you are onto I am not really sure about. But the grouping probably means something.

      Here is my five cents, for what they are worth. The only reason for the focal azimuth errors having the same direction in an area is that they are occuring in a same-directional chrystalized media (fancy way of saying rock if you are a phycisist). Ie, that the grouping consist of a particular type of rock that have a preferred fracturing capabillity according to its type of rock, and the orientation of the main component chrystal.
      What I mean is that you are seeing different rocks in different directions. If one had a large enough material you could probably map the various volumes of rock. And that would be rather nifty, and would have brutal economic value. Because if you today have a borehole core sample, and you see that you have 100 metres of a particular ore. How then will you know the volume of that orebody? Today you make hundreds of new holes and you make a map of the ground. Each hole costing about 200K$, so drill-costs for starting a mine normally ramps up into a minimum of 20M$ to get a fairly reliable orebody map. If your idea works like I think it does you could cut the needed amount of boreholes to one tenth, and still get a more exact result.

      But, you should test this on something where you have years of data, because you should check if the directions change over time (then I am dead wrong).

  9. And updated plot of the the rough location of one of the tremor artifacts.

    http://i56.tinypic.com/1z5224y.png

    Nothing like trying to to Target Motion Analysis on a volcano…

    Summary, the line of bearing has shifted a little south… or east, depending on how you read it. (CHIE is not where the artifact is at though the lines cross there, CHIE is just the timing reference point, the source is south of CHIE)

  10. @Lurking
    Thank you for another amazing plot. Whish I was that good at this, just the mapmaking part! Did learn mapmaking and plotting at school, but that was centuries ago.

    I do not know if feasible on possible of “reverse engineer” the earlier experiment of trying to locate the source of tremour originating from “ÞettaeldfjallættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob” (named somthing else than Bob). It was like like 1,000 posts back. Today I put simple overlay of “surface dirt” sattelite photo onto official nautical chart and then main brown spot was smack thrugh -18,00 W (Long) and “roughly” 27,63 N (Lat), with main (ellipse) axis of roughly 330 Deg. If it has risen to surface on sloping angle of 1/3rd to 1/2nd (due sea-current from SE, then from about 595 to just less than 1/3rd of that). This was place of spot on 13.10.2011 (no time stamp, say midday) Sea-plume seems arrives “slow” onto surface (no visible swelling), then likely not rising more than 2 km/hr. Light “pumice” balls indicate it has built up cone to -150 to -200 m depth.

    In earlier experiment you had given line that cut thrugh middle of El Hierro. If fixing “result” you want getting to abowe location, then running experiment again and see if variables from different times come up ????? Do not know if this is workable. Might be horribly inaccurate to do (if workable). Please think of this.

    This is trying guestimate on actual “main vent” location. BTW, this location appears totally free of any earthquakes in abowe plot, but again I do not know if last sunday or monday morning EQs are included, but again these might have been small ones and lost in noise.

      1. Oh! For Goodness Sakes Carl. How do you expect to get a Giggle translation?
        Could we have the official Le Strange Translation please?
        Also could someone please write this phonetically for the English speaking media?

      3. I cannot take the honour for this, it was Islander who came with that one.
        ÞettaeldfjallættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob means:
        “The volcano named something else than Bob”

      5. Should actually perhaps be more like:
        “This volcano should be named something else than Bob”
        Þetta eldfjall ætti að vera kallað eitthvað annað en Bob

        But for English phonetics I am not sure – having learned French phonetics instead at university … if I had known then …

    2. What I am doing with my bearing cuts is akin to target motion analysis. (TMA) In TMA the idea is not to actually find the target, but to find the most likely area of the target. Then, with an educated guess, you can throw a missile into that box and have a pretty good chance that the missile can actually find the target.

      The pixel error in my technique is about 5 seconds. The seismic signal has a speed of about 5 to 7.5 km/s if it’s traveling through the crust (most likely) or about 1.5 km/s if it’s conducted through water (T-waves, and not very likely at all). This works out to a range error of about 25 to 37 miles… provided I have chosen an good artifact. (one that actually appears in the tremor at all three seismo traces and is not a bogus pick)

      Since am relying on the quake positions themselves dictate the likely range, I’m not concerned about the range. My attention is on the bearing cut to tell me where in that batch of quakes that the tremor is probably at. Now that we have two cuts, we have a little bit of insight about the direction that the focus of activity (the tremor source) is at.

      That doesn’t make it fact, it just make it “probably.”

      Also, this is about the limit of what I can pull ouf of the data. The fact that a log of subjective decisions are made in doing this lessens it’s usability in making real world decisions, and I don’t want to skew anyones perspective with what I put out. That’s why I caveat the bejevous out of it and make sure that people realize that I have no formal training in seismology and am just some guy on the net playing with data.

  13. Merry ÞettaeldfjallættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob birthday to all! 🙂

  14. Changes in tremor occured at two occations at approximately 23 and 24 Saturday and new development of the eruption is expected:

    http://www.ign.es/ign/head/volcaSenalesAnterioresDia.do?nombreFichero=CHIE_2011-10-15&ver=s&estacion=CHIE&Anio=2011&Mes=10&Dia=15&tipo=2

    http://www.ign.es/ign/head/volcaSenalesAnterioresDia.do?nombreFichero=CHIE_2011-10-16&ver=s&estacion=CHIE&Anio=2011&Mes=10&Dia=16&tipo=2

    The new vents we saw on pictures and video yesterday are at shallow depths of only 150m according to earthqake-report

    1. That looks like another artifact that should show up on various seismograms for Lurking to TMA

      🙂

  15. I am not sure which is more taxing for my brain, booking train tickets to London in advance on line or following the discussion on Lurking’s latest plots.

    Time for Coffee # 3 and a hot shower to clear my head ( This latter especially for GeoLoco!)

    Talking of Hot water……. I watch the ongoing events at Hengil with some anxiety. I hope no more large quakes for the poor residents in the affected area.

      1. No idea. But they are going to reopen the tunnel and let people back to their houses on the assumption that they can immediately evacuate the area if needed. That would not have been my decision.

  18. Enjoy the coffee Diana 🙂
    The translation difficulty is not just from Icelandic for me too!
    So…
    Does this recent ‘plot’ confirm a ‘turn’ in the seismic direction implicit in the quakes, Lurking? Or am I showing my ignorance completely here?

    Also, is there geological uplift, or movement south, on the south side of El Hierro that accounts for its sheer slope, and the building of new land occurring where lava pillows extrude? I mean as in the strata sloping upwards, towards the south coast, while the magma source remains below the north coast?

    Or does the lava just follow old lava tubes in that direction, towards the surface as in the route of least resistance?

    1. Alyson
      Uplift data here:
      La Restinga:
      http://www.seis.nagoya-u.ac.jp/sagiya/canary_gps/REST.pdf
      East 40mm, North nil, Lift 30mm.- since July.

      But you can see that GPS motion has stabilised in past week:
      http://www.ign.es/ign/resources/volcanologia/jpg/ELHIERRO_GPS_FRON-HI03.jpg
      From Lurkings Youtube plot:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QToVsZS4kF4&feature=player_embedded
      we can see that the EQs nearest La Restinga and the ‘eruption’ site were. are around 15km deep. And there are very few between that depth and the surface. Which suggests to me either there is a seismically silent route upwards, or that the magnitude of this event will be small, just gasses mainly.

      The youngest erupted rocks on El Hierro are to the north east of Frontera near the coast. That is where the big EQ swarma cam closet to the surface, but there have bben few shallower than 8km, almost excactly wheree there is a 3km thick layer of sediementary rocks:
      http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/earthscienceandengineering/research/geophysics/earthstructure/canaryislands

      In short I dont know what is going on in the seismically silent zone between the ‘top’ of the EQ swarm and the surface. But I’m a complete amateur….on a steep learning curve.
      Peter

    2. The translation is difficult for us all, but from what I could grasp, the plot is a “fictitious” one. However, if Lurking’s reasoning is right it could be even more real than not. Why so?
      Since each earthquake has a margin of error, especially the smaller ones (which is the case in El Hierro), and located in a poor monitored area, the available data are not sufficient to be plotted in an exact manner.
      For each quake, there’s a margin of error that is represented by an ellipsis, the larger axis of it being the one where the margin is larger.
      So, Lurking made this plot assuming that different quakes occurring at a same fracturing plan could be regarded as having similar ellipsis, or similar error margins. That allowed him to remake the plots leading to this result. A brilliant idea, which needs time to be considered safe.
      According to Carl, Lurking could get rich with this new method, and could detect hidden faults and mineral ores.
      Good old Lurking/Michelangelo/Einstein!
      PS: Correct me if a am being too simplistic or way wrong about this. 🙂

      1. Renato, I understood it in the same way, plus that the larger axis of the ellipse (with more error) is the one that should indicate the direction of the rock structure (e.g. cracks) at that particular point, which is what could be useful for mining/ore detection, etc. In terms of El Hierro, this direction should show the potential ways of magma to reach the surface, since it should follow the rock structure.

        But perhaps this is too simplistic? I am no geologist. So let’s see if the experts correct us. 🙂

      2. @Renato:
        I should though caveat this, it would only be possible to detect ore bodies and fault directions in a seismically active area.

        @Lurking:
        Could you throw me a mail? I guess you know how to get into contact with me by now.

      3. Unless you go by Kruger over on Eruptions, no I don’t.

        Nome de plume for me… and it doesn’t really matters since so many “has subscribed to your channel” have filled that in-box is jason à granis.net No, my name isn’t Jason, I pulled it out of thin air when I needed a deflecting addy a while back. That actually the name of a guy that my daughter got her dog from… which eventually became my dog, and who subsequently died from a likely brain tumor.

        Damn I miss that dog.

      4. No, I am Carl le Strange over at Eruptions to, but I kind of got tired of migrating myself every half a year or so 🙂
        I will send a mail.

        One always misses the dogs. I wish I could have a dog, but I travell to much, so I am stuck with a grumpy snake.

  19. El Hierro bits n pieces…

    Check out the bubbling appearing (Sunday 16 Oct am) once every 15-20 mins at the sea surface at http://www.laprovincia.es/

    Photo of floating pumice/lava balloons at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150366318693447&set=pu.163883668446&type=1

    Photos of “globo de lava” or “lava balloons” from a submarine eruption west of Terceira island, Azores in 1999-2000 at http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1802-05%3D&volpage=var

    Some background info (in Spanish) from Grupo de investigación en Ingeniería Sísmica (Earthquake Engineering research group), Technical University of Madrid at http://www2.topografia.upm.es/grupos/sismo/MDifusion.php?mdif=12/el-hierro

  20. El Hierro bits n pieces…

    Check out the bubbling appearing (Sunday 16 Oct am) once every 15-20 mins at the sea surface at http://www.laprovincia.es/

    Photo of floating pumice/lava balloons at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150366318693447&set=pu.163883668446&type=1

    Photos of “globo de lava” or “lava balloons” from a submarine eruption west of Terceira island, Azores in 1999-2000 at http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1802-05%3D&volpage=var

    Some background info (in Spanish) from Grupo de investigación en Ingeniería Sísmica (Earthquake Engineering research group), Technical University of Madrid at http://www2.topografia.upm.es/grupos/sismo/MDifusion.php?mdif=12/el-hierro

    (2nd attempt ~ that recaptcha has gremlins! Apologies if you now get both)

  21. Testing, testing… Jon, my earlier post keeps disappearing between recaptcha/post comment and receiving end…

    1. OK, here we go!

      El Hierro bits n pieces…

      Check out the bubbling appearing (Sunday 16 Oct am) once every 15-20 mins at the sea surface at http://www.laprovincia.es/

      Photo of floating pumice/lava balloons at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150366318693447&set=pu.163883668446&type=1

      Photos of “globo de lava” or “lava balloons” from a submarine eruption west of Terceira island, Azores in 1999-2000 at http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1802-05%3D&volpage=var

      Some background info (in Spanish) from Grupo de investigación en Ingeniería Sísmica (Earthquake Engineering research group), Technical University of Madrid at http://www2.topografia.upm.es/grupos/sismo/MDifusion.php?mdif=12/el-hierro

  22. There is another little island/cone/volcano SE of El Hierro, Henry Seamount. I haven’t seen anyone commenting on it yet. Suppose it has something to do with the island being built up now.

    Interesting link: http://goldschmidt.info/2007/abstracts/A496.pdf

    Fluid venting at a Cretaceous seamount, Canary Archipelago
    Part of the text:

    “Henry Seamount is a 8-km-wide, 660-m-high edifice rising from 3700 m deep seafloor southeast of El Hierro, the youngest of the Canary Islands (1.1 Ma). Sonar and seismic data revealed that the seamount is an old volcano with radiating gullies and a sediment cover of several meters (Gee et al., 2001). Dredging during Meteor cruise M66/1 in 2005 recovered (i) slightly to heavily altered trachyte fragments
    covered by thin Mn-crusts; (ii) a fresh porous barite block overgrown by a coral stem; (iii) abundant shell fragments of vesicomyid clams up to 15 cm in size; and (iv) soft sediments and sediment rocks.
    The trace element compositions of the trachytes indicate an origin by intraplate rather than ridge volcanism. Ar/Ar dating of feldspars and matrix of two trachyte samples gave an age range of 123.8 to 126.4 Ma, which is considerably older than any of the Canary Islands. The combined morphological and age data support the interpretation of Henry Seamount being an extinct volcano.
    The recovery of shells from vesicomyid clams at Henry Seamount is surprising since this species is always associated with hydrothermal vents or seepage.

    14C dating of two shells gave ages of 3.4 and 18.6 ka consistent with Recent venting activity. Fluid discharge at Henry Seamount is also indicated by the recovered barite block having δ 34 S values between 26.5 and 31.8 ‰ and δ 18 O values between 14.1 and 16.9 ‰. To our knowledge, this is the first reported finding of vesicomyid clams within the Canary Archipelago and also the first direct or indirect evidence of fluid venting in this area.”

    1. Rest of the text:

      “How can Recent fluid venting at Henry Seamount be reconciled with its early Cretaceous age? We propose that hydrothermal circulation within the Jurassic oceanic crust around El Hierro is driven by a mechanism similar to that
      proposed for young crust of the Juan de Fuca ridge flank
      (Fisher et al., 2003), the ultimate heat source being the hotspot beneath the western Canary Islands. Henry Seamount may thus work as a “breathing hole” where fluid discharge is facilitated by a rather thin sediment layer compared to the adjacent seafloor covered by thick impermeable sediment.
      Recharge may occur at adjacent basement outcrops such as the flanks of El Hierro island. Our results indicate that hydrothermal circulation through seamounts is not confined to young warm ridge flanks but may be a widespread phenomenon on the ocean floor. “

      2. A connection would be imaginable – but
        1) is it near enough to El Hierro? Diana, was it not you, who placed a link to a real good sea map of the surroundings of El Hierro sometime ago? Could you do it again, perhaps?

        2) We should know more about the lava/pumice welling up south of El Hierro and its chemical components, I think. Here they are talking about trachites, but does not the El Hierro pumice look more like basaltic particles?

  23. What is happening at Hengill area in Island. Many earthquakes and some larger “star” ones???

    1. These earthquakes are caused by the pumping of Carbonated water into Hengill Volcano in am attempt to make energy. That is about as simply as it can be put. (I think…) 🙂

      1. Yes, check also the earliest discussion on this same post (Older comments) – we discussed this yesterday.

      2. It was not CO2 pumping that caused it according to The Other Lurker who had checked it out. The Other Lurker knows the area well, and have some contacts into it.
        That means that it is some kind of fault line slippage.
        The quakes above 2M are almost all between 1,3 and 5,3km depth, that means the main dyke fissure and magma-reservoir is involved.

  25. According to the AVCAN, the bubble rising from the eruption spot after the “smoking balloons of lava”, corresponds to the second phase of a typical Surtseyan eruption. Next step, will be a white plume, then, the so called “rooster tales”. Last of all, the birth of a new island.
    What intrigues me most is when they say the “mouth” of the volcano is no larger than 1,5 m!

    1. That is just nonsense.
      A volcanic tube can be fairly tight squeeze, I climbed down a volcano in iceland, and that tube was not a comfortable fit. But a crater that is 1,5m? Nonsense 🙂

  26. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if these bubbles rising are in just one place or a number of places?

    1. Update 16/10 – 12:39 UTC : The giant gas bubbles occur at a frequency of approx. every 15 minutes

      Update 16/10 – 11:19 UTC : Giant bubbles visible from the coast! (see also update from 10:44 UTC)

      Eruption bubbles at El Hierro – picture courtesy and copyright laprovincia.es
      Update 16/10 – 10:44 UTC : Villagers are mentioning “bubbles” coming up in the spotted area in the sea. We expect to receive fastly images from the bubbles as the many camera teams with their superior equipment will certainly be able to shoot detailed video from an event which can be seen by the naked eye.
      Ramon Ortiz, a technician from the CSIC (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) is predicting that a new island is being formed at this moment and that the chance that it will happen now is evaluated as very probable, at least of the eruption process will continue a little longer.

      http://earthquake-report.com/2011/09/25/el-hierro-canary-islands-spain-volcanic-risk-alert-increased-to-yellow/

    1. Reminds me a bit of geyser Strokkur (Iceland) just before eruptions. But in the video, its the sea of course so it is difficult to say which movements are just due to currents, waves and wind.

  29. Väldigt intressant. Tänk att man kan trigga så relativt kraftiga rörelser med vatten i ett varmt berg. Skulle man kunna utlösa något på det sättet?

    1. Ja, i prinsip vulkanen Hengill. Är de nära? Det hängs i hur mycket magma det finns redan inne pä berget (och et och par andra saker).

      Btw, this is officially an English blog. Hence the same in English:

      Yes, in principle the Hengill volcano. Is it near? I depends on how much magma there already is inside the mountain (and a few other things).

    2. Yes you most definitly can trigger something.
      But there must be magma under pressure in the system.
      There are 3 volcanos in the emediate vicinity that could be affected.
      Hromundartindur, it had a root-filling episode ten years ago, so it is filled up. But it has not erupted for very long, and is considered dormant, even after the filling.
      Brennisteinsfjöll, active volcano that erupted 1000 AD. Considered to be currently inactive.
      Hengill, Tripple-junction volcano, filled with magma from the same root-filling episode of Hromundartindur, has recurring 6M earthquake episodes, capable of rifting fissure flood basalt eruptions of more then 10 cubic kilometres. An eruption like that would be like having the capital 25 km from Laki…

      1. Nobody know if there is enough magma pressure for an eruption to be possible. They think not, I am not so sure.
        My guess, if they set of a quake between 5 – 6 that close to the magma-reservoir (they are fracking about a hundred metres from the magma-reservoir), then they will cause an eruption. Then it is more a question about the size of it.

      2. Could not Grensdalur / Hveragerði also be affected? Since there is this old high temperature field on Reykjafjall which has been reactivated by/during and after the 2008 earthquakes. So its not dead neither and not very far away from Hengill.

      3. I meant Reykjafjall/ Hveragerði here not its namsake on Hellisheiði – lots of Reykjafjöll in Iceland (name meaning “smokey mountain” ) so on an island like this, no wonder ….

  31. Apologies for treble post earlier… Must have been the Leprechauns

    Some nice graphics in El Pais (in Spanish)
    http://www.elpais.com/graficos/sociedad/Posibles/erupciones/Hierro/elpepusoc/20111012elpepusoc_2/Ges/

    Actualidad Volcánica de Canarias (AVCAN) has just posted some info regarding GPS deformation measurements
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Actualidad-Volc%C3%A1nica-de-Canarias-AVCAN/163883668446

    And some live coverage now of area on Radio Televisión Canaria
    http://www.rtvc.es/television/enDirecto.aspx?canal=tv

    1. Well I’d like to seee daylight between those GPS error bars to have any faith in their concluding its deflating. And are the bars SEM or SD – there is no legend to tell us.
      And where are the four Hierro GPS stations? especially H104?.

  32. I’m not expert but I interpet them as meaning Frontera has moved east, closer to ALAJ Gomera and north closer to LPAL and MAZO. And compared with H103 – somewhere in the west of Hierro – Frontera has moved further away, again eastwards.
    See also here:
    http://www.seis.nagoya-u.ac.jp/sagiya/Sagiyas_Page/Canary.html
    With reference to GMAS in Gran Canaria:
    SABInosa has moved west.
    FRONtera has moved east.

    So the data all point to a lateral expansion between Sabinosa and Frontera ( 9km to its eas) of about 50mm has occurred since July.

    And the Sagiya site gives vertical deformation too.

  33. The seismic charts for El Hierro seem to have stopped updating for me. Is this the same for everyone?

  34. Oh rats! As soon as I post that they work again. Which is good but frustrating they didn’t earlier.

  35. Enrique at AVCAN fb says that spikes on tremor charts (eg. at 6:45h and a larger one at 10:53h) are not earthquakes but explosions, which means that the eruption is now at less than 100m depth. Also that as soon as it is less than 50m deep, it will breach the surface in the form of a white steam column and perhaps at night as fireworks.

    Appartenly el cabildo (via twitter) will plant some hydrophones to estimate the direciton of the development of the eruption as well as a webcam.

    Also, the eruption is following in the direction towards Tacoron (I think also Tanganasonga, it is located roughly between the three today’s earthquakes), today’s earthquakes are in orange:
    http://www.avcan.org/mapas/AVCAN1470.jpg?d=1318776046

    1. Tacoron is the site of the most recent dated lavas 15ka, which are of similar youth to lavas halfway between Sabinosa and Frontera. If the fissure is opening on that direction it would fit with ‘recent’ eruptive history, and that route is also above the EQ swarm.

  36. Hope for the best, plan for the worse and do not start in the first place. For me, if this goes belly up , the green energy sector will take a bit of a hit and others will use a human made disaster to say its unsafe.

    1. I share that belief.
      I am actually in favour of IDDP hydrothermal power plants. But, it should be tested in a safer location like the first IDDP borehole at Krafla. The knowledge base is way to small for them to do it in a much more dangerous volcano like Hengill, that is that close to the capital. Because if Hengill goes in a bad way, then Iceland for all practical reasons is no more as an independent state.

  37. I believe that Erik over at Eruptions blog mentioned that any new islands formed would be ephemeral. 🙁

    But could the newest island be — and I am wading into a language I know next to nothing about here — ÞettaeyjaættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob!

    Corrections appreciated. 🙂

    1. Hello Denise!
      Yes, it seems likeliest that it will be the fissure of ÞettaeldfjallættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob that becomes the new island.
      Dr Erik Klemetti is one of the best researchers in the field, if he thinks it will be ephemereal than it is probably going to be just that. The reason (I think) that he has is that the material being ejected right now is pillow lavas and pumice, which is not that stable, the next phase will be explosive with mainly tephric components, and waves make short work on something that is basically a pile of sand and ash. But, it could go really Surtseyan on us. Surtsey was saved because of a third stage, a period of basaltic lavas that covered most of it with a sollid slab of efusive basalt. If that happens, then it should stay above water level. But I guess he reasons that it will be a too short eruption for that phase to occur. He is probably right in this, he is after all, the best in the business. Let us say that he is about 90 percent probable in being right.
      The future for poor little ÞettaeldfjallættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob is not so good.

      1. Thanks, Carl! But what you failed to notice is that I changed eldfjall to eyja in the name (and probably messed up the declension and/or gender in the process).

      2. I didn’t notice, I guess that it would be more like ÞettasurtseyeldfjallættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob
        than ÞettaeyjaættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob 🙂

  40. Thanks for the question there Jim.

    I too have more questions. I am still intrigued about the 3km thick sedimentary layer and so another question I have about El Hierro is: is it a volcanic island, built up from below the sea floor, or an uplift at a rift?

  41. Alyson,
    Me too – wish a geologist would tell us what the sediments are and if they resist magma ( melt slowly) or let it through with barely am earthquake. The 8km deep cutoff in EQs corresponds to the base of the sedimentray layer so it is significant I’m sure – a gut feeling.
    Peter

  42. Thanks to I can’t remember who is was yesterday who passed on the trick:
    and it works!!
    Þ is ‘hold ALT ‘n’ press 0222 on number pad’
    ð is ‘ditto 0240’

    Now, have them there engineer-types working at Hellishiveanideatosinkreykyavik come up with one of Baldrick’s ‘cunning plans’ (Blackadder character) to get rid of CO2 and sulphides by pumping’em down a volcano on the MAR and then via the MAR and a few transform faults vent the stuff in the Canaries!! Hence the bubbles. Simple!!
    OK I’m being daft.

      1. Subterreanean connections are known to work since Jules Verne, even between Etna and Snæfellsjökull …

  44. small volcanic activity at 150 yards offshore and 80 deep

    VICENTE PÉREZ (Special Envoy) | El Pinar A neighbor evacuated from La Restinga, Orlando Martin, says that at 11.00 hours on Saturday spotted a small output of volcanic material to just 150 meters from the coast at Punta del Fraile, south of La Restinga Tacorón direction, and in a fund where the depth does not exceed 80 meters. At that point is then spotted a yellow spot near the coast and yesterday is where this newspaper were sent from the junction of the route of La Restinga Tacorón that of a smoky rock floating and moving in a place away from the spot more, where is located the main eruptive mouth. This information been moved by this newspaper this morning National Geographic Institute (IGN), who was interested in testing the veracity of this testimony. Orlando Martin, who has fished on this coast, said that at the time indicated, from his cattle farm in the The area Sworn watched “began to form a slick black cinnamon and red fuming as if deep fire, and was at the time when a ship was taking samples to the east of the principal spot, is commanded to move toward the sea of calm. ” The rancher, who is engaged in the manufacture of cheese, states that the phenomenon occurred in the southern part of the gently sloping platform in front of La Restinga, and fishermen call the Tablada , which ends at this point in the contour called El Fraile, from which the depth starts to increase significantly. The resident added that an emergency staff deployed came to comment that the boat left the area immediately “because they felt a pepinazo” in this place. It is recalled that on Saturday, about 15.00, it was decided to increase the security perimeter and evacuate the journalists point that so far he had cut the road to El Pinar to La Restinga , right at the junction with the road leading to Tacorón, before the escalation of volcanic phenomena. The great quiet spot and the animals of La Restinga The resident said that on Monday, the eve of the evacuation, was formed in front of La Restinga “a big white bubble, about a mile from the coast, “which corresponds with the main focus of the eruption,” and then began to extend the current, as more and more bubbles were rising. ” Then the issue of re- Restinga is not

  45. Do you think is possible to have more than one system in El Hierro?
    GPS measurements shows diferent patterns….so imagine mantle plume that introduces magma along the island’s rifts, and then the magma goes to surface emerging in differents points and at different times.

      1. Interesting paper, so we can say that El Hierro is a younger “Tenerife”
        But the question is if more than one rift could erupt in the same magma intrusion, because EQ activity along past two month are under at leat N-W Rift and E-W.

      2. Maybe…
        Problem as I see it we have very little siesmic data on events betwen 8km deep and the surface, and in there is presumably highly fractured mix of ancient magma and sedimentary rock 3km thick. I dont know if that zone will:
        1 not show earthquakes and allow magma to rise ‘silently’
        or
        2 it resists earthquakes and rifting.
        Hopefully for El Hierro the latter….

      3. That would probably depend a bit on where the hotspot is. I have not found out where exactly it is hiding. In Iceland we know that the centerpoint is somewhere around Bardarbunga.
        My guess is that if it is under El Hierro currently, then it could probably fill more than one rifting fissure volcano, but it is not the most likely thing to happen.

    3. As I understand itl, the EQ pattern from July 2011 showed a definite focus along a N-S rift. It was not until very late in the sequence that quakes appeared in the area of ÞettaeyjaættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob (thank you for copy & paste!) to the SSE of the main action followed by the eruption, so there are the following possible scenarios:

      1) you have a large complex magma chamber which has found an outlet at ÞettaeyjaættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob – flanking eruption, which may or may not be followed by an eruption from the main conduit (location unknown but Tanganosoga is considered the most likely; and, size unknown);
      2) rifting has been the main cause of EQs and squeezed magma out at ÞettaeyjaættiaðverakallaðeitthvaðannaðenBob; and / or
      3) other tectonic plate movement / folding and magma release.

      Or, a combination of all of the above.

      As Jon says we will not know for sure until they happen.

  46. Important Update 16/10 – 16:50 UTC : The PEVOLCA meeting which took place in El Pinar at 13:00 today, has made some very important decisions. Among the most important are :
    – The Los Roquillos tunnel, very important for the inhabitants of the western part of the island (Frontera, etc) and Valverde (other side) will be reopened within 24 hours.
    – The evacuated people from La Restinga are allowed to return to their houses under strict conditions. The main reason of allowing the return of the La Restinga inhabitants is the installation of hydrophones. The hydrophone(s) is an additional instrument which allows security people and scientists to call an immediate evacuation if needed.
    The news was brought by Paulino Rivera, the President of the Canary islands. Mr Rivera was applauded by the islanders for the PEVOLCA decision.

      1. Well, thats what Pevolca has decided. They give the installation of the Hydrophone as the main reason to allow people to return. Alert levels are unchanged though. The pressure from the people to be evacuated if nothing really important happens became too big.

  48. Moses Donate On twitter just put that Ramón Ortiz says that “the English Channel located on the coast of La Restinga is changing colour to red”… level of credibility?

  49. Hope the only magma to come out will be used to form EldfjallþessierþekktursemBob, the possible new twin brother of Henry Seamount.

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