Renewed eruption activity in El Hierro volcano

Since yesterday there has been an renewed eruption activity in El Hierro volcano. Harmonic tremor has not seen big increase however. This suggest that this new eruption so far is small and mot procuring a lot of lava to the surface. Some floating pyroclastic has been spotted on web cameras and by local people when they come up to the surface. This eruption activity appears be intermittent at the moment. Going on and off every few hours to days.


The harmonic tremor from the eruption in El Hierro volcano. Harmonic tremor remains low however, so there is not a lot of energy in this eruption at the moment. Spikes in the tremor chart are most likely explosions taking place in the eruption area. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).

The eruption appears to have started again following an new dike intrusion from great depth into El Hierro volcano. This was followed by few earthquakes. All of them where small. If more new magma flows into El Hierro volcano this new eruption episode is going to increase in strength and in power. But it is hard to be sure if that is going to happen or not.


Eruption area in El Hierro volcano. This new eruption seems to be closer to the coast line then before. Copyright of this picture belongs to INVOLCAN. Picture is via Eruption blog (Erik Klemetti)

It is impossible to know what happens next in El Hierro volcano. So watching is important thing to do.

Other blogs about this new eruption.

Renewed Activity at El Hierro in the Canary Islands (Wired Science)