Posted on by Jón Frímann

Website news for November 2011

This is the first official website news for Iceland volcano and earthquake blog for November 2011. The purpose of this web site news is to tell people what is going on with me [Jón Frímann] and this web site that I run. I do not intend this to be a long blog posts unless I have to. This is going to be divide into needed sections of what is going on. I hope that have this every month from now on.

Monitoring changes for earthquakes and volcanoes

The following areas has been added to my personal monitoring system, Spain and Canary Island (part of Spain), Denmark (since February). Following areas are now part of special report system. Azores Islands, Madeira Island. But special reports cover eruptions and major earthquakes for a short time period. I also cover all major earthquakes that happen on the planet Earth. That is earthquakes that are larger then Mw8.0 in size. I have to have limit to what I cover here. As I cannot have good quality if I am cover too much. I rather want to cover less and have better quality of what I cover.

Twitter

I have added a twitter button to this web site. So links can now be shared more easy on twitter. Facebook button is so far not in the picture. As they are just too complex to setup from my point of view (they also appear to track people from what I can gather). So I won’t bother with setting up a Facebook button.

Web site traffic

It took one year to get 1 million page views. But it only took a month or so to get up to 2 million page views. Currently the page load counters stands in this number, 2,142,929 page loads. But this equals to 652,725 visits to this blog during a little bit over the year. For the earthquake pages there have been 3,057,298 page loads since that web site was started back in the year 2006. But that are 696,378 visits to that web sites since I did start it. So far the traffic does not warrant a move to dedicated server. But that might change if the traffic grows even more in the future. So I am watching out for that possibility in the future.

Geophone network

The geophones that I did order are finally in Iceland. I am going to pick them up at the post office tomorrow I hope. I hope that I can install and start both of them in December. But I am not going to have time to install then in November.

Money issues

I became debt free yesterday (finally). The last day of October 2011. But that does not change the fact that I am going to continue to be broke as I have been. Since now I have to spend my money into saving for the move to Denmark (since I was unable to have both options). I am also saving up so that I can buy a new tv, as my old tv is getting tired and bit breaking down in the tube monitor (I also find it better to look at LCD monitors, but I have poor eyesight). The total cost of moving back to Denmark and buying a new tv is estimated about 4.396,00€, 32.697,00DKK, 6.153,00$, 3.843,00GBP, but this is about 700.000 ISK that I need to save up before I can move back to Denmark. But I am saving everywhere that I can. I have placed payments from Google Adsense on hold so I can save that money. I am not getting anything from Amazon ads at this moment, so it does not matter at current time. The saving for the move to Denmark starts tomorrow. It is going to take me until June to get the money that I need to move back to Denmark. I plan to start looking for a apartment in March or maybe earlier. It is a bit unclear at the moment. But it is going to take few months to get apartment in Denmark (I think). But I am in a hurry to move from Iceland for many different reasons.

Update 1: Due to currency restrictions in Iceland I cannot save money on Google Adsense as I had hoped. As I am going to need that income to pay for bills and other things from my danish bank account. I just hope for the best in this regards.

For that reason I am going to have to relay on donations as before. At least until this annoying period in my life goes over. I do not ask for a lot. Just something to make the month in terms of expense that we all have to deal with.

Thanks for reading and the support.

Blog post updated at 13:45 UTC on 1 November, 2011.
Blog post updated at 08:52 UTC on 5 November, 2011.

403 Replies to “Website news for November 2011”

    1. If you and Parvaneh believe that, that’s fine, just dont expect everyone else to jump on your bandwaggon. Its not that I dismiss the suggestion of a link – I just dont care. But I would be interested if you come up with solid evidence. That topic is in your court – its your job to substantiate the claim, not mine.

    2. So in effect, you are implying that there is another source for CMEs that is not coupled with solar flares?

      That’s the only thing I can draw from this since there is no correlation IN THE ACTUAL DATA.

      1. You looked at one angle of the problem. Namely the flare intensity (not sure what that means, the class – or x-ray flux -maybe?) in relation to the number of earthquakes. That is one way to look at the data, but only one way, and it is hardly enough to discard the theory outright.

        What if it were not the number but magnitude of quakes that increases, or what if not the intensity of the flare but speed, direction and density of the plasma were the parameters to look at? Your chart doesn’t address those cases.

        So while you may have proofed that there is no increase in the number of quakes in relation to solar flare intensity, there could be other relations you may have missed.

        However, this being an earthquake and volcano site, this is really off topic and does not relate to the topic of the article. So I think we should return to the actual topic of interest to most readers here.

      2. First of all, I don’t have a burden of proof. Your theory does. I pointed to the actual data and said “show me.” Your lack of knowledge about flare intensity sort of hints that you aren’t too knowlegable about the mechanics of the theory you are pushing.

      3. In fact, every time someone wheels this out they always point to some nuanced aspect that I’m missing. That’s why I have the quake file indexed to Sun-Earth-Moon positions, sunspots, and flare intensity. If you want solar wind speed or proton counts, I can do that too. The data is there if you know where to dig… which is what I reccomend. That’s how I wound up doing this.

        Until YOU can show me a connection, I’m not buying a half baked loon theory.

      4. @Parvaneh: You seem not to understand basic physics. Quakes mean, energy is released. Flares mean, energy isreleased. CMEs mean, energy is released.

        If there were any connection, it would have shown up in the number of quakes, too! Why? Because all of those processes involve release of energy. Energy is not released unless something physical happens.

        If energy release leads to energy release somewhere else (deterministic or statistical causation), number or strength of occurrences does not matter anymore, as there is a correlation, no matter which point of view you choose to look at it.

        Believe me, you can not cheat physics…

    3. Shoot Bev, I dont argue with anyone about this one. It makes sense, but I do expect someone to prove it. But how?

      1. My issue isn’t that I believe there is a connection but that as of yet, many scientists think there may be a connection (otherwise why all the studies) and that as of yet nobody has proved either way that there is or is not a connection. Which gives nobody the right to say that there definatly is not whenever someone mentions it. I myself highly doubt that a single solar flare could cause increased activity, but have read a fair bit of data linking increased activity to deep solar minimums

      3. More precisely, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim.

        Any number of people can make claims and submit papers to arxiv or any other holding site. Computing something as ephemeral as an eigenvalue and waving it around as proof of something only proves that you are running around waving your eigenvalue at people.

        Clear demonstrable evidence is something that lacks in every single one of these … charades.

        If there was any thing of ANY significance to it, you wouldn’t need an eigenvalue to point at it. My emphasis is on the word ANY.

        I’ll give you a short example why that is.

        From 1 January 1973 until 31 December 2010 there were 173, 122 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or greater recorded in the USGS catalog. On a whim, and hearing of a possible lunar phase connection, I took those 173,122 earthquakes and fabricated an Excel formula that would render the date-time stamp into a format that was compatible with another program… one that rendered ephemerids for solar system objects. Using the date-time stamps for the 173,122 quakes, I obtained the lunar phase, lunar distance, declination, right ascension, solar distance etc… and ran comparisons to see if there was any correlation. The Pearson correlation coefficient for the magnitude vs the lunar phase is -0.004386761 with an R² of 1.92437 x 10^-05. I don’t have time to go back and recalculate the Spearman’s rank coeficient, but it was equally small.

        However, when plotted you could see an apparent up-tick in quakes at New and Full moon. Having had some experience in farting around with orbital equations, I knew that there was a dwell time issue at perigee and apogee. Thinking that there may be some effect that influencing that, I backed out the lunar dwell time at each 1/10th of its phase and flattened the quake hit count by that much.

        Still there. I actually thought I had something. Then an enterprising person asked me if the signal stood out from noise. In other words, was it strong enough to be valid. I generated the same data using Gaussian noise that matched the parameters of my data. (mean and std deviation) and compared the data sets. Though I could still see the signal, it never climbed about the noise set enough to where you could say that it was not an artifact.

        In short, though it still seemed like something was there, I could not state that it was not observer bias. I wanted to see something there.

        So, I thought about it for while… and it hit me.

        Suppose that I did find something usable in the data… a correlation. Something repeatable by someone else.

        What could you do with that sort of knowledge? Could you save a life? Could you stop someones house from falling down? Prevent a magma flow?

        If you are thinking prediction… then one slight question for you.

        Where?

        See, that data set was for the ENTIRE globe. Though there was an uptick in quakes… at least according to my biaed view, there was absolutely no correlation to location. Sure, you had the major players such as the subduction zones and volcanic regions… but there was no signal that correlated to any specific location.

        Now… I have run through these numbers with Sun spots, the Moon, Solar flares, Sun positions, proton counts, solar wind speed, electron counts etc. Hell, I even ran beat counts of the planets orbits against the sunspot cycles.

        I’m not talking light stuff here. I’ve looked at hourly quake counts, quake energy, quake depth, latitude, longitude, season.

        It ain’t there.

        And.. going right back to the epiphany. What would you do with the info if you had it? Could you save a life?

        So… rather than chase ghosts and read the tripe of “researchers” who really just want to puff up their chest in a game of whose mathematical “appendage” is bigger, I plot quakes and focus on the mechanics about what is going on.

        If you have a correlation and can show your work, bring it on. I’d like to see it.

      5. I just had the reading of my day. That’s exactly why I peer in here too much. Sense and passion meet and give birth to usefull statements, info that makes my knowledge grow.
        Jon provides the great platform, but guys like you sharing their knowledge are the apple and sugar in the pie.
        I did some “raw” checking, looking for correlations between “bigger” earthquakes and possible extra-planetary influences. Nothing consequent like / comparable to you. Never found anything useful. Reason why I always read you with a lot of attention in this matter.
        After reading this, I hope no one comes with “sensing” some effects of the moon or sunflares again, at least withour solide evidence.

      6. This one with links to a few plots should be permanently glues in here somehow. Then we could just point to it.

        Why?

        Because there are a new bunch coming with every other week. I am not saying that it is bad of them, we have all thought about it ourselves, so why not actually save the Newer ones a bit of time and effort and “publish” your findings here. Instead they could go look for something that we have missed and that could be relevant.

        Jón, would something like that be possible?

    4. Both papers have the same wekaness: They either present things locally i.e. in spatially confined spaces, or over too short time spans i.e. temporally confined spaces. Also, the papers do not use complete, instrumentally collected quake sets over the locations and time spans investigated.

      In other words, those papers do not even fulfill the basic merits of reliable scientific research. The nearest to achieve this has been Lurking’s plot on global quake frequency, taken from USGS web site.

      1. This line extracted from the article is interesting:

        “This means that this “unlikely event” has a probability of 63.2% of happening if 1000 chances are given, or over 99.9% for 10,000 chances. In other words, a highly unlikely event, given enough tries, is even more unlikely to not occur.”

    1. Not from Harvard, from Prague – and conference proceedings so not refereed.

      1. Also arxiv.org paper is not refereed – arxiv.org is an online repository used by some disciplined (e.g. physics/maths) to put your paper there and make a claim, before you actually submit to a peer-reviewed journal.

    2. You’ll find a better link with the lunar phase… but the signal is so burried in noise that it is statstically insignificant. (I’ve looked, and yes, I retained that spreadsheet also)

  4. I have briefly looked into this but without any concrete evidence either way, my original message was for the person who mentioned this early in this forum today, as they got shot down.
    What i did find was a possible link to a CME but prior to its ejection or close to the time of ejection. This would not give particles time to reach Earth.
    Another theory could possibly be that as a CME is being ejected or prior to Ejection that an increase or descrease in the Gravitational pull of the Sun causes minute shifts of plates, so that they are more likely to slip.
    In all honesty thou its such a noisy picture, its hard to get the evidence either way.
    But like most science the fun is hunting for clues and results.
    Globally we do seem a little spoilt for seismic activity at this time, which is why Jon’s exceedingly good blog is so busy. Will we put it down to coincidence if a CME coincided this week with a signifigant increase in seismic activity?

    I have added some charts for some Volcanoes along with webcams to help the monitoring trying to keep stuff in one place so not jumping from one site to another
    http://www.floodwarn.co.uk/heirro_volcano.htm

    1. Iceland is unusually quiet at the moment! In fact I have seen fewer quakes there than I have seen for the last 12 months!

      4. As nobody else had added anything here Inge, I guess nobody is sure what is going on. As Jon says ” we must wait and see” 🙂

    1. Jón, could you pls. remove the link.

      This is just one more of these TheendoftheworldiscomingandIdontfeelfine websites!

      1. Not really, yes a lot about the danger of floods, but I did not see any crack-pot theories, and no religion. A bit alarmist, but low-key compared to the Reverend CJ Doom’s Mating Site.

      2. Carl and Inge B, what is Alarmist about Floodwarn?
        It has live lighning detectors, live weather radar, live rainfall amounts and live river webcams.
        In my job of over 20 years i have contributed to saving many many lives. The met office in UK has viewed and had corrections implemented on the web site. It forecasts weather nothing more to prevent the misery people endure from flooding.
        No mad crazy prediction, just live weather data online.
        Not once has it said Everyone should be evacuated from somewhere or that some natural disaster is going to possibly injure or kill residents – unlike some posts on here. If you want to critise the floodwarn website i would appreciate it if you please do it after spending some time going through it.
        The volcano bit is just to allow live data from various sources to be found in one place. Any facts are from reliable sources and are only ever based on facts. The forum is more open for users to comment, but even there i remove any stupid end of world comments if ever posted by users.
        My high regard for your expertise in your field is returned for disregard for my field – meteorolgy and flooding. Perhaps you both have a huge knowledge in that field and if so a proactive contructive article on flooding will be very welcome on the site.

  7. The Ministry of defence plans to send between tonight and tomorrow the emergency military unit to the iron reinforcements. The idea is to be on the island ready for setting up the camp for up to 2,000 people if an eruption in the North of the island, is reproduced as it foreshadows the surge of seismic activity recorded since Sunday, when there have been several earthquakes of magnitude 3,9.http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Defensa/envia/refuerzos/Hierro/posible/erupcion/elpepusoc/20111101elpepusoc_6/Tes.
    4 minutes ago · Like · 1 person · Original

    1. Some comments on this giggle translation:

      “iron reinforcements” means: reinforcements of the military rescue units on the island El Hierro

      because there could be a volcanic eruption near La Frontera (4.000 inhabitants)

      In the a.m. article they say also that the plume has made the tour around the whole island and is now covering the whole coast. They took samples from it to have them chemically analyzed and get to know if they could be dangerous for health etc.

      There were too much turbulences in the seawater near the eruption site, so picture couldn’t be taken by the scientists of the boat Ramon Margalef, but they used sonar to put together computerized images.
      (my own compilation of the content of the a.m. article).

  8. If I may I’ll just repeat something I reported at the end of the last thread before I knew this one was here.
    Something very strange happened on the EGOM seismograph between 13.10 and 13.30. A quite big very long period event with several sections.
    The event had a period of about 40 seconds initially and appeared on the other island records as well at varying levels. Its as though the whole area swayed slowly and minutely for 20 minutes. The first part doesn’t start with an impulse like an earthquake but has an envelope that smoothly increases and decreases.
    And whether it’s an ‘earth noise’ or not I’d be interested in an explanation. Maybe it can be related to a large earthquake a long way away but I can’t find one.

  9. That´s the link of a public webcam in Hierro. It´s managed for “Meteolaspuntas”, a meteorogical site from Las Puntas, in Frontera. I don´t undestand why the Canarian government has no interest to set up a webcam at the south of the island. It´s a shame.
    http://www.globale-evolution.de/El-Hierro.php

    2. Thanks Robert, your reference shows a predicted travel time of 12 minutes for the P waves but the record at EGOM shows it taking 40 minutes which seems a little long but what do I know.

      1. I’m on the road right now, but if you like I can compute the central angle and get the AK135 wave arrival times when I get back.

        Im thinking the othe phases arriviing are what caused the long duration.

      4. If I knew what the AK135 waves were I’d be very interested to know if they were the explanation. The period at 40s of the first waves was so long it is likely to be associated with a very large resonant system, like the whole world being given a shake by Mexico for example. The period of the subsequent wave bursts was a bit shorter as they arrived over the next 25 minutes (over an hour from Mexico) so presumably they are other phases.

      5. Looks like Mexico. I found a site with seismographs from all over the globe and you can see the signal on most of them. The most distant from Mexico have all the high frequencies filtered out to leave what we saw at El Hierro.

      6. AK135 is a model of the Earth. It states the calculated travel times for the various ray paths for earthquake waves.

        Using AK134 (or the most recent version) you can identify what the squiggles are in a seismogram and see how that part of the squiggle got there.

        Using location of the Mx quake, and the location of the seismos in the Canaries, the geocentric angle ranges from 81.7 to 85.2 degrees.

        The very first waves to arrive would have been a combination of P and Pdiff, arriving at almost the same time. (P diffracted along the CMB in the mantle)

        Here are the various paths:

        http://i40.tinypic.com/mr7g4m.png

        And some of the arrival times via graph. The quake was at about 5 km depth, so the 0 depth chart should be in the ballpark.

        http://i40.tinypic.com/2gw5nd1.png

      7. It appears that at about 23 to 24 minutes after the quake, many of the S-waves arrived at about the same time.

      8. I believe I said some kind of S wave ,,, yes LURKING please compute arrival times of other waves for us , SVP …

        P.S. do have that plot of arrival times of various waves vs. angles somewhere ???

      9. Mr. Lurking:

        how did you determine the angle ?? inquiring minds want to know ….

      11. Once you have the distance you divide that into the Earth’s circumsphere and then multiply by 360°.

    1. Not as far back as my past!
      Cathy’s Clown, Brontosaurus Stomp, Take Five……..

      1. Oh dear !! I was a 70s dude myself – all hair and bad fashion taste. Embarrassing really when I look back.

      2. There! There! Jim…..Pointy collars and fuzzy afros were not cool …Now go with Tie dyed long dresses, long hair, and Afghan coats that looked flea infested , “Peace and Love”, ……. Oh Dear! Now THAT is embarrassing 🙂 We were so very serious and intense but our hearts were in the right place ……… and still are:)

  13. For those who are missing news about Hengill:

    The region was once very good for “skiing” – hence the Skídaskáli near Hellisheidi power station.

    But this is a new technique:

    Following this news article a drunkard tried to invent a new Olympic discipline – called “Slalom for cars” down the pass of Road no. 1 near Hveragerdi at Kambabrún:
    http://www.visir.is/fullur-okumadur-i-storsvigi-nidur-kambana/article/2011111109997
    After this deed, the man proved to be too intoxicated to blow into the test tube of the police … Luckily, nobody got hurt.

    I know the place very well, it’s not very high, but steep.

    1. Inge I love the giggle translation 🙂

      So Carl, Lurking, Jon et Al.. we must beware of being too ofurölvi when we have our party on Dalek Drive or the gentleness of the Icelandic police will be felt 🙂 I cannot find a translation to English for ofurölvi…… I presume it means Drunk / intoxicated.

      1. I will be bringing my trusted tent. I am not going driving around in Iceland in an over-grown 4×4 drunk 🙂
        I am definitly going for ofurölvi around the sheeps and the Dalek.

      3. Sounds like something that will happen at the end of the Búrfell BBQ-party…
        The headlines will be perfect.
        “The worlds largest Volcanophiliac party was to Orufölvi to notice Heklas eruption, woke up hungover and Eldgósed for life!”

      4. “This people were so ofurölvi they did not mention that the camp fire they were BBQing sausages on was not a camp fire at all but glowing and smoking lava bombs.”

      6. Oh what a lovely picture! I am so happy I have a good imagination :). Can I wear my new, Blue genuine American Cowboy hat my husband bought for me from his holiday there? Also my red wellies? I will bring the potatoes , here in UK we always roast potatoes in the bonfires on Nov 5th. That is when we celebrate a failed attempt to blow up parliament by a disgruntled citizen. 🙂

      1. Must have missed it again. All I can see is a hazard warning for a volcanic eruption.

  15. Hekla Update:
    IMO has changed the borehole strainmeter plot so that it now also shows Storofsvoll. Something got a bit wonky with the scale of things, or they have decided to keap it on permanent higher scale to catch the transients in a better way.
    So, do not be alarmed, nothing has happened with Hekla, and nothing is expected to happen within the next hour or so.
    http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/hekla/borholu_thensla.html

    But gosh, it looks cool 🙂

  16. Giggletrans:
    “”EMU moves to El Hierro complete logistical material endowment in the Island

    11/01/2011 … 20:04 – Ministry of Economy, Finance and Security

    Part of the safety-device set last September

    Military Emergency Unit at the request of the direction of the Civil Protection Plan for Volcanic Risk Islands (PEVOLCA), transferred to El Hierro complete logistical material endowment in the island, which is stored at the quartering of Anatolian Fuertes (Valverde)

    This material would enable a permanent shelter to give shelter to people who could be evacuated in anticipation of a volcanic eruption. The provision of this hostel is shopping, dining and services for 2,000 people and will complement the Red Cross would install and can accommodate from two to 2,500 people.

    Transport to the island of El Hierro will be done in two trips. In the first movement, which up tonight at the Port of The Stake, 17 trucks have been used.

    This shipment of material, part of the EMU, it is an element of preventive safety device is activated on the island, according to the different phases that have passed the seismic-volcanic phenomena taking place since the summer .”””

    1. Shopping and dining? Fabulous. Now I’m curious what the original says… Where did you get this from?

      2. Ah, thanks!
        It’s “tiendas, comedor y servicios”, so in fact they talk about tents, food and toilets.
        No shopping&services for the evacues, sorry. 😀

      3. Probably service as normal? – can’t see Valverde being too well endowed with shopping malls, even in normal times.

      4. Hehe, yes, but in this case it’s giggle mistraslation:
        tienda = a shop, but also a tent
        servicio (singular) = services
        servicios (plural) = toilets
        🙂
        Actually, comedor is probably a tent with a canteen.

    2. They have really upped the level of things they are doing the last 24 hours. It seems like someone kicked them in the nuts and explained the risk of things.
      It all started when Prof Sagiya from Nagoya (Now I got it right) opened his mouth and told them that it is risky. Now all of a sudden they are moving in troops, material and equipment for evacuations, shelters and what nots.
      I guess that Prof Sagiya has talked very hard and fast with them.

      1. Or his some Taekwondo black belt and impressed them by crushing some lavabombs…
        Seriously, it’s good someone found a way to open their eyes. Our Japanese friend build nuclear plant where they shouldn’t, but in matters of volcanoes they are pretty fit.

      2. Yepp, as I said he has an unfair advantage over the spanish volcanologists… He has actually seen a volcano before.
        And he is a world leading expert in active rifts and the effects they have on volcanos. They should count their blessing, shut up, and say “Hai Sensei!” whatever he says.
        🙂

      3. Domo arigato gozaimasta. And bow, and bow, and bow, and bow…
        The way you put it makes me guess you have spent some time in feet-smelling dojos?

      4. I have been known to now and then put a smelly fot in the face of the unbkeknowing.

        And bowing infont of the ubiquitous black and white photograph of a bearded Okinawan, that in reallity probably was the groundskeaper of a girlschool.

      5. Had my years of martial arts too, but finally my “problem” with authority and hierarchy made me quit that path. Ooooh this bowing in front of pictures is not really a thing for a loco “dances with sheep” Dalek stripper. No.

      9. We just have to come up with the date, and some of our local friends perhaps can help us with assistance in how to get all the beer up to the Dalek. And of course a 3G modem so we can talk with the rest infront of the Búrfell cam.

      2. I think it will happen soon, now. When all the equipment is there I think people will start to move. What a relief!

      3. Me too. This whole day, I was thinking about it being high time to do sth. in that direction.

      5. Yes, it is a relief.

        The EQ distribution is not looking good. The number per day is on a sharp increase with the energy graphs also showing an increase. And they have had 13 published EQs >1.5 since I downloaded at 18:33 this evening.

      9. Carl,
        I did wonder – but if its volume is defined by the layered EQ pattern its about 3km deep and about 3×3 in area, total: 27cubic km.
        Run away!!???
        Peter

      11. I’ve tried to tell you that there is a heck of a lot of magma under El Hierro.
        But, remember that a “chamber” is not an actual chamber, it is a complex maze of fractures. So in reality it perhaps contains a quarter in moveable magma, and about 10-20 percent of that can be moving up. So, a maximum of perhaps 1,5 cubics from that magma-reservoir.

        What makes me a bit apprehensive is that I am fairly convinced that the intense quakeing can be seen as the upward push of a glob of magma that has been flattened out under the island, and that the bulk of the quakes we are seeing are a plate-loading motion as that glob of magma pushes and tries to find a way.
        No comes the hairy part… Size of quakes equals size of magma then. I think there is a lot of it down there, numbers are not so relevant, but I think this will in the end make El Hierro go for years. Here is the reason I believe in Lurkings idea that the active periods alternate and that it takes one of these large globs for it to reactivate. But, we are talking about a combined magma potential of more then 10 cubics moderatly speaking.

      12. Then the conclusion from Hierro petrology is worrying:
        “…..magma ascent with major crystal fractionation in the uppermost mantle and short-term stagnation at shallower levels…..”
        and
        “…..we can conclude that the magma ascent from the mantle to the seafloor, including the mixing events, occurred within days to a few months…”

        Source:
        http://eprints.ifm-geomar.de/7993/1/915_Stroncik_2009_TheMagmaticPlumbingSystemBeneath_Artzeit_pubid12801.pdf

      13. The EQs are show only where rock is fracturing. Swarms at <3, with harmonic tremor are magmatic in source. Plate movement tends to produce larger quakes with no harmonic tremor. Mountains settling do not produce large swarms of EQs. So this event is magmatic.

        The EQs appear to be occuring round the edge of the magma reservoir as it expands with heat and / or inflow of magma. Heat rises so the fracturing is probably occuring at the top of the reservoir.

        Evidence for this? Lateral inflation on the island. But note that deflation may also be evidence as rock sinks because the heat softened rock beneath it cannot support the load as well. But we do not have a complete picture of displacement.

        And on top of this, we may have rifting to complicate the picture.

      15. Yes Peter, I agree with you on this.
        But, we should remember that rifting-episode fissure eruptions can putter on for many years at slow pace. See Krafla for instance.
        But then on the other hand, El Golfo built up so fast and hard that the bottom of it gave out. It become rather stumping quickly as you know.
        I am afraid there might be interesting times coming for El Hierro, but not untill after Goldfarter Bob has become a separate Island I think.

    2. She’s just jealous of all the attention El Hierro is getting. 😉

      Like others on here I sincerely hope that as soon as the emergency equipment is in place that residents in the El Golfo area are evacuated. The smell of ‘rotten eggs’ in the area, even if for a short time is a worrying sign in my view.

  19. Ehm, carl, what is happening at the Hekla link you posted earlier? Seems like there is something, but now I have problems seeing it, cause i’m on my mobile phone..

    2. Hello Christina!

      Yes, Pieter is right, they have rescaled it.
      They have also added Storolfsvoll to the plot so that the will have two going down (Búrfell and Heklukriki) and 2 going up (Hella and Storolfsvoll). That way they get better measurments next eruption. So, either they forgot to adjust this new plot. Or they have opted to rescale so that the transients will be clear and nice as they happen. Those small scale ups and downs are not that important, more than to see that the movements have become faster and a harder a bit.

      They have also redone the scaling of the Haukadalur tremor plot. It is now in a totally different scale. So small tremors is gone, but the hard ones will show nicely.

      I think this is due to them feeling that there is very short time to the next eruption, but I could be wrong on this (but I do not think so).
      Personal guess is still that Hekla blows between decembar and may.

      1. Another reason might be that the old scale was a bit misleading, as you said, some spikes seemed to be very intense to the untrained eye, while they actually were just small sniffs. I personally doubt that this is done because they are expecting an eruption on very short a very short notice. They are most probably as clueless as we are as to when the next eruption will take place. Hekla is one unpredictable little bitch!

      2. Actually, Hekla holds the distinction to be the most precisely predicted volcanic eruption in history.

        No, IMO was very clear in their July 7 warning. It is on the current highest non-eruptive setting, and they do advice that you do not go up the mountain.
        Hekla is really close, actually much closer than Katla is.
        I still hold to my prediction that she will go within the next 7 months.

      3. Icelanders like to tell this people that this last 2000 Hekla eruption was predicted so precisely. But I have it from an volcanologist (woman!) in Iceland – that it was detected just by chance, because someone had to change the paper in the seismographs….

      4. Haha!
        Well, I can guess who that volcanologist was being that honest.
        Well, now they are using digital seismicorders and with alarms on them so they would catch it again.
        But, one should remember that the prediction of eruption was only day an couple of hours before the onset of eruption, but it was exact to the minute.

  23. Anyone know why the earthquake map shows an event at zero depth in El Golfo Bay that doesn’t appear in the EQ table?

    1. Which EQ table?

      0km depth per IGN usually means <1km, if you check the same event against avcan.org. Or the EQ may be <1.5 which IGN does not list on its site but you can get if you download the data, or check against avcan.org again.

      1. I’m looking at the IGN table.

        BTW the continuous sinewave harmonic tremor at ~0.15Hz is slowly increasing again on the other island seismometers and becoming the major feature.

      2. Symptoms that El Hierro is preparing for another phase of the eruption (size, date and exact location as yet unknown).

  24. @ Jon, Carl & Lurking,

    Any view on why there is still a relatively EQ-free area in the area between Lat 27.75, depth 25km to Lat 27.8, depth 10km? Tougher rock or more ductile rock?

    1. Ductile, unless it is some weird superhard craton. Ductility probably due to high magmatic content in the magma-reservoir in question. I wrote about it above. It is the old chamber of El Golfo that has been refilled.

      2. Carl, do you know what the deep seafloor geology looks like around the island and presumably under the island before the volcano built on top of it? Was it just sediment on top of oceanic crust or is it more complex with Africa being adjacent?

      3. Do not really have a good idea, but it is african crust, and then sedimentary layer ontop that, and ontop of that volcanic rock, and to really hork it up you have an entire colapsed volcano that just tried to slide away to England. And mixed in you have the feeder paths to the old crater, and the magma chambers, throw in a bunch of fissures ontop of the with your friendly dykes and you would have a fairly complex thingamabit.
        This is El Golfo I was talking about, but the rest is probably not that much better. Bsically, crust, sediment, lavas, with cracks running through the sediments all over.

  26. @Carl & Peter,

    A comparison of depth of EQs per my plots of earlier today vs the proposed magma reservoir in the Petrology paper Peter linked to above. The paper was published in 2009 and based on rock samples from a limited number of sites. I used longitude rather than latitude; to do latitude I need to know the direction of the view in Petrology paper.

    I guess that magma has risen since the study was undertaken.

    http://oi41.tinypic.com/midr94.jpg

    Note: a similar graphic was published by Lurking in an earlier post but I have lost the link. All credit to Lurking for the idea.

    1. Plot of EQs prior to 18/07/2011 at El Hierro.

      Note: that there were some EQs in 2009, 2010 and 2011 which post date the Petrology paper.

    2. Karen,
      Interesting comparison. I think the Stronik paper used samples of old subsea lava flows. But her conclusion that the ascent through the crust was rapid should be valid. So the question is how large the dykes/fissures are likely to be, and how many. And the July swarm has loosened up the crust+sedimentaries above the present focus of EQS. That leaves the erupted mass above the sedimentary layer where has been little Eqs – unless they are <1.5 – to slow progress.
      Peter

  27. The INVOLCAN has now confirmed that the CO2 emission in the volcanic edifice of el Hierro has increased again, now it is even higher than when Bob came to life.

  28. The National Geographic Institute now supports the possibility of an eruption north of the island opposite the town of Frontera which is the most populated town of El Hierro with about 4,000 inhabitants.

    So far, the underwater eruption in the south has affected only the village of La Restinga, with 600 inhabitants.

    The NGI has also recommended not to consume fish caught in areas affected by the volcano

    (This one I am not sure about but there is another sentence here about steaming has started near Restinga again? Anyone know about that?)

    For this reason, the Defense Ministry plans to send tonight and tomorrow Emergency Military Units to El Hierro, at the request of the direction of the Civil Protection Plan for Volcanic Risk Islands (PEVOLCA).

    The idea is that they need to be ready to set up camp for 2,000 people if there is an eruption in the north of the island in response to the rise of seismic activity recorded since Sunday where there were earthquakes of magnitude 3.9.

    The transport of the provision of shelter to the island of El Hierro will be done in two operations.

    In the first movement, which starts tonight at the Port of The Stake, 17 trucks were used, as reported by the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Security of the Canary Islands. Once there, the material will be stored in Valverde.

    The stain continues to spread.

    The spot produced by the ejecta after the eruption of underwater marine reserve waters of the area around Las Calmas on the south of the island has spread from the south of the island of El Hierro.

    The Directorate General of Public Health of the Canary Islands Government has taken water samples to assess the composition of the stain and the possible harmful effects to people and marine species that inhabit the coast.

    The Cabildo de El Hierro has reported that the turbidity in the area near the eruption in the waters of La Restinga, has prevented any real images obtained at the point of the submarine eruption by the scientific team of Ramon Margalef ship of the Institute Spanish Oceanography, which has developed a 3D graphic creation based on data from sonar.

  30. Looks like the amplitude of the general tremor on El Hierro has roughly doubled in the last 24 hours.

  31. How about the new CO2 measurements?
    High, indeed.
    I wouldn’t feel comfortable being above the “fissure” zone.

      1. It was mentioned in a reply on the AVCAN Group on FB, I’ll look it up… a bit of google, and a bit of me, there’s one part I hope someone else can look at – see in the text.

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

        The volcanological Institute of the Canaries (INVOLCA) confirmed this morning at the direction of the Civil Protection Plan for Volcanic Risk (PEVOLCA) an increase in the diffuse emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere by the volcano island of El Hierro after their tenth scientific field campaign and evaluated the results of the parameter that is of interest for volcanic surveillance. The measured emission rate has reached 1044 ± 31 tons per day, the highest value observed since the beginning of magmatic reactivation being recorded in El Hierro.

        Since last July 21, 2011 INVOLCAN has materialized over 6,500 diffuse flux measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) through 10 field scientific surveys each covering the entire edifice of the subaerial volcanic island of El Hierro ( 278 km2) in order to contribute to the improvement and optimization of volcano monitoring. Note that in this task have collaborated and collaborate a significant group of volunteers based in the Canary Islands.

        The registration of the diffuse emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) by the volcano island of El Hierro since last July 21 ranges from 331 to 1044 ± 16 ± 31 tonnes per day. Following the work of diffuse emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) made by the volcanological group El Hierro, ITER, since 1997, now forming part of INVOLCAN, has been able to establish that the average value of the diffuse emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) by the volcanic island of El Hierro is 340 tons daily, and the normal values ​​ go from 140 to 885 tons per day. [el valor promedio de la emisión difusa de dióxido de carbono (CO2) por el edificio volcánico insular de El Hierro es de 340 toneladas diarias, y cuyo rango de valores normales va desde las 140 a las 885 toneladas diarias; not quite sure here; Renato??] Prior to the submarine eruption which occurred southwest of La Restinga the diffuse emission rate of carbon dioxide (CO2) exceeded the range of values ​​ that are considered as normal by registering a 990 ± 49 tons per day, last October 6, 2011.

        The graph and the results can not be disclosed or reproduced without the authorization of INVOLCA.

        Original:
        El Instituto Volcanológico de Canarias (INVOLCAN) ha confirmado, esta madrugada, a la dirección del Plan de Protección Civil por Riesgo Volcánico (PEVOLCA) un incremento de la emisión difusa de dióxido de carbono (CO2) a la atmósfera por el edificio volcánico insular de El Hierro una vez finalizada su décima campaña científica de campo y evaluado los resultados de este parámetro de interés para la vigilancia volcánica. La tasa de emisión registrada ha alcanzado las 1044 ± 31 toneladas diarias, el mayor valor observado desde el inicio de la reactivación magmática que se está registrando en El Hierro.

        Desde el pasado 21 de julio de 2011 el INVOLCAN ha materializado más de 6.500 medidas de flujo difuso de dióxido de carbono (CO2) a través de las 10 campañas científicas de campo cubriendo cada una de ellas todo el edificio volcánico insular subaéreo de El Hierro (278 Km2) con la finalidad de contribuir a la mejora y optimización de la vigilancia volcánica. Resaltar que en esta tarea han colaborado y colaboran un importante colectivo de voluntarios residentes en Canarias.

        El registro de la emisión difusa de dióxido de carbono (CO2) por el edificio volcánico insular de El Hierro desde el pasado 21 de julio va desde las 331 ± 16 a las 1.044 ± 31 toneladas diarias. A raíz de los trabajos de emisión difusa de dióxido de carbono (CO2) realizados en El Hierro por el grupo volcanológico del ITER desde 1997, ahora en el seno del INVOLCAN, se ha podido establecer que el valor promedio de la emisión difusa de dióxido de carbono (CO2) por el edificio volcánico insular de El Hierro es de 340 toneladas diarias, y cuyo rango de valores normales va desde las 140 a las 885 toneladas diarias. Previamente a la erupción submarina ocurrida al suroeste de La Restinga la tasa de emisión difusa de dióxido de carbono (CO2) superó el rango de valores considerados normales registrándose unas 990 ± 49 toneladas diarias el pasado 6 de octubre de 2011.

        La gráfica y los resultados no pueden ser divulgados ni reproducidos sin la autorización del INVOLCAN.

      2. 1.044 is 1044! Careful, in Spain their put a dot when going into the thousands. 1.987 is the year 1978…

    1. Well, since it’s located in a farming area in SE Missouri, and the signals die off about 18:00 to 18:30 local, I’d say that people were putting their equipment away after a long days work. Sunset is 18:01 local and the activity periods match those of other helicorders in the region.

  33. As I commented a couple of threads back these small but deep earthquakes have been going on below Fimmvorduhals the last three weeks but nok before. Could it be reinjection of new magma in Eyja or is it settling of the volcano (but then why suddenly now?). Where did Eyja quake prior to her eruption?

    Wednesday
    02.11.2011 01:42:31 63.619 -19.405 12.6 km 0.6 53.29 7.5 km SSE of Básar
    Tuesday
    01.11.2011 06:08:22 63.681 -19.464 11.0 km 0.8 99.0 0.9 km ENE of Básar
    Monday
    31.10.2011 13:35:43 63.633 -19.440 22.1 km 1.3 99.0 5.3 km SSE of Básar

    1. It is most likely settling of the feeder tubes of Eyjafjallajökull.
      But if it continues with elevated numbers (more than 1 a day) for weeks, then it could be cause for us to keap an eye on it.
      Having one a day that are this small is about normal.

  34. Xana: A bit to late, but here we go:
    “y cuyo rango de valores normales va desde las 140 a las 885”
    and which normal values range from 140 to 885 tons. 🙂
    Tremors are skyrocketing!

    1. Spanish site have it at 20 – I think EMSC tend to put at lot at 10 when they haven’t got the proper data

      1. I agree, the last couple of 3’9 quakes they had to later revise to 20 km depth after initial putting as shllow as 9 km

      1. EMSC reports the data published by the relevent country source shown on the page for the quake and updates when the country updates.

        Given the timing of some of the quakes I have looked at the link is automatic – there is not enough time to check the data.

        Why publish it before it has been checked? Other locations need to know that an event has occured so to help them check their own stations.

        So accuracy improves over time.

  38. Could someone answer this please yesterday Avcan said that an earthquake of 7.00 could split the island in two .

    If we are leading up to the main erruption and have just had a 4.00 is this now a possibility.

    1. Don’t know the context good enough to really comment this. But what could be meant by “split the island in two”? A “simple” fracture/fissure through the island – well why not… Ripping the whole heap apart? Ahem…
      Sounds very spectacular. Would sure give a hell of a youtube-video… Just hope there’s no one left there if this happened. Hollywood should send some people there to make sure they know how to present this in one of the next end-time movies…

    2. Not sure but a M7.0 or larger would not be caused by magma but tectonic events. The question is if the magmatic movement is large enough to cause a tectonic event such as this.

      Might be wrong here..

    3. Hi Judith

      I can only say that if I lived on El Hierro I would have packed up and left by now. Things are building towards something worse, and already heat and gases are arriving at the surface. Perhaps the eastern end of the island might be okay. The quakes are under the western half of the island with new magma arriving in El Golfo and heat increasing under the rift zone, I would not be optimistic for a quiet or safe outcome.

      I would go to another island until this is all over.

      1. Alyson, I do not think that there is anything warranting a total evacuation yet.
        I would just avoid La Restinga, and the edifice under Tanganasoga for the time being. I would say that just the movement of equipment and staff to the area is enough for now. There is such a small risk of a cataclysmic event that it is quite simply not warranted with an evacuation of the island. If a new eruption starts it would either be a new Bob or a Baldrick on land. And the Baldrick would probably be an effusive fissure eruption with a manageable phreatic component.

      3. Hi Carl

        You are more an expert than I am, and I am only speaking for myself. For myself, I would go, even while it is unknown what the quakes are building towards.

        Quakes are currently in a line, along a north-south line in El Golfo, as they have been before, whereas a day or 2 back they were forming a circle in El Golfo. I don’t know what will come, but to me it does not look good either way.

        I don’t think a mag 7.0 will rift the island. But I do think it will start in El Golfo one way or another. Rifting in El Golfo might be better, as it would spread the release. But if Tanganasoga was to erupt too, if, then the event would be much larger. From the shaking I think cracks in other places will likely vent further gases too, and if Bob breaks the surface that will bring problems to the south.

        But I may be wrong. It is a large island and it would take a lot of heat to permeate the whole edifice. They are monitoring carefully and they have started the preparations. The experts know more about the reality on the ground. It is difficult to be clear about the scale of the problem from a distance.

    4. Hollywood scenario. I am not sure that A) it could even produce a 7M and B) I do not actually think that would be enough.
      The only thing that should be able to produce a 7 there would be a rather hefty landslide, but that is very very unlikely, and no, it would not produce a huge tsunami.

  42. There are three volcanic cones in the Orotava Valley and they are fully aligned. Their names are: Las Gañanías, El Fraile and Las Arenas. I believe that the eruption of the volcano dates back to year 1,430 approximately.
    6 minutes ago · Like · Original

  43. I just offered up access to my ISP to Fernando and Javier if they wanted it. It has a helluva bandwidth and can carry the traffic. It could roll to the east and west with a US link to hit if one overloads. Or maybe they could leave theirs up for the public and use mine as a restricted use for scientists via login.

    Anything to help. Simply put if an eruption starts we wont know it for a while…bad news.

    Its up to them. We will wait and see.

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