Posted on by Jón Frímann

Update on the eruption in El Hierro volcano (13 December, 2011)

Here is a long overdue update on the eruption in El Hierro volcano. But the eruption in El Hierro volcano is now in its third month.

Overall there has not been a lot of change in the eruption that is taking place in El Hierro volcano. But from what I can gather the eruption is taking place in just one vent at the moment. But that is common with this type of eruption. As they start with an fissure, but they end up just one vent erupting and building an cinder cone. Currently the eruption is taking place underwater. But that does not stop it from building an cinder cone. If the eruption continues long enough it is going to form an new island in this location. If that happens, the eruption is going to go from ash making eruption and down to lava eruption. Islands that form in this type of eruptions stand an better chance of lasting more then few months in the ocean. As the eroding powers of the ocean can wipe out a new Island in matter of months if it is just made out of volcanic tuff material.


Current harmonic tremor in El Hierro volcano eruption. The spikes are believed to be explosions taking place in the eruption area. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).


Steam event taking place in the eruption of El Hierro volcano. This picture is from 4 December, 2011. Copyright of this picture belongs to IGN (Instituto Geográfico Nacional).

There is also an other event that has mostly gone unnoticed by people. But that is the fact that earthquakes have stopped in north part of El Hierro volcano, current rate of earthquakes is close to zero during 24 hour period. This strongly suggests that an eruption has started in north part of El Hierro volcano. I have no idea where it, as there are no signals at the surface of the ocean that give clues to where this eruption might be taking place. But an similar drop in earthquakes took place just after the eruption in south El Hierro volcano started. The depth in north part of El Hierro Island increases sharply and any eruption that is currently taking place on more depth then 1000 meters is going to be hard to impossible to detect properly.

I am going to continue to monitor the eruption in El Hierro volcano. If there are any major changes. I am going to report it soon as I can do so.

81 Replies to “Update on the eruption in El Hierro volcano (13 December, 2011)”

  1. There was a 2km-deep quake before they began to stop, far from the coast, near the end of the debris from the El Golfo collapse. I don’t know if anybody noticed, but I found it most suspicious. Maybe they could conduct a research in that area, now that they have 2 boats…

    1. Another 2km quake this night, in the same area!

      14/12/2011 04:02:49 27.8702 -18.0659 2 1.9 mbLg NW FRONTERA.IHI

    1. They seem to be taking the view that, unless or until there are shallower quakes in the north, La Restinga is the focus. No one will know for sure for a while whether or not they are correct.

  3. (O.T.) …and now it’s time for marketing…a new song for El hierro:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuUEz5flMVU&list=UUAVGCy0E-XK__AMdlrLCzAg&feature=plcp

    and after you have listened that, this video started
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r9yjLS5nz4&feature=related

    While in the first one you see nothing of the volcanos activities and then started the second automatically, I think it’s a little “shock” to see the pumice floating and burning…

    This idea is nicer and is not denied the volcano:
    http://tenerife.todogeologia.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1810

    1. Lets just hope that the “guy” in the picture doesn’t develop a runny nose…. 😉

  4. The waveform of the chugging on el hierro seems to be changing shape to”rounder”, also they come more frecuently again for past hour, something changing in the system?

  6. Thanks for the link to Erik’s thread, Jack in Finland. I found a couple of posts there that answered the question I was going to ask here. Bruce Stout and bjdeming were ahead of me there!

    The answer was hydro-magmatic.

    My questions were – what is the jacuzzi made from? Is it gases or steam? Black smokers and the nearby seamount have the same bacteria growing, is water coming from deep? And there is a source of hot water flowing into the ocean near the Azorres, south-west, I read somewhere, I forget where. Water would move quietly through porous rock, leave holes as caves, rather than fill them with plugs of magma, and would pulse with build ups of chugging steam, in tubes, n’est-ce pas?

    I wish I understood more about the concepts I think I may have cottoned on to…

  8. Wednesday
    14.12.2011 11:18:58 63.860 -19.818 7.2 km 0.6 90.01 16.4 km SSW of Hekla

    This one is close!

  9. Una Canaria says:

    December 14, 2011 at 15:01

    Better? there was there some words linked in the text. Sorry.

    Are come recording hydromagmatic explosions in any of the emission mouths underwater volcano (minimum of three), which apparently must be growing rapidly, favored by the terraced buildings, one which could have collapsed in itself makes a few days. All this is corroborated by Oceanographic Research vessels Ramon Margalef and Sarmiento de Gamboa rated in the area. These explosions can be clearly seen in tremot signals, and have a stage between 5 and 7 minutes of media, that is, to some 10 per hour, and consisting of sea water entry by mouth or side through any underwater volcano, generating implosion that are promoting both the rupture of the crack as the output of ceníceo material and the emergence of new smaller mouths, which gradually grow up and move approach not only closer to the surface, but the location of the Restinga in its evolution and certain days back in parallel to the coast with this coruse. If this phenomenon continues alt least for a few days with mass energy release, will support this growth and risk of the appearance of any subaerial emergence of any submarine buildings, with possible the most explosive other than the material outlet smoking, ash, lavas burning, volcanic boms , gas and rooster tails.

    1. In that I meant, that the whole “jacuzzi ” surface area was showing vapor, not a hot stone as before….

  12. I was wondering if the panoramica webcam contains a infrared capability.
    In reference to the glowing light that showed through the night last night (on volcano report video) and couldn’t be verified to be a boat.
    As currently at 17:10 utc there is distinctly a surging glow at the jacuzzi sight on the cam, if it has a infrared capability then its hot vapor we would be seeing rather than the peak showing itself or larger hot glowing stone discharges reaching the surface.

    2. i was just looking at the webcam too, and noticed the glowing light, i wish we could verify that there are no boats out there

    3. There is a little light, but only at the panoramica cam. I don’t know if the eruption zone cam can’t pick it up, because the focus is to close at another point?

      2. they moved the eruptioncamera so bob didn’t show all the time, its zoomed out now…..

      4. they have zoomed right in close now on the lava in the sea, the colours are amazing, ive seen green orange yellow pink and red, beautiful !! 🙂

  13. Every camera has an infrared capability. Even your camera on your phone (just point a tv remote towards your camera and push a button. The more expensive cameras have a good infra-red filter. The zoomed cam could be having a good filter while the panorama-cam has a poor filter. I see the light to (only in panorama). I dont know what the temperature is before it shows up in the camera, my guess would be arround 100 C.

  15. Seeing that. I wonder whether we are seeing the peak below the surface, that is, the lava emissions illumination being at a height now that their glow can be seen through the water, rather than hot stones on the surface, as watching the webcam all day it didn’t appear to have any smoking hot stones on the surface so to speak compared to this continuous footage now.
    In a comparrison, the ign tremor graph has not really changed, so if we see stuff now at night and haven’t seen it during the day, seeing the peak, through/under the water holds merit.

    3. Yes they are not only hot stones because the explosions (3 spots) are allways in the same place! The volcano is out of whater!

  16. Something is happening in El Hierro (light on webcam).
    I have seen it from 20h50 (in France).

      1. actually I think its just the peak illuminating the water above it, that is, it’s not far from the surface and with a few spikes in discharge the glow increases and gives the murky light appearance above it (get someone to shine a torch underwater straight up) as the glow appears to “level” off with a flat top, which would be the waters surface, daylight will tell, I guess

    1. Yes they seam alligned… well everyone was expecting this, but latter. Volcano is anticipating everyone predictions!

      1. I wonder what will be there in the morning, I do hope we will be able to see it popping up out of the sea, its like having a baby 🙂 we have been waiting so long to see it appear.

      1. low tide will just allow even more growth as the reduction of mass/pressure of water above the vent allows it to discharge even more until the tide comes back each day and pushes down on it.

      2. shouldn’t be long now if the harmonic keeps pace, and we have a new island, hours not days maybe.

      3. Hope there is no stormy weather with high waves that destroy the little baby volcano. 🙂 But it seems as he is strong enough now to resist.

    2. Tidal range at El Hierro tonight : 0,7 m … (next high tide : 15/12 – 03.39 local time)

  21. I am currently moving. So I do not have an time to make an blog post about this at the moment. But this seems to be an lava eruption taking place in El Hierro voclano eruption vent.

    2. Thanks, Diana! I hope I have time for learning to make videos…
      At EQ-Report they tell that IGN think it is a ship! Why don’t they have eyes to see?

    3. Diana, I put your videolink at EQ-Report! Because of the discussions if it was a ship or not! Hope it was o.k.:)

  25. They are saying on earthquake report that Joke indicated a ship is expected, however these lights appeared immediately after sundown, as the daylight faded they began showing stronger and stronger at the same positions, I may note, that I was watching the webcams throughout the period before sunset, to the moment they began zooming the eruption cam on the lights, at no time did a ship sail into the view of the cams at the position we are now watching of the lights. I cannot discount that a ship hasn’t arrived on site at all at present, although the AIS ships site is not showing any vessels underway in the vicinity of EL Hierro at the moment.
    The lights we see are definitely magmatic in origin.

      1. yes it would seem.
        They are still arguing the point over on the other site about a ship.
        Hasn’t anybody heard of a telescope, you can point them horizontal too.
        Heck, I have binoculars that I can watch the moons of Jupiter here, my telescope is even better than that, surely someone in La Restinga has a scope they can point seaward and make a definitive observation it’s only a couple of km….

      2. They should ask the men that are turning the webcam on the right direction! But perhaps he send some friends with lights in the darkness to make a joke…

        Serious: Is there nobody from IGN that looks at the webcam in the same moment as we do??

  27. So it is confirmed that is was a ship sailing some 20 or 30 miles south of the island, at first I thought i was seeng bob for the first time XS. But can somebody explain me why can i see a the lights of ship sailing 30 miles from el hierro so clear, but not the lights of the ships that sail between Gran canaria and Tenerife where the distance is more or less the same?

    1. If you overlay tonights video/ screen captures on the daytime jacuzzi action, the position is relative to each other at the same site, no ship sorry

      1. XD thanks for answering, I could actually believe that this is a ship but not 20-30 miles away like IGN and INVOLCAN say!!! We are talking about 37 to 55 km.

  28. Well it’s diminished to nothing at this present time visually, although the harmonic is still showing surges, so the tops either collapsed momentary and the material is finding another exit, or the current/tide has changed and now the murkiness of the water around the vent is preventing us seeing the “lights” under/through the water as I mentioned possibly is happening earlier in the thread.

  33. A New Madrid quakes is said by some could cause the Caribbean Plate to burst. San Andreas south to north to sea to Cascadia to Mt Ranier-Hood-St Helens jolting upwards of a 10. Canary islands double whamy, Mid Atlantic Ridge, Icelands awakening, South America, Australian plate-ridge area, and not to mention other parts of the world. Tell me nothing is in the works?

  34. Avcan FB Copied.

    Hola a tod@s. Veo que con un minuto de diferencia se han producido dos sismos (seguro que estos dias hubo mas pero por lo que sea han salido registrados) en las faldas del Tanganasoga. Creo que seria un buen momento para que los expertos se moviesen y sobre la ruta hicieran algunas comprobaciones. Despues de tantos dias de explosiones el sentido comun deberia haber hecho presencia pero ya se sabe…es lo que hay. Es de esperar que en las proximas horas el mar se calme y veremos entonces si ha habido algun cambio. FRON HI01 ha pegado una buena subida. TN03 y TN06 al igual que IZAN han bajado.

    Hola a Tod @ s. I see that with one minute of difference there have been two earthquakes (sure that these days there were more but so is have been registered) in the foothills of the Tanganasoga. I think it would be a good time to ensure that experts are move and on the road to do some checks. After so many days of explosions common sense should have been done presence but you know… is what it is. It is hoped that in the next hours the sea calm and then see if there has been some change. FRON HI01 has stuck a good rise. TN03 and TN06 as they away have fallen. (Translated

  35. el sismo de las 15:24 fue acompañado de una emanación de gases muy fuerte en Frontera, lo percibimos todos en casa, tuvimos que entrar rápido en casa porque no se podía respirar, miré la hora y eran las 15:30, en Los Mocanes, perdón no lo dije antes porque estaba trabajando.
    Y dicen que esto se está acabando?

    ‎15: 24 quake was accompanied by a very strong in border gas emanation, perceive all at home, we had to go fast at home because he could not breathe, looked up at the time, and they were 15: 30, in Los Mocanes, sorry didn’t it before because I was working.
    And they say that this is running out? (Translated by Bing)

    17 minutes ago · Like · 6

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