Posted on by Jón Frímann

New magma injection into El Hierro volcano

Based on the earthquake activity in El Hierro volcano it seems that new magma injection has taken place, or is taking place at current time in El Hierro volcano.

This new magma injection into El Hierro volcano has already been followed by stronger harmonic tremors and more activity on the surface. As should have been expected when this happens. It is impossible to know at the moment how large and how long this new magma injection is going to last. But while it is ongoing, more eruption activity should be expected from El Hierro volcano. So far nothing suggests that new vents are about to open up in El Hierro volcano at the moment.

Other then this renewed activity. Nothing else has been happening in El Hierro volcano. There have been some news reports (in Spanish, use Google Translate to read) about new thermal anomalies in El Hierro volcano. This might just be hydro-thermal activity following dike intrusions at shallow depth.

12 Replies to “New magma injection into El Hierro volcano”

  1. The higher temperatures of the sea water may also have to do with the large amount of floaters, lava balloons of over two meters have been seen. In any case, there seems to be more volcanic material coming out of the vent.

  3. Ramon Margalef has visited the eruption site, I would love to see the new bathimetric data, I am afraid our little friend collapsed again.
    I have a question IGN said the eruption was on its final stage and no new intrusion had occurred, because of the crystallization of the lava, but how do they know the lava crystallized in a “deep chamber” and are not Hyaloclastites which are also rich in volcanic crystals?

    1. Every time one of those Spanish Bobos said that the eruption is diminishing or ending, there was more…

  4. I do not trust the Spanish ones (IGN, etc.), they seem to be totally unaware about what’s going on. They seem to talk more about what they wish would happen next…

  5. @Jon: Is this already within the Hekla system?

    Wednesday
    11.01.2012 23:47:42 63.930 -19.834 7.6 km 0.1 81.64 10.6 km SW of Hekla

    1. Yes, this is inside the Hekla volcano system. There is also few other earthquakes that appeared on my geophone at Heklubyggð during the night. But they did not appear on the SIL network for some reason.

      1. I believe the storm may have affected their equipment and recording Jon. Well I heard that is whet happened. However I would have thought if your equipment was working so should IMO’s !
        I loved your pictures on Facebook. Are those your dogs? They are lovely!
        What a severe storm that was.

      2. The dogs belong to my mom and dad. They are farm dogs. Not town or city dogs.

        I am sure that some SIL station failed during the storm. But not the ones on south Iceland, at least I do not think so.

      3. Working dogs are the best Jon. I grew up with them. 🙂

        Many small quakes around Hekla today.

  6. Secodn earthquake near Hekla within 24 hours.

    This is poor quality because of a coming storm. It seems to be a deep earthquake and around 1.0. Nothing shows in tremor or the inflation graphs. And the link for the strain graphs in Hekla is not working. This can be magma injecting into the deep chamber at Hekla; there the ground is probably tensile and rarely shows earthquakes. Your helicorder shows little activity.

    It will be interesting to see how the follow-up to a Hekla eruption happens, now that the volcano has instruments like never before. I don’t expect any inflation before the eruption, but I think we might see smaller earthquakes maybe some days in advance.

    I even expect more than just isolated earthquakes, maybe a count of a few earthquakes over a period of days, just before the eruption.

    Speculation: Historically Hekla also seems to have more eruptions during winter months (Jan to April) rather than the rest of the year.

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