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El Hierro volcano enters Surtsey eruption phase

This is a short blog post about latest events.
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Earlier tonight a Surtey eruption started in El Hierro volcano. Before this phase did start there has been increased harmonic tremor on seismometers that are located on El Hierro Island. Volcano ash is to be expected while water can still get into the crater. When the water does no longer get into the crater it is going to stop making volcano ash. The ash plume can go up to 3 to 10 km high, depending on the strength of the eruption. New vents have also been opening up south of town of La Restinga. That means the fissure is still growing, at least that was the case yesterday and earlier today from what I can gather. I am unsure of that has continued or stopped.

Earthquake activity still high north west of the town of Frontera. This suggests that fissure might open up there. But so far that has not happened. I do not think this are earthquakes due to tectonic stress changes due to the eruptions in south El Hierro volcano. But this stress changes are because of the magma injections at depth in El Hierro volcano.


Harmonic tremor from the eruption in El Hierr volcano. It now shows clear signs of explosions (strong ones) and increased eruption activity. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

If new vents open up closer to the shore there is going to be instant Surtsey eruption activity. But that might only last for a short while the water gets into the crater. There the lava stage is reached much sooner then on the vents that are erupting on more depth at the moment.

I am going to post more updates on this. If I can get more details on what is going on.

Sources:

Renewed Eruptions at El Hierro in the Canary Islands (Eruption blogs)

I also want to thanks reader how email me about the current status of what is going on in El Hierro volcano. My Spanish is weak at the moment.

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Short update on El Hierro volcano eruption

This is a short update on El Hierro volcano eruption. As the situation is changing fast this past few hours.

It seems that the eruption in El Hierro volcano is gaining strength and power. The harmonic tremor on the seismomter that is on the El Hierro Island it self has started to get saturated again. It also have been unconfirmed reports of the south fissure growing in size. But so far nothing has happened in the north part of El Hierro volcano. Even if there have been many earthquakes in that area. But this area fell suspicious silent this morning. So something might be up in that area. Update 1: A string of earthquakes happened around 12:00 UTC in this area. Suggesting that something is still up there.


The harmonic tremor at 13:52 UTC. Notice how the tremor has started to saturate the seismometer. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

What happens next is anyone guess. But people need to be aware that fissure eruptions are sometimes long in terms of the length of the fissure. But that phase normally does not last long, as soon the eruption is going to isolate it self into few craters on the fissure. I also recommend that people read Erik Klemetti blog post about El Hierro from yesterday. If you haven’t already done so.

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Increased eruption activity in El Hierro volcano

I was going to post this yesterday. But I fell a sleep at 17:00 UTC and I didn’t wake up until 03:00 UTC.
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The eruption in El Hierro volcano continues as it has been doing for past few weeks with little change. The first eruption vent that did open south of El Hierro Island has continued to erupt. But so far no Island has formed and it is unclear if it is going to form, as the depth is great in this area. Since yesterday around 06:00 UTC the harmonic tremor has been increasing. But this suggests that new vents have opened up in the south eruption area. I got some pictures of that yesterday in the email. But they did not show anything new in my view. Thanks to the readers how did send me those pictures.

The current fluctuation in the harmonic tremor from El Hierro suggests that magma is on the move in the north part of El Hierro Island. Both off the coast and maybe inland on the Island where earthquakes have been taking place. It is impossible to know how this is going to develop during the next few hours to days. As that depends on the rock structure of El Hierro Island and earlier eruptions.

Earthquake activity

During the past two weeks the earthquake activity have been growing in the North-west part of El Hierro Island. The reason why this is happening is that a new fissure is about to open in this area. As I have mentioned before in earlier blog posts. When and where is impossible to know for sure. The largest earthquake so far took place this morning, it size was ML4.0 with the depth of 20 km. But this is the automatic data from IGN. This pattern of earthquake activity is most likely going to continue during this eruption process in El Hierro volcano. Since the eruption type here is a fissure eruption.

It is worth noting that earthquakes in once place does not mean that the eruption is going to happen in that place. As the magma can travel in dikes all over the El Hierro Island and show it self anywhere on the Island it self. So the general risk is high in my opinion. The only action that can be taken is to be prepared for sudden eruption of new vents on El Hierro Island. Since there is a good amount of magma on the move inside El Hierro volcano.


The harmonic tremor in El Hierro at 08:54 UTC (when picture is saved). The spikes are earthquakes, and harmonic tremor spikes are the “waves” in the harmonic tremor pattern. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

Update 1:

* When I wrote this blog post. This two earthquakes took place.

1109584 02/11/2011 08:37:11 27.9267 -18.1084 3 1.7 mbLg NW FRONTERA.IHI
1109582 02/11/2011 08:36:00 27.5986 -17.9594 1 1.9 mbLg S EL PINAR.IHI

This are the most shallow earthquakes that I have seen so far. From the depth it is possible a magma has found a clean path to surface in this two areas. Sadly there is no map. So I am not sure where this earthquakes took place in El Hierro volcano.

Update 1b: The earthquake have been revised. Now the depth is 9 km for the ML1.7 and 22km for the ML1.9.

The shallow earthquake.

1109584 02/11/2011 08:37:11 27.9304 -18.1107 9 1.7 mbLg NW FRONTERA.IHI [+]

I am going to post more information when I know more on what is taking place in El Hierro.

Blog post updated at 11:24 UTC on 2 November, 2011

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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.

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Special report: New eruption vent (or vents) might have opened up in El Hierro volcano eruption

The current tremor data now suggests that a new vent or vents have opened or are about to open up just outside north-west coast of El Hierro volcano. The depth where the main earthquakes have been taking place is about 100 to 300 meters (but might be more). So far the largest earthquakes to take place in this area was a ML3.9 with the depth of 22 km. What is important in this is not the fact that the earthquakes are at great depth. But also the fact that a more shallow might not take place. As that was not the case when the eruption started in El Hierro on 10 October, 2011. It is unlikely that there is going to be any shallow earthquake activity before a new eruption vents opens up. As that was not the case on the 10 October, 2011 from what I can remember.


Current harmonic tremor in El Hierro. So far there has not been much change in harmonic tremor as can be seen here. But that can change without warning. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

I am not sure how strong earthquake this area can make. But I am guessing that it might well be in the upper Mb5.5+ range. The earthquakes that are now taking place are due to magma injection. Not a tectonic one. There is a difference between the two. But this rifting in El Hierro might trigger a earthquake close to El Hierro Island in near future, that earthquake would be a tectonic one. Not a earthquake created by magma movements.

So far the new vents are still unconfirmed. But there are signs in the harmonic tremor data that new eruption vents might be opening up or have already opened up. But at this moment I am waiting for a confirmation on this actually taking place. That is going to take a few hours, given the experience so far.

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Special report: Rift zone eruption continues at El Hierro volcano

This is going to be a short blog post about what is going on in El Hierro. But I have a longer blog post planned for tomorrow.

The current eruption in El Hierro volcano is a fissure eruption. As such a new eruption vent can be expected for the time while magma continues to be injected into El Hierro volcano from depth (28+ km). When a new fissure starts to open it is pre-seeded by a swarm of earthquakes. Lack of this knowledge, or some type of ignorance about this fact has me worried that a eruption. As there is a real risk of eruption happening close to a populated area in El Hierro. It is also a fact that a new fissure can open up extremely fast and with no warning at all. Since when the magma reaches the surface there is no guarantee that the fissure is going to open up with a swarm of earthquakes. In most cases that I know about, the eruption fissure opens up with no earthquakes at all and with no earthquakes. The only earthquakes that take place is when the magma is breaking a path up to the surface.


Earthquakes during the last 10 days in El Hierro volcano. The new magma injection appears clearly with earthquakes ion this map. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.


All earthquakes in El Hierro volcano since July. The new magma injection appears clearly on this map. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

At this moment it is unclear if the new magma injection has got into contact with the magma that started to inject under El Hierro volcano in July 2011. If that happens the two magma injections are going to merge. But what happens after that is unknown to me. As I have never seen that type of process happen before.

When the El Hierro island is viewed from above it is clear that there are eruption periods where the El Hierro Island is covered with eruption cones in fissure eruptions. It is close to impossible to know if that this the case now or not. But I fear that it might be the case, as it has been long time since El Hierro erupted last time and the Island grows in fissure eruption jumps that take some time to pass over. One such eruption period jump appears to have started on 10 October, 2011. How long it is going to last depends on how large it is going to be. But this is going to last more then few weeks. But there are going to be breaks in between eruption episodes in El Hierro.


The harmonic tremor in El Hierro just before midnight of 28 October, 2011. The spikes are earthquakes N to NW of El Hierro Island. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

There has been some drop in harmonic tremors from the first (and only?) eruption vent just outside the coast of El Hierro. This means that it might be closing up. But that is normal for this type of eruption. When this eruption vent closes up or just before it closes up. A new eruption vent is going to open up at new location. As the magma inside El Hierro volcano supports that in my opinion. When and where is the unknown factor in this equation.

As for the question on how long this eruption period could last. I am hoping that it is going to be over when I move to Canary Islands (maybe El Hierro Island) in about 4 to 10 years time (at the latest). But this type of eruption take a long time to finish. So covering this eruption(s) is going to be ongoing for some time now.

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New earthquake swarm in Katla volcano

When I just think that Katla volcano had gone quiet. It starts a earthquake swarm to proof that I had it wrong.

This earthquake swarm in Katla volcano is not big. But the largest earthquakes where up to ML2.6 in size according to Iceland Met Office web page. This earthquake swarm is located in Katla volcano caldera, in the area that have been most active since July 2011. No harmonic tremor has followed this earthquake swarm.


The earthquakes in Katla volcano today. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.


The tremor plot of the earthquake from Slysaalda SIL station. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.


The earthquake swarm on Alftagröf SIL station. Copyright of this picture belongs to Iceland Met Office.


The earthquakes as they did appear on my geophone at Heklubyggð (Hekla volcano). This picture is released under Creative Common Licence. See the Licence page for more details.

This was most likely a small dike intrusion in Katla volcano caldera. But that seems to be the major driving force behind this earthquakes that are currently taking place in Katla volcano caldera. It is hard to know for sure if this earthquake swarm is going to continue or not. But this high earthquake activity in Katla volcano suggests that it is not far away from erupting. But it is impossible to know when a eruption might take place at current time.

Icelandic News about this earthquake swarm.

Smáskjálftar í Mýrdalsjökli (mbl.is, Icelandic)

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Special report: New magma intrusion into El Hierro volcano, Canary Islands, Spain

Few days ago a new magma intrusion did start in El Hierro volcano, Canary Islands, Spain. But this means that the pressure is increasing inside El Hierro current magma still. The new magma is going the same path as before, and is forming a new sill north-west part of El Hierro volcano. It seems that this magma has not yet encountered the magma that is already inside El Hierro volcano. What happens when the new magma encounters the slightly older magma is a open question. But I am sure what happens is going to be interesting and is going to create a new eruption vent in my opinion.


The new magma intrusion in El Hierro. It is not yet in contact with the existing magma in El Hierro. It is hard to know exactly what happens when the new magma gets into contact with the magma that is already in El Hierro. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

What is really interesting about this new magma is that this seems to be a new intrusion from a new conduct below El Hierro. This conduct does not appear in the earthquakes that started in July 2011 to today. There is a great risk that more new conducts are going to open up under El Hierro in this same manner. But this means that new magma can start to flow into El Hierro at new point under El Hierro. But that is always marked by a increase in earthquake activity where a new magma intrusion starts in El Hierro. This new magma intrusion into El Hierro appears to be rather small at the moment. But it is most likely going to grow over the next few weeks.


Current harmonic tremor levels in El Hierro volcano. Given by the current harmonic tremor level this eruption remains small. But the harmonic tremor is poorly to not being detected on nearby Canary Islands. The spike in the tremor plot is a earthquake. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

It seems that IGN did rescale the tremor plot in the early beginning of the eruption. Making me draw false conclusions on what was going on in El Hierro. But it seems that the eruption is stable and has been from the beginning. But so far this is a small eruption, based on the tremor data. I say it is small because the harmonic tremor is not detected about ~60 km away from El Hierro. As a example in the eruption of Grímsfjall volcano, the harmonic tremor was detected clearly up to ~200 km away from the eruption. But the harmonic tremor signals how much magma is moving inside a volcano up to the surface. But not how explosive the eruption is. But explosions can and are detected on seismometers when a eruption goes explosive.

If anything major happens in El Hierro. I am going to update this blog post.

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Special report: Update 6 on the eruption in El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain

Special note: Please notice that my (personal) watching system is also going to include the mainland of Spain (mainland Spain has two volcanoes that I am aware of, along with some earthquake activity) when I change it next month, along with Canary Islands. Everything else is also going to be a subject to a special reports if the event is important enough. That is not always going to be case however. But I am going to post more details on this in the beginning of next month.
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Little seems to have changed in the eruption of El Hierro since my last update on it. That was on 19 October, 2011. Harmonic tremor is constant, but appears to have dropped a little in the past few days. But with the fluctuation that is often increases again before it drops down again. This means that the eruption is ongoing, but is loosing power to continue at current eruption vent. This was not unexpected. This has however not slowed down inflation in El Hierro from what I can gather on GPS data on El Hierro.

As the current eruption vents close down it seems that earthquakes have started again under El Hierro. But the earthquakes have the depth from 28 km and up to around 5 km. This strongly suggests that new magma is entering under El Hierro and is again increasing the pressure inside the El Hierro magma sill (or chamber, but note that El Hierro does not have a stable magma chamber it seems). This increases earthquakes while the magma does not have any good path up to the surface. When a new path for the magma starts to form again, a large earthquake swarm is going to take place in El Hierro. It is not going to be anything bigger then already has taken place in El Hierro already. With the largest earthquakes going up to Mb5.0 in size. That is at least my opinion.


All the earthquakes that have happened in El Hierro since magma intrusions started in July 2011. This pictures clearly shows in my view the amount of magma (in terms of size, not volume) that is under El Hierro at the moment. As it is marked on the outer layers by the earthquakes. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.


The harmonic tremor in El Hierro at midnight on 21 October, 2011. As can be seen, it fluctuates a little bit. Copyright of this picture belongs to Instituto Geográfico Nacional.

The major risk in the current eruption cycle of El Hierro is the risk that new eruption vent is going to open up nearby a human population without warning. But El Hierro has a lot of cinder cones from earlier eruption cycles. That creates the risk that a new eruption vent is going to open up on dry land without warning. But it is impossible to know when and where that might happen.

Claims that this eruption in El Hierro is going to create tsunami due to landslides are false and have no basic in fact or reality. As landslides are unlikely to happen in this eruption episode or if a eruption happens on dry land.

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Large landslide in a valley in north Iceland

A large landslide did fall last Friday in a valley called Eyjafjarðarsveit. This is the largest landslide in this area for 17 years, when a smaller landslide did fall from a different mountain in this area. This landslide was large enough to block a small river that is in this area. Next farm to this landslide is about 7 km away from it. They do not tell what direction (north or south) the farm that is closest to this landslide is. The mountain that this landslide did come from is called Torfufell.

New from Rúv about this landslide.

Stór skriða féll í Eyjafjarðarsveit (Rúv.is, Icelandic, Pictures)

Update 1: Here is a new news about this landslide. It says that the area is going to be up to 30 years to recover in terms of flora and plants in the area that is just mud at the moment. The main rock in this area is Rhyolite. It is now also believed that two landslides took place in this area. But when it came down. It did travel 1.5 km down the valley. It also did create a lake (I have no idea if it is permanent new lake or not) where the landslide did block the river.

Landslagið gjörbreytt eftir skriðuföll (Rúv.is, Icelandic, Picture)
Fréttir: Gerbreytt landslag eftir skriðuföll (Rúv.is, Icelandic, Video, Flash)

Note: Next blog post about the eruption in El Hierro is going to be tomorrow. It seems that not a lot has been happening in the eruption of El Hierro today and yesterday.

Blog post updated on 20 October, 2011 at 22:16 UTC.