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2 years after new volcano appeared, seismic activity restarts on island
Aerial view taken on October 17, 2011 of a green and brown stain at sea off the coast of the village of La Restinga on the Spanish Canary Island of El Hierro.
DESIREE MARTIN/AFP/Getty Images
MADRID, Spain – Spain’s National Geographical Institute says the Canary Island of El Hierro has been rocked by more than 50 tremors in 24 hours, two years after a new volcano began to appear off its southern coast.
So far the resurgent seismic activity has caused no damage, a regional government spokeswoman said Monday. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to be identified in the media.
The last time the nascent volcano rattled the island the government evacuated the port of La Restinga, banned aircraft from flying over the southern tip and ordered ships to avoid the area.
At one point residents could see smouldering volcanic rocks spewing from the sea.
El Hierro has some 11,000 residents and was originally formed by volcanic activity.
El Hierro Submarine Volcano Eruption
Four months after it began, the underwater volcanic eruption off El Hierro Island (Canaries) persists. This natural-color satellite image, collected on February 10, 2012, shows the site of the eruption, near the fishing village of La Restinga.
Bright aquamarine water indicates high concentrations of volcanic material. Immediately above the vent, a patch of brown water resembles a turbulent hot tub and indicates when and where the eruption is strongest. Video of the eruption shows the activity in more detail.
This image was acquired by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. The eruption is just off the southern coast of El Hierro, the youngest of the Canary Islands. El Hierro is about 460 kilometers (290 miles) west of Morocco and Western Sahara.
According to El Hierro Digital, measurements of the sea floor by the Instituto Oceanográfico Español found that the volcano’s summit is now only 120 meters (390 feet) beneath the ocean surface—10 meters (30 feet) higher than it was in mid-January. The height of the erupting cone is about 210 meters (690 feet) above the former ocean bottom, with a total volume over 145 million cubic meters (512 million cubic feet) of new material.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data. Caption by Robert Simmon. Instrument: EO-1 – ALI
More Than 720 Earthquakes Recorded On El Hierro In One Week
An unprecedented 720 earthquakes have been recorded on El Hierro, the smallest of the Canary Islands, during the past week.
The earthquake swarm has even prompted the Canary Islands Government to convene the first ever meeting of the Steering Committee and Volcanic Monitoring, reflected in the Specific Plan Protection Civil and Emergency for Volcanic Risk, given what it described “the significant increase in seismic activity”.
The National Geographic Institute (IGN) and Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands is continuing to record scores of earthquakes, measuring between 1 and 3 on the Richter Scale, each day. The majority of earthquakes are being recorded at a depth of between 5km and 15 km.
According to Actualidad Volcánica de Canarias (AVCAN), the vast majority of the tremors have Read more…
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