El Hierro Volcano activity report

This is the most recent El Hierro Volcano eruption report

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With the collaboration of Joke Volta, an El Hierro resident and Julio del Castillo Vivero, photographer.
Read also:  links to all 55 prior parts of this eruption report please go to the bottom of this page
Read also: The 2011 submarine volcanic eruption in El Hierro (Canary Islands), Spain
Useful links  : @VolcanoReport  -  Picasa Photo Album  El Hierro Webcam pages :  Frontera-Sabinosa
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2013-05-17 12:01 UTC
- A number of mainly very weak earthquakes the last couple of days. Compared to the period before the last crisis, the current number of earthquakes is still significant.

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2013-05-12 12:26 UTC
- A relatively long list of tremors which covers the seismic activity during 5 days. The strongest earthquake in the list is still weak if we consider the crisis from a couple of weeks ago

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2013-05-07 13:11 UTC
- Seismic events are still occurring below the island. The screenshot below is from yesterday morning showing events recorded at the El Julan seismograph. These events cannot be seen at any other seismograph and do not correspond  with earthquakes in the list below. We are unsure about the nature of them. Best guess at the moment is a more sensitive scale of this seismograph vs the other ones.

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2013-05-05 12:11 UTC
- Seismicity keeps going on below El Hierro

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2013-05-01 22:53 UTC
- A relatively busy May 1

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2013-04-30 08:18 UTC
- The list below shows 3 days of seismicity at the island, the last 2 earthquakes being the strongest ones. The M3.4 strongest one had an epicenter at approx. 15 km West of the island. IGN reports are not mentioning people who have felt it however we think that it may have been felt as a weak to very weak shaking by some people.

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2013-04-26 13:48 UTC
- Seismic activity below the island since our latest update, yesterday

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2013-04-25 10:36 UTC
- A whole bunch of new earthquakes since our latest update

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2013-04-22 17:21 UTC
- If we are waiting a couple of days to report the almost extinguished seismicity (mainly due to Chinese earthquakes), the list still looks worthwhile to follow

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2013-04-18 10:00 UTC
- Only 5 earthquakes since our latest April 15 update. This conforms that the seismic crisis has completely ended.

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2013-04-15 10:00 UTC
- More weak to very weak activity since yesterday. Various epicenters.

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2013-04-14 09:07 UTC
- First of all i want to Thank Julio del Castillo Vivero for being my backup while i was on vacation (could only follow the events now and then) . He did a great job!
- More action than the preceding days since our last update. Epicenters as single events in a wide area.

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2013-04-12 15:43 UTC
- The table below includes all the IGN listed earthquakes since the listing of 12:46 at April 10 2013
- No significant earthquakes since the strong M4.1 magnitude quake from yesterday

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2013-04-11 18:15 UTC

- A strongly felt Magnitude 4.1 earthquake at 15:26 UTC (16:26 local El Hierro time) has been felt widely by the population of El Hierro. The epicenter was 12km. away from the island with a depth of 19km.
- There has been rockfall reported in various places, even on the East side of the island, an unusual place.
- Joke Volta was at El Pinar when it struck and reports it as a strong strong shacking. IGN reports it of magnitude intensity IV.
- It may now seem that PEVOLCA’s decision to revert to green pre-alert was not the right move, but we don’t have access to full data they have to evaluate their move.
- Road closed with Yellow alert were opened today posing a significant risk of rockfall. We will see if there is a new seismic crisis on its way within in the next hours.
- Below is the map of the earthquake’s location and the the register in one of the seismographs!

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2013-04-10 14:40 UTC
- PEVOLCA has met today and decided to lower the Yellow alert to Green Alert.
- They have now opened all the roads that were closed and insist that they remain vigilant and this is a green pre-alert phase as there are still some abnormal values.
- Diffused Co2 released to the atmosphere has decreased from 1,824 tons per day to 1,475 measured yesterday.
- Full press release click here

2013-04-10 14:00 UTC
- 11 earthquakes since our last update. IGN is now listing smaller earthquakes that didn’t used to appear.
- Our updates have also decreased with the reduced seismicity levels, as soon as events unfold differently we will be updating live.
- Full list and map:

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2013-04-08 20:00 UTC
- We bring you very good news! Voters have decided that NASA’s earth 2012 image goes for El Hierro!
- After 5 rounds against 32 images the winner was announced today on their website, where the voting took place. In fact, “the matchup was not even close, as El Hierro romped with 91% of votes”!
- NASA’s note on the story ends with a funny comment “Perhaps a volcano will soon be popping some lava champagne to celebrate the win.”

2013-04-08 19:00 UTC
- The activity calmed down a lot, nearly putting an end to the seismic crisis, at least reduced the numbers of earthquakes greatly. For the past 3 days here is the list of earthquakes, with today being a bit more active, still very little compared to when there were hundreds of daily earthquakes.
- The location of earthquakes has been mostly at the West of the island with some onland and others spreading significantly far.

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2013-04-05 16:30 UTC
- Project Vulcano closes a chapter today after many days working around El Hierro doing various scientific works. The most exciting for us, will be working in less than two months, when the public will be able to monitor the live conditions just above the cone of the submarine volcano through the internet. There way of approaching the public has been truly appreciated as they have been sharing a daily record of their works with explanations most people would understand.
- Their campaign has luckily taken place during the seismic crisis, which added insight on the situation and created a map of the area around the island in high resolution. This would become very useful if there was another submarine eruption.
-Earthquake Report wants to congratulate all the members of Vulcano for being so open and friendly with everyone through the different channels (Blogs/Facebook), this is the way forward.
-They are now heading back to Tenerife, with thousands of samples to analyze in labs and this will take some time. They will be back in October this year for another campaign. This is the end of a magnificent chapter, and as they say, don’t go to far, because October is just round the corner.

2013-04-05 12:00 UTC
- Yesterday ended with only 10 earthquakes listed by IGN, and today there has only been one of M2.1 at 09:54 UTC, W El Pinar.
- Mr. Alpidio Armas has pledged for people to vote for the photograph of El Hierro submarine eruption taken from Space, as we did just a few days ago. Today last voting day, click here to vote.

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2013-04-04 15:14 UTC
- Only 9 earthquakes listed so far, a reason to write the title from “The end of the seismic crisis ?”

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2013-04-03 20:20 UTC
- 23 earthquakes listed by IGN so far today
- Another shallow earthquake occurred close to the western shore at 17:17. The Magnitude was only M2.6, but the close proximity to the seismograpgh shows a strong amplitude in the graph.
- The map below shows all the epicenters of the IGN listed earthquakes since midnight today. The 2 red bullets are the shallow quakes.

2013-04-03 12:20 UTC
- A new strong M4.2 earthquake occurred a shortwhile ago, this is the third strong earthquake today.
- Another quake, a M2.2 earthquake at a shallow 1 km was reported by IGN and has attracted our attention. The epicenter of this earthquake is also at the western tip of the island, but almost on the shore. This part of the island shows a lot of volcanism. We are of course curious for eventual new earthquakes in this area. As this part of the island was strongly deformed, the cause maybe also stress related

2013-04-03 04:14 UTC
- 2 strong (isolated) earthquakes during the early morning hours.  Both earthquakes have been felt by the people.

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2013-04-02 18:21 UTC
- A calm micro-seismic rich day at El Hierro. The graphic below shows however a thickening tremor line which is often the sign for some more action.
- Only 38 listed so far today
- Epicenters are migrating to the south but still at the same longitude (distance from the island)

2013-04-02 12:40 UTC
- Involcan is complaining on his Facebook page about the policy of IGN, NOT to share data with them. This happened also last year during another seismic episode. As a result of this, Involcan says that it is not responsible for the decisions taken by PEVOLCA (mainly on the basis of the IGN scientists). The war of seismologists
- In the meantime 27 earthquakes listed by IGN
- Less micro-seismicity during the last couple of hours

2013-04-02 10:52 UTC
- El Hierro Part 57 has been archived because this article was getting too long again (and puts a lot of stress on our servers). Link to Part 57 at the bottom of this page.

URGENT – CAST your VOTE for “EL HIERRO”

Nasa Earth Observatory Image Contest

From 32 images to 2 (Antarctica and El Hierro) : here we are at the final of Tournament Earth 2013!
What do we have here? Two #7 seeds going head-to-head for the championship? Unprecedented! Time to vote for the winner. Voting closes at 4pm ET on Friday, April 5 and then come back on Monday, April 8 to see which image emerges as the champion. Click here or on the picture to cast your vote.

2013-04-02 08:34 UTC
- The Magma feeder has taken a rest again. He must be tired of trying to break trough the rock barriers of the island, but he is still trying at a slower pace. 13 earthquakes listed by IGN so far this morning. In reality still hundreds (check the seismogram below).  Depth of the hypocenters 18 to 20 km in average. Epicenter area unchanged.

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2013-04-01 23:06 UTC
- 77 earthquakes listed by IGN so far today
- Epicenters even further away from the island than yesterday
- Depth mainly in the 17 to 20 km layer
- Periods with strong micro-seismicity are alternating with very calm periods (like the last couple of hours)

2013-04-01 14:43 UTC
- The PEVOLCA meeting has ended with a press conference where Maria José Blanco explained to the press that no new measures are decided.
She could not comment on the IEO reported anomalies but believed that the higher temperature may be explained as the influence of degassing.
Answering a question “what next” she said (of course) that nobody knows what will be coming but a summer 2011 scenario should not be excluded (the volcanic action below El Hierro started in the summer of 2011 and went on for about 3 months before a submarine eruption took place).
She also explained why the M4.9 yesterday was changed into a M4.6 and later again to a M4.9. It was just a matter of appropriate scales (we have explained this yesterday after the event took place). They changed it again to M4.9 when people started to make grim remarks about it (conspiracy to hide the truth).
People who understand Spanish can listen to the Press Conference Here

2013-04-01 14:11 UTC
- IEO, Instituto Español de Oceanografía, has published a press report a few moments ago that the mission of the Ramon Margalef  revealed some anomalies. The “vulcano” mission has nothing to do with the current seismic crisis and was planned many months ago. The mission is in part funded by the European Union.
The most important anomaly they found is a 3°C higher temperature at the new crater in the Las Calmas sea (this is the -87 meter submarine crater who erupted in 2011-2012). The temperature is also higher than during another mission which took place in last December which showed also anomalies. 40 (mostly chemical) parameters were examined during this mission. Some showed anomalies (see press report).

2013-04-01 12:09 UTC
- As many of you may have seen already, the CHIE graph has been rescaled. We expect that IGN has done this to get the complete amplitude of the strongest earthquakes visible on the graph

We are very fortunate to have readers like Andrew (Bonn, Germany), Claire (Florida, USA), Barbara (Mainz, Germany), Lars (Vendelsö, Sweden), Martina (Las Palmas, Canary Islands), Russell (Nottingham, United Kingdom), Richard (Sheffield, United Kingdom) Monika (La Restinga, El Hierro), Russell (Woburn, Massachusetts, USA), Jan (Copenhagen, Denmark), Siri (Green Valley, Arizona, USA) and Christian (Bergen, Norway) who have supported us with their  Donations

2013-04-01 09:53 UTC
- The seismic crisis is continuing with still a lot of (mostly weaker) earthquakes at a safe distance from the coast.
- We have a special interest for 3 weaker quakes who are located at 11 to 14 km depth below the old island crater area (see map). The depth 11 to 14 km is still deep.
- 34 earthquakes listed by IGN so far today (hundreds weak or micro-quakes in reality)
- 11 earthquakes M3 or more
- strongest earthquake so far today M3.8
- These data seem small at the moment compared to the previous days but are still significant. We do however NOT like to scare people at the island when there is NO reason to do this. So far there is NO reason apart from rockfall in steep cliff areas to be afraid from. Keep away from steep cliffs is our main advise. On top of this you should ALWAYS be prepared for a major earthquake by at least fixing heavy objects in the house + read also : Be Earthquake Prepared

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2013-03-31 22:45 UTC
- Project Vulcano is sharing their daily works around the island. We truly appreciate their openness with the public, and what they shared today we bring to you, translated by Julio.

They video below shows the first stage of a project that will transmit live data to the open net of the conditions just above the volcano. Data to be broadcasted will be measured from just the top of the volcano, the cone, at 89 meters, and 15 meters above it. 2 ton weights will hopefully hold the system in place. This will include measurements of  oxygen, chemistry levels with two CTD and doppler current meters. In a around 45 days, the communication system that will transmit the data to land will be installed and soon after we will be able to monitor the situation online. Very exciting!

2013-03-31 21:00 UTC
- TV crews and news services have gone today to El Hierro after the strong earthquakes to report on the crisis. Here is a good report from Antena 3 noticias, a national popular channel in Spain, which includes comments from Nemesio Pérez, expert from INVOLCAN. Video is, of course, in Spanish, but images shown have been recorded today.
- Interesting comment from divers at La Restinga: “When the 4.9 struck, we were diving and we heard it like a small roar, but there was no movement”

2013-03-31 19:10 UTC
- IGN rectifies, again, the magnitude of the 10:59 UTC earthquake which now reverts to M4.9, it’s original number. The strongest of all earthquakes in the past years. Confirmed by the ‘Dirección de Emergias Canarias’.

2013-03-31 18:20 UTC
- To our surprise, this morning first strong earthquake has been revised by IGN to M4.9 (from M4.6), thats a lot stronger than initially said BUT it must have erroneous as in the meanwhile IGN has changed it again to M4.5.
- The Typo Mag from the stronger M4.9, now revised to M4.6, has been changed from 4 to 5. this means another Magnitude scale (Mw or Moment Magnitude). The Mw scale is used for stronger earthquakes all over the world.

2013-03-31 17:41 UTC
- Pevolca, the group who is overlooking if special safety measures are needed, will meet tomorrow. They are following up all events closely.
- Continuous micro quakes the last 4 hours. Something peculiar, which we cannot explain, can be seen on the seismogram below. Micro-seismicity decreased massively at 08:00 UTC. At 09:42 the first powerful earthquake occurs. This quake was again followed by very few micro*quakes until the strong M4.6. The graphs shows from then on renewed micro-seismicity (small vertical lines). Micro-seismicity are weak earthquakes which are also volcanic earthquakes with limited energy but NOT listed on the IGN list

2013-03-31 16:50 UTC
- We bring you a map showing the elevation of the island by the magma pushing from below. The strongest elevation is shown at western side, Orchilla, the island has rised by more than 11cm.!
- Created with data from IGN graphs of deformation in a collaboration between Nahúm Méndez Chazarra and Julio del Castillo Vivero. Click image to see in High Resolution

2013-03-31 15:30 UTC
- 5 hours later IGN has revised the earthquake lowering the magnitude to 4.6.

2013-03-31 14:00 UTC
- Impressive video of rockfall just after the M4.9 struck. Although the resolution is not great, you can see how rock is falling in various places and as it comes down the steep hills. Originally uploaded to ‘ExprimeCanarias’ Facebook page and we have uploaded it to Youtube for our readers.

2013-03-31 12:00 UTC
- We are receiving more images of rockfall, this image was taken from Sabinosa looking towards the area of yellow alert and ‘arenas blancas’ road.

2013-03-31 11:18 UTC
- The situation might be changing with the strongest earthquake not of today but for the past years, a M4.9! at 10:59 with a depth of 20km and W FRONTERA, at sea.
- The epicenter is at a distance of 12.3 km. to Orchilla’s lighthouse and of 26.5 km. to where the volcano erupted in 2011 at Las Calmas Sea.
- We are receiving reports of strong shacking also at the island La Palma.
- Shacking reported by many people around the island. Even in a house their TV antenna came of (unconfirmed report).
- The biggest danger with the earthquake was rockfall and many has been report. These images just in from Guillermo from the North side of the island.

2013-03-31 11:00 UTC
– The situation remains very much the same with the exception of the strongest earthquake so far today, a M4.5 at 9:40 (UTC), 10:40 local time in El Hierro W Frontera at sea and 20km depth. It was felt around the island, but no reports yet, from other islands.

2013-03-31 08:29 UTC
- Still seismic activity, but a lot weaker than the preceding days. Many will loose interest in El Hierro now, but for us hard line followers, it is getting even more interesting as the epicenters of the remaining action are getting gradually into shallower areas again (see epicenter image below)
- The hypocenters do correspond with the various known areas of the island.
- Deformation maps from the University of Nagoya / Involcan are showing no new data (yesterday neither). The deformation data from IGN are not detailed enough to distill a clear indication. We expect however a status quo or a little deflation of the island. Unfortunately we have to reiterate that both public deformation statistics are still hard to read because of the medieval horizontal scale.

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 Links to earlier parts of this extensive El Hierro eruption report :
(28/7 – early 09)  – (25/09 – 10/10) – (11/10 – 13/10)- (14/10 – 17-10)  -  (18/10 – 21/10)  -  (22/10 – 26/10 ) – (27/10 – 31/10 ) – (01/11 – 03/11 ) - (04/11 – 06/11 ) – (07/11 – 08/11) – (09/11- 11/11)  – (12/11 – 15/11) – (16/11 – 19/11)  – (20/11 – 23/11) – (24/11 – 27/11) – (28/11 – 02/12) -(03/12 – 07/12) – (08/12 – 11/12) – (12/12 – 15/12) – (16/12 – 18/12) – (19/12 – 25/12) – (26/12 – 31/12) – (01/01 – 03/01) – (04/01 – 07/01) – (08/01 – 13/01) – (14/01 – 19/01) – (20/01 – 25/01) -  (26/01 – 30/01) – (31/01 – 04/02) – (05/02 – 10/02) – (11/02 – 16/02) – (17/02 – 23/02) – (24/02 –29/02) – (1/03 – 10/03) – (11/03 – 18/03) – (19/03 – 23/03) – (24/03 – 28/03) – (29/03 – 03/04) – (04/04 – 10/04) – (11/04 – 21/04) – (22/04 – 30/04) – (01/05 – 10/05) - Part 43 (11/05 – 31/05) – (01/06 – 14/06) – (15/06 – 24/06) – (25/06 – 26/06) – (27/06 – 28/06) – (29/06 – 01/07) – (02/07 – 06/07) – (07/07 – 31/07) – (01/08 – 31/08) – (01/09 – 11/09) – (12/09 – 30/09) - Part 54 (01/10 – 15/12) - Part 55 (16/12 – 16/03) - Part 56 (16/03 – 26/03) – Part 57 (27/03 – 30/03)

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Read also : Scientific paper reveals massive historic Tenerife volcano flank collapse
Read also: Economic impact on El Hierro and the Canary Islands if an aerial eruption would occur

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Volcano Discussion Panel : If you are a person who wants to discuss and read about all aspects of volcanoes,  this discussion panel might be a very good place to hang around. Especially if we start speculating about what to happen next.