This is Part 53 of the 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 : (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) – (11/05 – 31/05) – (01/06 – 14/06) – (15/06 – 24/06) – (25/06 – 26/06) – Part 47 (27/06 – 28/06) – Part 48 (29/06 – 01/07) – Part 49 (02/07 – 06/07) – Part 50 (07/07 – 31/07) – Part 51 (01/08 – 31/08) – Part 52 (01/09 – 11/09) - Part 53 (12/09 – 30/09) -
Useful links : @VolcanoReport – El Hierro Picasa Photo Album
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2012-09-30 18:34 UTC
- We thank ER reader Marina (Oregon, USA) for her kind donation.
- The strong amplitude visual at the CHIE seismogram today comes from a massive deep earthquake below Colombia. The earthquake wave traveled 11 minutes to reach El Hierro. We do however not expect serious damage from this earthquake as the hypocenter was reported at a depth of 162 m. Click here for our in-depth reporting
2012-09-30 13:03 UTC
- 2 earthquakes have been added by IGN
- GPS deformations :
* No ultra-rapid data yesterday and today at La Restinga (REST), but the Rapid data (better quality) show a very strong increase of 3 cm yesterday (against the ceiling of the graph!)
* same story at El Pinar (PINA) although the lifting was "only" 2 cm
* same story at Frontera (FRON) with a vertical lifting of about 1 cm.
We expect todays Rapid data later today (comes several hours after the Ultra Rapid data (black crosses))
2012-09-30 05:32 UTC
- Just 1 earthquake reported this morning. A M1.4 at a depth of 10 km here
2012-09-29 21:24 UTC
- Almost no seismicity today. Only at 15:34 we noticed a M1.5 quake at 14 km depth
2012-09-29 08:54 UTC
- One more earthquake yesterday at 22:34, a Magnitude 1.9 at 11 km depth - sw of Frontera (total of 8 for yesterday)
- Only 1 today, M1.7 at 21 km
- we continue to list the earthquakes as long as there are several quakes a day, as they are the main clue of a new upcoming crises
- NO new GPS data this morning
2012-09-28 22:11 UTC
- 2 more earthquakes which bring the total to 7 so far today
2012-09-28 16:06 UTC
- 2 more earthquakes at El Hierro during the morning. A M2.2 at 21 km SW of Frontera and a M1.6 at 11 km West of Frontera.
2012-09-28 12:35 UTC
Re-introducing : automatic refresh
After having worked with the "live blogging", we searched for something who does not eat the memory of your computer and refreshes the article from time to time. We can now set the page refreshing frequency . We have now set it to 900 seconds (15 minutes), fair enough for the present activity. The refreshing frequency will be lowered when activity is increasing again.
Our advise : keep this page open in a tab and this page will even refresh in a background tab. This way you will always read the most frequent updates.
Important message - no more auto-updating for a while
Due some error in the plugin (software add-on in the site) the PC resources used for this page went to 100% in some cases (thank you David for reporting this). This happened only now and then, but as long as the software has not been adapted, we will not use the code anymore. We will look for a solution which can do the same but runs smoothly.
2012-09-28 09:38 UTC
- We appreciate the donation of ER readers Iris (Canada) and Elly (Netherlands and Multiple donor) made earlier today
- Only 5 earthquakes yesterday, one of the weakest days since a couple of weeks
- 3 mixed earthquakes so far today
* a M1.7 at a depth of 27 km here
* a M1.1 at a depth of 10 km here
* a M1.1 at a depth of 9 km here
- GPS deformations (vertical) :
Restinga (strong deflation of 2 cm)
Pinar : more than 2 cm deflation + a strong horizontal movement of 7 mm to the east and more than 1 cm north
Frontera : no new data this morning
2012-09-27 18:58 UTC
- We appreciate the donation of ER reader Toine (The Netherlands)
- Only one earthquake listed after the 4 from this morning. A M1.6 at a depth of 16 km.
- Some nice video footage from Marum crater at Ambrym volcano island, Vanuatu here
2012-09-27 08:38 UTC
- earthquakes so far today (see below)
- as you can see on the Avcan epicenter map below (last 10 earthquakes), seismicity is all over the island at this moment.
- GPS Deformations :
* a further increase of the lifting at Restinga (2 cm on 2 days)
* almost 3 cm lifting of the Pinar GPS station (yesterday nearly 2 cm and today another cm)
* at Frontera GPS station we notice a deflation of approx. 1 cm (probably because the epicenter are no longer only concentrated in the El Golfo Bay)
*All 3 mentioned stations have almost no horizontal movement since many days.
- we are grateful to ER reader Mereseini (Fiji) for her donation
- more earthquakes this afternoon and evening, most of them shallow
2012-09-26 08:09 UTC
- We thank ER readers Paul (MN, USA) and Barbara (Germany – multiple donor) for their kind donation
- September 25 (yesterday) ended with 11 volcanic earthquakes. The last 2 earthquakes where listed at a depth of respectively 10 km (M1.0) and 11 km (M1.3)
- just like yesterday, 8 earthquakes so far today. A mixed picture as both the shallow part as the deeper part are being hit.
- All todays Magnitudes are rather weak with a max. of M1.2
- GPS Vertical Deformations – Restinga (up a few mm) – Pinar (up almost 2 cm)
2012-09-25 17:34 UTC
We appreciate the donation of ER reader Martti and Brett (again) earlier today
- 1 more earthquake during the morning hours, a M1.7 SW of Frontera at a depth of 24 km.
2012-09-25 07:39 UTC
- 3 more earthquakes yesterday evening
- 8 volcanic earthquakes so far today, mixed layers and locations (shallow El Golfo and deeper in other parts of the island)
- GPS deformations : a few mm vertical deflation at La Restinga, 1.5 cm deflation at El Pinar, but at the same time a horizontal move to the east of a few mm. Frontera shows a vertical deflation of approx. 1 cm and a movement to the North-East of a few mm.
2012-09-24 20:05 UTC
People are getting more nervous by the day.
Joke was getting the news that eruptive activity was noticed in the Las Calmas sea AND in the El Golfo bay area. After inspecting what happened, both reports were proofed to be false.
In the case of the Las Calmas sea, a ground sea generated some foaming water. The location is known by islanders and is called “El Bajon”.
In the case of the El Golfo Bay, joke told us that some illegal drainage of wastewater (swimming pool in Las Puntas) had the same result.
Those following the earthquake depths and harmonic tremor graphs, like Joke and a few other people, do not believe these messages instantly and go on checking them. In today’s case they were clearly hoaxes.
2012-09-24 18:19 UTC
- 4 more earthquakes during the day. Mixed depths
- The day ended yesterday with 11 earthquakes, the last one a M1.1 at a depth of 10 km West of Frontera
- Only 2 earthquakes so far today. A M1.5 at a depth of 9 km in the El Golfo area and a M1.5 at a depth of 21 km below the central part of the island.
- On the vertical GPS deformation part, we have noticed a strong 2 cm deflation at REST (La Restinga), a stabilization at PINA (El Pinar) and a lifting of 1 cm at the GPS FRON (Frontera) station
- 6 more earthquakes during the day, mostly in the shallower El Golfo area
- 4 volcanic earthquakes since midnight, all of them below the center of the island in the deeper layers
- the strength of the center island quakes is generally stronger than the El Golfo quakes, this because the main source of magma is located in this area (last swarm in this area generated quakes until M3.2)
- GPS Deformations : PINA and REST have taken a day off today. FRON decided to continue working and showed a deflation of 6 mm and a movement of a few mm to the south.
2012-09-22 20:52 UTC
- 3 more earthquakes this afternoon
- we have the impression that the magma in the El Golfo area has found some cracks to infiltrate in the 7 to 8 km depth layers. Last week, only sporadic earthquakes were noticed at less than 10 km.
2012-09-22 17:10 UTC
+ 2 more earthquakes, the first being a M1.6 and the second a M1.0 both at a depth of 21 km
- 3 new earthquakes in mixed depth layers as you can see below.
- the last 10 epicenters are showing a mixed picture
- we do see again some earthquakes in the southern part of the island and in the Las Calmas sea. These earthquakes are situated in the 18 to 22 km depth zone
- for those people only following this site recently : last years eruption (colouring of the water, poisonous magma, floating lava, etc (see our first 30 parts below) was approx.. at the southernmost epicenter on the map below
- A big word of “Thank You” to Julie and Gary for their kind donation earlier today, we really appreciate it
Image courtesy Avcan
A word from Joke Volta, yes still living on the island and worried even more than before :
Hello everybody…this must be the longest volcano reporting of the world…
For instance last week, activity was coming up, and reaching levels of about 200 quakes a day (198 te be exact)
A very short period, and a lot of quakes, if you compare it to what happened in June this year.
I was really worried, but the situation is still the same, go on with watching because yesterday’s swarm in the Golfo-bay-area was shallow again (other active spot). Let’s not forget the deformation, must be hugh forces, to lift up the island this way…
So…we go on reporting, wishing you all a nice weekend.
Be patient … geological procedures can be last a long time …
Joke Volta
GPS Deformations (vertical) : Restinga station lifted 0.5 cm and Pinar a few mm, Frontera on the other hand deflated approx. 1 cm.
- September 21 ended with 25 earthquakes. A M1.1 at a depth of 23 km and a M1.5 at a depth of 8 km.
- 3 earthquakes so far today
2012-09-21 18:41 UTC
- 924 tourists have spend at least 1 night in one of the El Hierro hotels, which is however 537 tourists less than last year
- the hotels occupancy was reported at 33.57% . Last year occupancy rate was 66.48%
- the number of days a tourist did spend during their stay in a hotel on the island was 3.26 . Last year it was slightly more with 3.66 days
These are really bad numbers for the economic situation on the island who depends a lot from the tourist business
- The Spanish government has published a law that commercial fishing boats prohibits of fishing at less than 0.5 nautical miles from the coast. This for at least 6 months. Small boats are allowed a catch of max. 2 km per day. The catch of a lot of fish species has also been restricted. The measures have been taken by the government after being advised by scientists. The scientific community hopes this way that a lot of species will get the time to recover from the volcanic poisoning crisis.
2012-09-21 18:06 UTC
- 2 more earthquakes but other than this morning again in the deeper layers !
Here we go again
- 14 more earthquakes since our latest update and to our surprise a lot of single digit depths.
- One of these quakes was at a depth of 3 km but this quake may have been generated by deformation stress as no other quakes were triggered in the same layer.
- A lot of these quakes were weak volcanic earthquakes
- These new events will hardly have been felt by local people because of the combination Magnitude / depth, but must be certainly worrisome for those living in the El Golfo area.
- We truly hope that the analysis Involcan reported to have stopped have been picked up by IGN as people in the area should be informed in-depth of what is happening. In a normal volcanic environment, the potential eruption area is very well known, but in El Hierro’s case, only the follow up of seismicity, deformation and sampling will lead to the prediction of an eruption spot.
- We are sure that the IGN volcanologists are following up the events continuously as the past events (swarms from June and last week) have proofed that events can start in a couple of hours and reach high numbers of quakes in less than 24 hours.
- The Avcan epicenter maps below are showing a high concentration of epicenters near the beach in the Sabinosa sector. We know that IGN has a lot of equipment installed in this sector
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 Detail of the map at left |
Image courtesy Avcan – latest epicenters
- Yesterday was still good for 19 earthquakes, thats 4 more than our latest update yesterday. Depths were 17, 10, 21 and 10 km. All of the quakes had weak Magnitudes.
- During the latest swarm, IGN only listed earthquakes M1.5 or higher. Now that events are calming down, they have returned to a full report including the weak ones.
- 7 earthquakes listed so far today. Seismicity is back in the El Golfo area. The source for these (magmatic) earthquakes must be a fissure feeder in the crust getting resistance at a 9 to 11 km depth. The crack is currently not big enough to create more pressure as most of the earthquakes remain limited in strength.
- GPS Deformations (Dr. Sagiya) :
Restinga : After a strong vertical decrease in the Ultra Rapid data yesterday, the Rapid data (improved data) made the decrease even bigger (1.5 cm to 2 cm). Today, we are up again with a few mm in the Ultra Rapid data (Rapid data are provided many hours later). No horizontal change. We do not detect any direct relation with seismicity as the Las Calmas area had no serious seismicity during the last 24 hours.
Pinar : Deflation of approx. 1 cm. Probable reason : the central island activity started to subside yesterday and has almost completely disappeared today.
Frontera : After a strong verticcal decrease yesterday (2 cm), Frontera station was 1 cm uplifted today. This is evident, as seismicity has returned in the El Golfo area (9 to 11 km depth).
Current deformations are bad news for the people living in the El Golfo area as the process still continues below their area. There is however no direct danger as this pattern is known from the pre-swarm weeks.
Fluctuations of 1 cm up and down are fairly normal during the preceding months. In other words hard to tell whether changes are just normal fluctuations or deformations based on the current seismicity patterns.
- 5 more earthquakes during the afternoon and in the evening. The earthquakes are however relatively weak and all the new ones are at 20+ km depth.
- Pevolca maintains the “Green Pre-Alert” status
- Joke has told us that the Spanish government does not want to finance the additional Involcan operations anymore. For this reason Involcan cannot continue some samplings at El Hierro and refuses to send additional scientists to the island.
The main reason for this attitude is that the Spanish government is continuously searching for spending cuts in order to comply with EU rules. Spain has a serious banking crisis generated by a real estate bubble, similar to the one who triggered the crisis in the USA (and later in the entire world) in 2008.
- 3 more earthquakes, nothing else to mention at the moment as we have only once a day GPS deformation data.
2012-09-20 12:21 UTC
- 3 earthquakes have been added after our last update. All these earthquakes were at the 20 km or more layer.
- as the remaining earthquakes are mostly located in the central part of the island, it explains why Pinar GPS station was stabilized today versus a vertically decreasing deformation at Frontera and Restinga
- 4 earthquakes so far today – 3 at +20 km, 1 at 10 km
- Deformations : In the vertical component, Frontera and Restinga are showing a very strong (2 cm) deflation. Pinar is almost stabilized. This makes a totally different picture than yesterday. It confirms that the swarm is over again but the total uplifting of the island can still be called extraordinary.
2012-09-19 22:44 UTC
- 2 more earthquakes later tonight. Very mixed in depth, 1 at 21 km and a second at 9 km depth
- a total of 9 earthquakes today, which enables us to say that the swarm is over.
- we have again 2 seismic areas, one below the old crater and El Pinar at +20 km depth and another one near Sabinosa and the El Golfo bay at 10 km
- Apparently nothing is happening at El Hierro (at least no more earthquakes)
- seismicity is back to pre-swarm values
- 23 earthquakes in total yesterday, the last one being a M1.7 at 14 km
- 7 earthquakes so far this morning, 2 at a depth of 10 km (El Golfo and Las Calmas), the rest at approx. 20 km deep in the old crater area and El Pinar area
- GPS deformations :
Frontera : a few mm further inflated, a couple of mm to the North-East
Pinar : stabilised in horizontal and vertical axis (normal as with the decrease in number and strength of the earthquakes, the pressure below the center of the island has strongly subsided)
Restinga : comes as a surprise – Restinga is pushed a few mm to the east and has a further strong inflation of nearly 1.5 cm Ultra Rapid preliminary results)
- Thank you Bruce (again) and Collin for your kind donations, we really appreciate it
CHIE graph of today – Image courtesy IGN
 Image courtesy Avcan |
 Inflation on GPS Restinga station – image courtesy Dr. Sagiya (Japan) |
Important update !
We want to inform our readers who are following the El Hierro story on a regular basis, that updates should appear on your page if you keep it open (even in the background). This is a trial. If not successful, we will return to the old system where you need to refresh to see the last updates. We ran some trials at our side and it worked well.
2012-09-18 21:53 UTC
- 21 earthquakes until 19:32 this evening
- after a number of shallower earthquakes during the morning hours, seismicity returned to normal deeper layers this afternoon and evening
- epicenters from the last 10 earthquakes are scattered around the central and southern areas of the island
Image courtesy Avcan – epicenters last 10 earthquakes
Update 18/09 - 11:37 UTC
Flat lines again in El Hierro - The swarm has suddenly stopped which means that we are still at 10 earthquakes since midnight
- nobody will be able to predict what will happen now. The swarm started after increasing weak seismicity in the El Golfo area . The graph still shows some micro-seismicity, but this sudden halt comes also as a surprise to us.
Update 18/09 - 08:01 UTC
- Only 10 earthquakes so far today. The swarm was very short-lived this time.
- Only the last one at 06:03 was shallower than the rest (11 km) - epicenter near Sabinosa
- Except for the 11 km earthquakes all other epicenters are located in the old crater area (like the images below)
- It is clear that there are 2 magma feeders at work , a weak one below the El Golfo - Sabinosa area and a main feeder who originates below the island and is searching for an exit. During the first eruption it succeeded in finding a system to reach the Las Calmas sea. During the second swarm, the western part of the island showed to be too strong to overcome. The current third swarm does not succeed to get to upper layers (very fortunate for the population on the island, and is subsiding already now
- Deformations
Restinga : slight uplift of approx. 0.5 cm
Pinar and Frontera : slight uplift and pressure to the North (both a couple of mm)
Deformations are confirming the earthquake trend, less inflation today than yesterday
Update 17/09 - 23:55 UTC
- The day ended at 109 earthquakes, about 2/3 of the number of yesterday
- The strength of the earthquakes decreased with less earthquakes above M2.5
- All the earthquakes of the last 8 hours of the day were deeper as 20 km
Update 17/09 - 22:09 UTC
- 105 earthquakes until 20:55 UTC
- less seismicity than the 2 prior days
- Thank you Philip for your kind donation
Update 17/09 - 20:01 UTC
- 95 earthquakes, all the recent ones at 20 km or deeper
Update 17/09 - 17:05 UTC
- 84 earthquakes until 16:11 UTC
- Another 2 shallow quakes at 10 and 11 km , both in the El Golfo, Sabinosa area. The phenomena described in the last update is being confirmed with these quakes. The Sabinosa - El Golfo area has become active again. We are however unsure whether IGN has deliberately omitted the quakes in this area when the strong swarm started. If this was not the case (what we should find very normal) then we can speak of a changing pattern. The following hours will give a better idea of the situation
Image courtesy Avcan
Update 17/09 - 15:36 UTC
- Is the crust starting to show cracks ? Why are we writing this ? If IGN data are correct, we have noticed a number of shallower earthquakes the last couple of hours. Nothing to be scared off, but this is definitely a change in patterns versus earlier today and the 2 preceding days. From 12:27 until 14:39 (less than 3 hours) we have noticed 6 under 20 km earthquakes on a total of 17.
The shallowest being a 13 km, but also a 15 km and a couple of 18 km. Is the magma the cause ? IGN would probably know it but mostly keeps his information for international science conferences a couple of months later!
The shallowest one was recorded below the Sabinosa area, the area where the other 10 km were recorded last week.
- 71 earthquakes so far
Update 17/09 - 12:45 UTC
- 52 earthquakes so far (listed by IGN until 11:06 UTC). No change in depth patterns or epicenter area. I looks more and more that the island consists of solid rock where magma has a hard time to penetrate
Update 17/09 - 08:38 UTC
- "Only" 30 earthquakes listed by IGN this morning
- Hypocenters : no change in depth (hypocenter or focal depth or depth are indicating the same = layer in the underground (crust or deeper) where the energy is generated
- Epicenters : same area than yesterday centering in the historic crater area
- GPS deformations :
Restinga : 1 cm further uplifting (Ultra Rapid) - stabilized on the longitude and latitude axis (= earlier movement to the South-East)
Pinar : 1 cm uplift - pushed 1 cm further to the North - stabilized on the longitude axis (= earlier movement to the East)
Frontera : no more uplifting, 0,5 cm to the North - no change on the longitude axis since long time
The plotters under our readers can try to trace this way the source of the magma. Click here for the source of our data (courtesy Prof. Sagiya - University of Nagoya)
- A big Thank you to ER readers Lynn and Oliver for the support they showed to this website earlier today
 Image courtesy Avcan - epicenters of the last 10 earthquakes |
 Vertical deformation at Pinar station - Image courtesy Prof. Sagiya |
Update 16/09 - 23:55 UTC
- The day ended with 197 earthquakes, a record for the present swarm. All the hypocenters were still at 20+ km.
Update 16/09 - 22:30 UTC
- 185 earthquakes until 20:49 UTC
- 1 M1.4 earthquake at 10 km, but this was the only one today at this shallow depth
- Diario El Hierro has the stunning title that IGN is analizing the earthquakes. What else could be expected from IGN ? 🙂
- Canarias7 could talk to Jose Mario Blanco (IGN). She says that she do not expect the quakes to become stronger than M3.2 at the present depth. She confirms what we wrote earlier on, that the epicenters are migrating gradually to the south.
- Thanks also to ER reader Philip for again supporting our site
Update 16/09 - 19:17 UTC
- 172 earthquake right now
- The recent M3.7 earthquake is NOT related to El Hierro
Update 16/09 - 17:03 UTC
- 151 earthquakes so far today
- Epicenter of the last 10 earthquakes same area as before (see image)
- Hypocenters are still in the same 19 to 22 km layer
- And again a word of thanks to ER reader Kirsten for supporting our site
Image courtesy Avcan
Update 16/09 - 12:00 UTC
- The activity subsided a bit, but there have been some more quakes after 08:48 where IGN has stopped listing.
Thank you Jan and Virginia for your kind donation. Jan and Virginia are also multiple donors.
Update 16/09 - 09:38 UTC
- 85 earthquakes so far (until 08:48). the last earthquake was a M3.0 at a depth of 19 km
- It looks like IGN is also listing weaker earthquakes now. A 0.9 figures in the list.
- Epicenters are moving a little south
Image courtesy AVCAN
Update 16/09 - 07:46 UTC
- Until 07:35 today, IGN has listed 73 earthquakes. Magnitudes vary from M1.4 (the weakest they are listing but there are hundreds more below this Magnitude) to M2.7. Maximum magnitude decreased a little bit from yesterday (up to M3.2).
- Focal depth remains the same (no penetration into shallower layers)
- Epicenter location is fairly stable (see image below and compare it to the last images yesterday)
- NO more (listed) earthquakes in the El Golfo bay at the 10 km depth layer.
- In line with what could be expected is that the deformations are up again.
- Frontera GPS station has moved North for about 1.5 cm and was also lifted with about 2 cm.
- El Pinar GPS station showed the same movement.
- Restinga GPS station moved a little eastward, did not move along his latitude axis and was inflated most of these 3 stations.
All these data were Ultra Rapid data coming from Prof. Sagiya, a GPS authority in Japan working at the University of Nagoya.
All the mentioned stations operate automatically, which means that nu human is needed to send the data to the computers of the University. Check PINA, FRON and REST stations here.
- Thank you Eve for your kind donation earlier today
Image courtesy University of Nagoya (Prof. Sagiya)
Update 15/09 - 23:55 UTC
- The day ended with 167 earthquakes, not a record but surely a strong sign of intense magma activity
Update 15/09 - 23:17 UTC
- 155 earthquakes. The earthquakes tend to go deeper instead of shallower, now in layers from 20 to 23 km. For 30 minutes we saw some tremor for about 30 minutes.
- and again a big "Thank You" to donateurs Steve and Janet
Update 15/09 - 16:12 UTC
- 110 earthquakes. Depth 20 to 22 km. All of the epicenters (last 10) below the historic main crater. It looks like the magma has settled below the current area (no thick lines on the CHIE graph)
Image courtesy Avcan
Update 15/09 - 13:57 UTC
- just received an Email stating that a M3.2 struck at El Hierro on 13:13. Epicenter, just north of El Pinar. This earthquakes was generated at a depth of 24 km some 2 km north of El Pinar . It was felt by the people.
- Today's total has reached 97 earthquakes
- also a generous "Thank You" to our new donateurs Mary, Colin, Jouni and Penny, all of them multiple donors (do not know if it is donors or donateurs in English 🙂 )
Image courtesy Avcan
Update 15/09 - 11:59 UTC
- 88 earthquakes listed by IGN until the time of this update, more to come
- since midnight we have counted 16 earthquakes of M2.5 or stronger
- The strongest earthquake was not a M2.8 but a M3.1, late yesterday.
- Epicenters are moving a little to the east (see and compare Avcan epicenter images of this and other updates)
- IGN has not registered any Felt earthquake so far (although this has to be taken with a grain of salt as only very few people will report this. People are getting accustomed to these more vibration like patterns, not really shakers ... so far)
- We do thank Ian, Jürgen and Harald for their kind donations earlier today.
Update 15/09 - 09:43 UTC
- 2 more earthquake (for some it must be boring but we are thrilled of being present in observing how nature is behaving at El Hierro). Hard to follow up the earthquakes as IGN is constantly inserting lines into the list on earlier hours. We will keep following the total. 71 is correct at the time of this update.
- Especially for those people with mobile or slow internet connections, we have cut part of this page and archived the cut-off piece. This is the place where you can find it : Part 52 (01/09 – 11/09) - This website has probably the longest pre-eruptive story of the internet 🙂
- Since Friday, ER has put a CDN in front of our server. CDN is a Content Delivery Network. A CDN picks up all static content of this site and saves this content on servers all around the globe. When you are reading our pages, part of the page will come from our standard server but some other parts may come from a London CDN when you live in the UK. This is not free of course, but we think that the comfort of our readers should always be a concern. Those wanting to help us with this cost, you know certainly where the Donote button can be found ;-).
This is an example graphic how a CDN works - Image courtesy renesys.com
Update 15/09 - 09:22 UTC
- 8 more listed by IGN. No change in pattern
Update 15/09 - 07:58 UTC
- This morning, while having breakfast (in Europe) my smartphone's email system did send me frequent new Canary Island notifications (my notification subscription (see below) is set to M2,5 or higher). A large number of earthquakes to start with will not come as a surprise.
- 59 earthquakes so far today (listed by IGN until 06:26). The strongest one being a M2.8. The depth is still far from being dangerous at 17 to 23 km. Some hypocenter's (or depth locations) could not be retrieved.
- The activity is now concentrated below the island and moves gradually south east towards the La Restinga peninsula. The combined pictures below are showing the last 10 epicenters at 23:10 UTC yesterday (left) versus 07:30 UTC today (images courtesy Avcan).
- The people at the El Golfo bay will be happy that most of the action has traveled away from them
- Some earthquakes are hardly felt because of the depth of the hypocenters. If the hypocenters would go up to 10 km, a 2.5 or 2.8 will surely be well felt by those living above it.
- Vertical deformations are up at Pinar and Restinga stations, but not in a way that we can talk about a big inflation.
- The CHIE graph below seems to show tremor which is not really the case as it could be understood as part of an eruption. The strong thick lines are showing in this stage magma who is finding his way through crevasses old lava tubes etc. (when you see a gradual shift of the epicenters, these thicker lines will appear). When the magma is not able to expand anymore, stronger earthquakes will show up (at least in the present activity stage). We made a screenshot of the detailed seismic signals in between 06:00 and 07:00 UTC this morning. This screenshot shows exactly what we were explaining.
- We are sure that IGN, Involcan, Iter and Pevolca (who combines all of them) are busy analyzing the information and if some threatening condition would evolve, the necessary measures would be taken immediately. At the present depths, there is no problem whatsoever except for a possible increase of the Magnitude of the earthquakes
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CHIE graph this morning - courtesy IGN, Spain
Update 14/09 - 23:59 UTC
- The day ended with 10 more earthquakes (another 10 were added in a short time). September 14 totals 71 earthquakes, not to speak about the hundreds more which were not listed but who's spikes can clearly be seen on the CHIE graph.
Update 14/09 - 23:08 UTC
- 11 more since our latest additions to the list. This brings todays total to 61. We will stop bringing all these details in screenshots and will only mentions how many and if something special is to report.
- All the listed earthquakes are just under or above M2.0. IGN seems to have stopped mentioning the very weak ones, like they did when the number of earthquakes was very low.
Image courtesy AVCAN
Update 14/09 - 21:35 UTC
- As you can see on the small AVCAN map below, the epicenters are gradually shifting to the south.
Update 14/09 - 21:24 UTC
- 50 earthquakes so far today (see the list of the latest additions)
- Those among you who have subscribed to our Email earthquake notifications for the Canary Islands and set the base level to M2.5, will certainly have received a couple of emails today. Find below the procedure for the newcomers.
- as said earlier, we have a totally different swarm at this moment than at the end of June. Although the depths are still in the 18 to 20 km range, the location of the activity is now right under the island and mostly SW of Frontera and under the old Tanganasoga crater area
- we stress however that there no reason at all for panic. We are sure that the IGN volcanologists are
- Joke just told us that CSIC volcanologists are meeting with English and Italian specialists about the El Hierro activity. This would have been a surprise for them. From the theory to the real stuff while they are in La Restinga.
El Hierro earthquake notification in your Email (updated for El Hierro, La Palma and Tenerife)
Earthquake-report.com has a very speedy earthquake notification service linked the most important agencies of the world. IGN is not in our data group but EMSC is as quick as IGN in reporting earthquakes (and apparently uses IGN data). As you probably have witnessed the last couple of days, earthquakes and especially strong earthquakes are playing an important role in eruption activity. Subscribing and unsubscribing to our service is done in seconds and if an earthquake above your set level occurs a notifications is being send the next minute.
How to subscribe : Click on this Canary Islands Volcanoes – Only earthquake page – Click on the banner above this listing
Next : fill in your email address, the choice of your frequency (immediately looks logical to us) and finally the email triggering level (3 or 3.5 for volcanic earthquakes seems logical to us).
Every email send will contain an unsubscribe link.
Important : This is an opt-in subscription list and after filling and sending the form, an email will be send to confirm your subscription. This Email often lands in the spam folder (although we are definitely NO spammers). Pick it up there and please reconfirm
Update 14/09 - 19:49 UTC
- 3 more earthquakes have just been added to the IGN list. the ones we have mentioned below are not yet listed here
Update 14/09 - 19:41 UTC
- another set of earthquakes happened at 19:34 UTC, we expect in the M2.3 range
Update 14/09 - 19:33 UTC
- HT has subsided again. We expect more earthquakes later today as we seem to have reached a new uprise in action.
- GPS data tomorrow will tell us whether this was a short-lived action or whether more is expected
- The local press (like Diario El Hierro, Canarias7) just reports increased seismicity today
- We will keep looking at it for the rest of the evening
Update 14/09 - 18:49 UTC
- Some limited harmonic tremor shows in the El Hierro graphs. The tremor might indicate that magma is on the move below the island. To the positive site, we have to stress that all the earthquakes which are listed below (and thus happened before the tremor) are in the 17 to 19 km depth range. Only one at 10 km = no immediate danger based on the listed earthquakes.
- We hope that IGN will give the people of El Hierro enough information to understand what currently is happening
Image courtesy IGN, Spain
Update 14/09 - 15:55 UTC
- As reader Pascal noticed a little earlierf, a lot of micro-quakes can be seen on the CHIE graph. They are mostly not strong enough to get enough data to be listed (or, as some people say, IGN does not want to list them to avoid frightening the people). Honestly, we do not know it.
- We guess that IGN is about 2 hours behind listing the earthquakes
- The activity can well be seen on the CHIE graph. Clean graphs the last days or weeks with only a spike now and then, but today a lot of (mostly small) vertical lines.
Image courtesy IGN
Update 14/09 - 15:15 UTC
- 5 more earthquakes which brings today's subtotal to 20!
- We have a totally new pattern right now as the stronger quakes are deeper, but instead of epicenters near the lighthouse and at the western tip of the island, all the epicenters are concentrated in the El Golfo bay (below land) or in the old crater area. This means that we have 2 layers of activity in the same area : a) the weaker shallower layer mostly in the bay and in the Sabinosa area and b) the stronger deeper layer in the same greater area but so far almost all below the island itself.
Update 14/09 - 13:00 UTC
- 13 more earthquakes in a very short time, but this time with mixed depths (some around 10 km, others 18 to 20 km)
- Some people are referring to a stronger tremor signal but we cannot confirm this. The stronger quake action can be seen at the CHIE graph
Update 14/09 - 07:55 UTC
- 2 earthquakes listed by IGN so far this morning
* At 04:48, a M1.4 earthquake occurred at a depth of 11 km West of Frontera
* At 05:36, a M1.1 earthquake occurred at a depth of 18 km West of Frontera
Update 13/09 - 19:30 UTC
- "Only" one additional earthquake since this morning. A M 1.1 at a depth of 11 km.
Update 13/09 - 08:10 UTC
- 11 earthquakes so far today
Image courtesy IGN, Spain
Update 12/09 - 22:35 UTC
- 1 more earthquake at 21:42 tonight. A M0.7 at a depth of 10 km
Update 12/09 - 17:45 UTC
- "Only" 1 more until the time of this update. A Magnitude 0,7 quake at a depth of 10 km. Every time we think that the number of earthquakes will go up, it suddenly stops again ... and this can go on for a long time.
Update 12/09 - 07:45 UTC
- 5 earthquakes have been listed by IGN so far today. One earthquake was at a depth of only 6 km, not yet at a potential eruption level, but this is already the 3th shallower earthquake in 2 days.
- Deformations are still up and down with approx. the same values. Yesterday 2 cm deflating, today 2 cm inflating as one can see at the Prof. Sagiya graph below
Vertical deformation at Frontera station - Image courtesy Prof. Sagiya, University of Nagoya, Japan
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
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.