The hierro volcano eruption

El Hierro volcano has started an eruption last July. Between the 30th August and 3rd September seismic events has passed as a normal steps in a volcanic eruptions.

Most of these events have been at magnitudes of around 2 (+/-0.5) in the Richter scale and the earthquakes have been between 9 and 10 Km (the deeper quake) of depth. The shallowest has been around 4 Km as 1 Km. There is an oval area (that is shown in the image of the report) of 10 Km depth full of earthquakes undersea near the town of La Restinga (shown in the background of the image).

El Hierro is a basaltic volcano which has been active in 1973. It’s possible than the magma is coming up from a magma chamber above the sea. The majority of magma intrusions don’t reach the surface.

For now it’s too early to tell or explain what will happen, so we have to keep watching every day the news. The latest news speaks about lava tubes. When the flow of lava suddenly stops (like it has happened twice at El Hierro) a tube is formed. Some tubes are very long. The longest lava tube is the Don Gusto tube that measures an incredible 6.315 Km. The Don Gusto has been closed because of the fear of getting people lost!

The most probable scenario is that La Restinga vent will open again when the magma pressure builds. The last week there were found pumice (pyroclastics) and an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The emission of CO2 is one of the parameters of volcanic eruption precursors but has to be joined with others indicators such as deformation and seismicity depth.