As you all know by now, the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Spain's La Palma island in the Canary Islands began a series of spectacular eruptions on Sunday. Since then it has been ejecting ash and producing lava flows, which have engulfed many houses. The lava was expected to reach the sea later today, but it appears that the flow has slowed down.
There has been no reports of injuries or deaths so far. About 5,000 people had been evacuated from the area near the eruption, many before the eruptions began.
Here are some images and videos of the volcano and surrounding areas and some info about La Palma and its volcanic history.
The projected path of the lava flow -
Map of La Palma and the affected area -
This video from GeologyHub provides a good overview of the volcano on La Palma island -
Yes, many houses have been destroyed by the march of the molten lava —
The unstoppable lava flow destroys everything in its path -
Not a sight you ever want to see near your house -
Live footage —
The Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (INVOLCAN), which monitors seismological activity in the islands, had provided ample warning of the impending eruption. It detected over 22,700 earthquakes between Friday, Sept 10 and Saturday, Sept 18. The maximum magnitude observed during this period was 3.4 on the Richter scale. A 4.1 mag earthquake was detected late today.
A new fissure opened up around 9:00 p.m. local time accompanied by a relatively strong magnitude 3.8 quake.
La Palma
La Palma is one of eight volcanic islands in Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago off Africa’s western coast. At their nearest point, the islands are 100 km from Morocco.
La Palma has a population of 85,000. The local economy is primarily based on agriculture and tourism.
La Palma, like the other islands of the Canary Island archipelago, is a volcanic ocean island. It was formed three to four million years ago. Its highest mountain is the Roque de los Muchachos, at 2,423 metres altitude; the base of the island is located almost 4,000 m below sea level.
There have been eight eruptions since 1470, the last one 50 years ago in 1971. en.wikipedia.org/…
Observatories
Due to the location of the island and the height of its mountains, a number of international observatories have been built on the Roque de los Muchachos, which get a clear view of the sky from above the cloud layer. The observatories are not affected since they are on the northern higher elevation side of the island.
Here are some images of the eruption taken from these observatories —
This video is from the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory.
They have a livecam webcast on YouTube —
This photograph was taken from the observatory on the nearby island of Tenerife.
The Mega-Tsunami
You will see a lot of postings on social media about the potential for a mega-tsunami which will travel to North and South America and bring 50 m waves destroying coastal cities. It is humbug.
There was a BBC TV program in 2000, in which a couple of geologists hypothesized that a crack in the island from a previous earthquake would cause a collapse of the western half of the island. This could then potentially generate a giant wave which they termed a "mega-tsunami" around 650 m - 900 m high in the region of the islands. The wave would travel across the Atlantic and inundate much of the eastern seaboard of North America about 7 hours later with 50 metre waves.
Subsequent studies have shown that there is no such imminent danger. The analysis shown in the BBC program was faulty. The western flank is stable. Another study calculated that it would take another 10,000 years for the flanks to become sufficiently high and unstable to cause a massive collapse. A 2008 paper estimated that even in the worst case scenario, the waves hitting the mid-U.S. would be 9.6 m high.
www.volcanodiscovery.com/… points out that -
Nearly all volcanic ocean islands suffer massive collapse events from time to time, and La Palma is no exception. About 560,000 years ago, it had lost a large portion of its southwestern flank during an event referred to by geologists as the Cumbre Nueva landslide, one of the largest known of its kind. It is estimated that major landslide events at La Palma occur every 100,000 years or more, and there is no evidence that the island's edifice is gravitationally unstable at present. Globally, major island-slope failure events that can trigger catastrophic-size tsunamis probably occur only once every 10,000 years or more. During the known history of mankind, no such event is known to have been witnessed.
Volcanoes are a part of mother nature and are part of earth’s violent history. Many islands sit on top of undersea volcanic chains where tectonic plates clash. In many cases these volcanoes are still active and frequently they erupt bringing magma, lava, steam, toxic gases and ash to the surface. Similar to the volcanoes in Hawaii and Iceland, this volcano is not producing powerful explosions, but producing slow bubbling cauldrons of lava, which is oozing out from multiple fissures and flowing down into nearby populated areas.
Let’s wish the inhabitants of the island good luck and hope the volcano Gods will lose their anger and fury soon and leave the island in peace for a hundred years or more.