Best El Hierro Thread On GLP - Canary Islands - ACTIVITY HAS RETURNED - AGAIN!

At La Palma that is, sure I could smell sulfur from here?
I even got a webcam installed from where you could see the North-West. But it's totally clouded at the moment.

2013-12-27 18:01 UTC
We are collecting information at this moment.
Rockfall is being reported at the island.
What happened is a release of the accumulated energy due to the intrusion of new magma below the island.

5.3?

All my friends living here at La Palma felt it strongly at La Palma. FB is full of it now. Must have been very strong at El Hierro.

The M5.3 was a NARROW ESCAPE for the islanders as a M5.3 earthquake below the island would have been certainly damaging. We are happy that it occurred this far from the island.

2013-12-27 18:27 UTC
Via Julio del Castillo Vivero we got a picture from the rockfall (one of the people commenting on the AVCAN Facebook page)
IGN has now also calculated the epicenter of the earthquake and it looks like it was centered West of the Lighthouse area at a depth of 15 km.
[link to earthquake-report.com]

Another one. 2.7

[link to www.emsc-csem.org]

2013-12-27 18:35 UTC
The epicenter area got already many aftershocks (not all of them listed yet). Still out in the sea.
We do not see any tremor on the seismographs which means that there is normally NO eruption going on in the sea after this earthquake. [link to earthquake-report.com]

2013-12-27 18:51 UTC
Image of the shaking dust in Sabinosa posted by Maria Delcarmen Cortes Magan on the AVCAN Facebook page

[link to www.facebook.com (secure)]

The 5.1 was crazy.

Never feel one like this.

another one, around the 4 mark..

[link to earthquake-report.com]

013-12-27 23:11 UTC
A new earthquake occurred very recently in the greater El Hierro area. No IGN Magnitude data yet. We estimate it to be a M4 if the epicenter location is at about the same area than the M5.1 earthquake

seismic charts of it hitting La Palma..

[link to www.02.ign.es]

and El Hierro..

[link to www.02.ign.es]

2013-12-27 23:36 UTC
The civil defense of El Hierro has published a report to ask the population to “remain calm” … and also that they will take every measure which is necessary to protect the safety of the population. They met this evening (after the M5.1 earthquake) in Valverde.

[link to earthquake-report.com]

Looks like it was a 3.6.

[link to www.emsc-csem.org]

Yet another one. 3.3

[link to www.emsc-csem.org]

Any opinions as to the possible scenarios this time?
It is still amazing how little publicity these latest earthquakes have received in MSM, especially in Europe. They are really trying to protect the tourism sector in the Canary Islands by not allowing tourists to make informed choices about their holiday destination.

This thread is a great educator as to the events in El Hierro and the possible implications for there and also for the rest of the Canaries.

thing is, for most of us, it makes no difference where you go, where you live, etc.

when this event happens, you may as well be on top of it, cos being 2000 miles away won't do you much good either.

for example, WHEN it happens, tens of millions of people in the south of england will be in VERY big trouble, especially if it happens at night, which it has a 33% chance of doing.

even if it happens during the middle of the day, where do all those millions of people run to? with only a couple of hours warning?

add on all the people who live around the coast and lowlands of the UK, and the coasts and lowlands of the rest of Europe, and even without the impact on the USA, we're looking at a disaster of Tremors 'biblical proportions'

not good.

[link to flood.firetree.net]

This is a good site to check what a sea level rise does, not 100% same as a tsunami but a good idea how much one would cover.

only goes up to 60 metres though.

try this one..

[link to www.floodmap.net]

i actually have a PLAN for even THIS scenario..

[link to www.floodmap.net]

500 metres. any higher and I'm pretty much fucked.

Inma Guedes added that after the earthquake there has been no apparent change in the number recorded in recent days in the area of El Pinar, which the scientific committee of the Civil Protection Special Plan for Volcanic Risk (Pevolca)it's related to a magmatic intrusion process. [link to www.canarias7.es]

2013-12-28 10:26 UTC
No new data to report but we hope that we will be able to have a clear satellite picture a little later. We are curious to have a look at the ocean water of yesterday’s quakes. These were relatively shallow (there was one from 8 km (the depth of the ocean floor in this area is approx. 3 km)). We remind our readers that the coloring of the see with toxic ingredients started in 2011 before the shallow eruption earthquakes occurred. When the NASA MODIS pictures are available, we will bring them to you.

2013-12-28 08:58 UTC
No more spectacular earthquakes during the nightly hours.
The New deformation data is showing a somewhat identical picture than yesterday. Stabilizing (or slightly increasing) horizontal and vertical deformations in the El Golfo area and mid-Island stations BUT continued lifting and/or horizontal movement of the El Pinar and La Restinga GPS stations. Lets hope IGN or PEVOLCA will give their views on this in a report later today.
New today is the HI10 station (until today, HI10 was not present on the deformation maps). HI10 (El Julan area) shows the same strong increase than El Pinar and La Restinga, even more as the total lifting deformation since the beginning of this crisis is 10 cm!
What does this mean ? It means that there is still a magma source below the south-eastern part of the island, but without generating earthquakes.
Something else we suggest is that, because of the stabilized western GPS stations, IGN was right in stating that the strong earthquake from yesterday afternoon may have no direct relation with the lifting of HI08, HI09 and HI10.
Does the continued south-eastern deformation will lead to more earthquakes in that part of the island – not necessarily as even more lifting in other places did not necessarily led to earthquakes neither. One additional reason to say this is that, though the lifting was strong at El Pinar, La Restinga and El Julan, only the greater El Pinar area lived through a swarm of earthquakes.
The next hours and days will be “tension” days as everybody will be searching for more clues.
Geofon Germany has published the focal mechanism of the M5.1 earthquake and this shows a strike-slip earthquake (see image below)
[link to earthquake-report.com]

The permanent GPS network INVOLCAN instrumental in El Hierro continues to record significant deformations related to the recent period of anomalous seismic activity Meridian Island. The PINA gps station still experienced significant shifts in the vertical (elevation) and horizontal (north). REST gps station also experienced significant shifts in the vertical (elevation) and horizontally (to the southwest).

The following web link ( [link to www.involcan.org] can find the results of geodetic volcano monitoring program carried out by the Canary INVOLCAN through instrumental permanent GPS network of GPS stations ITER, Canary Islands Government and Nagoya University (Japan).

strike slip EQ animation..

[link to earthquake.usgs.gov]

can't be good.

Involcan recorded anomalous radon precursor emissions 5.1 earthquake
[link to www.diarioelhierro.com]

Tacorón (HI10) passes and 8cm vertically! [link to www.ign.es]

[link to www.02.ign.es]

seismic signal of the big quake yesterday. impressive, but do you see the thicker green line, overlying that intense black signal?

[link to oi43.tinypic.com]

perhaps the signal of a big rockfall? the noise of it.

that's a big CLUE to me. could be a vital heads up when things start getting nasty.

three showing big uplift, the rest nothing.

how much more will El Julan take before she says 'fuck it, let's go for a swim!'?

Yes, i agree, i'm very very worried...

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