Three months later, everything indicates that the eruption on the island of La Palma ended
There is no longer a single observable sign of the eruption that began 88 days in Cabeza de Vaca, in Cumbre Vieja.
Photo: JORGE GUERRERO / AFP / Getty Images
The Aridane Valley , in the Spanish island of La Palma , dawned on Wednesday without a single observable sign of the eruption that started 88 days ago in Cabeza de Vaca, in Cumbre Vieja, points out the volcanologist Rubén López, one of the members of the National Geographic Institute who follows the emergency on the island.
In parallel, the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcán) has just announced that the emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2), another sign of eruptive activity, has plummeted to less than five tons per day, an “extremely low” amount, when for weeks it has been above several thousand tons per day, at high or very high levels. high.
“Good morning from a deeply calm Aridane Valley, without no observable eruptive: no lavas, no pyroclasts, no and notable earthquakes , which is excellent news ”, López wrote on his Twitter account at 6: 46 hours (GMT time).
Good morning from a deeply calm Aridane Valley, without any eruptive observable: no lavas, no pyroclasts, no notable earthquakes, which is excellent news. pic.twitter.com/LqAhcpJuSt
— 🏳️🌈Rubén López 🇪🇸 (@rubenlodi) December 15, 2021
tremor, characteristic of the vibration produced by magma in the subsoil when moving towards the surface, stopped on the 21: 00 Monday hours. And after 24 hours, she was still missing, confirmed Involcán and the IGN .
It is not the first time it has stopped in all this time, but until the date all its parentheses had been of few hours , followed by strombolian reactivations (explosive) and of important lava output. Never to date the tremor had stood still a full day or more , as it happens now.
During this morning, the seismic networks have registered twelve earthquakes on La Palma, all of them with lower magnitudes to 3 , adds the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME).
Long and intense activity
In the first hours of the Monday, before the tremor stopped, the volcano emitted enormous amounts of sulfur dioxide , under conditions
That day, for the first time in this emergency , the 33, 00 0 neighbors from all the Aridane valley had to remain confined for almost five hours in their homes and the schoolchildren, who were already in class when the alarm went off, in their educational centers.
The confinement order was lifted as the air quality improved, but a new pulse of explosive activity was then appreciated in the volcano for just over an hour, with ash ejection and the fall of lava bombs, according to the Plan’s spokespersons. Canary Islands Volcanic Risk Protection Special (Pevolca). At 21: 00 hours on Monday, everything stopped.
The National Security Directorate collects in its daily summary of the emergency on La Palma that the eruptive activity has decreased ” until it practically disappears , which may be an indication of exhaustion of the eruptive process “, in the opinion of the scientific committee.
Prudence
However, the spokespersons of the Pevolca director and scientific committees have insisted on ask for caution before assuming that the volcano has stopped or started to stop, because the indicators must be consolidated in order to rule out a
In addition, v several times have warned that the tremor can disappear and the emission of lava and follow the degassing process of the volcano. This happened, in fact, in the previous eruption recorded in the Canary Islands, the submarine one on the island of El Hierro (2011 – 2011).
This is how the DSN states in its report: “ A new upturn in activity and the issuance of washes and vigilance is maintained on the presence of toxic gases in the exclusion zones. ”
So far, the lava emitted by this volcano has covered 1, 195 hectares of land, with washings that have reached a maximum width of 3, 350 meters, and more than 7, 00 0 people are still evacuated from their homes.
The lava deltas formed on the coast maintain an extension of 46, 02 hectares. Regarding air quality, the DSN specifies that “good or reasonably good levels continue in all seasons”, although it also warns that the expected dispersion of the volcanic plume for this Wednesday towards the east-southeast and the wind regime ” they constitute an unfavorable scenario for aeronautical operations ”.
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