Tirelessly updating Avalon on the El Hierro eruption.

[randles]

The material ejected by the eruption magma rises to the surface. / FRAN Pallera

The volcano again leads to another burst of steam and ash surface

AGENCY-DA | El Pinar

The submarine volcano that about a month ago erupted off the coast of south El Hierro has once again lead to this afternoon another burst of steam and ash on the surface of the water, although of lesser than that of Saturday.

The images show how, on 16.00, the constant bubbling emerging one nautical mile (1.8 kilometers) from the port of La Restinga begins to grow and becomes a great gush of steam and ash.

Without an element as a reference, it is difficult to calculate the distance from the coast what height above the surface of the sea reached the phenomenon, but seems less than what occurred at 18.00 hours on Saturday and led to the evacuation of La Restinga.

Scientists estimate that at that time the bubble of volcanic gases rose between 20 and 25 meters above the water, a measure that might make with reference to a ship's size Ramon Margalef, the IEO, which was nearby.

The director of the National Geographic Institute (IGN), Maria Jose Blanco, already said on Monday that these phenomena are due to the accumulation of gases,which may be repeated sporadically over the next few days with no risk to the population.

The evacuation of La Restinga was decided as it was thought that that heralded a new phase of bubbles, the more explosive the eruption, an appreciation of the scientific committee corrected the next day. In fact, residents of this fishing village have free access to it during the day, from sunrise to sunset.

Moreover, until 20.00 pm today, Tuesday, El Hierro has suffered fifty earthquakes, most of them with its epicenter northwest of Frontera and only two of them with magnitude greater than 3 on the Richter scale: a 3.5 to 11.55 am (local) and a 3.4 to 17.51​​, as shown by the records of the seismic stations of IGN.

[randles]

A crude image of Polly

[Hervé]

Strongest so far (3.1 at18:41):

For the day:

Frequencies spectrogram, the vertical streaks indicate “events” (tremors/EQs) whereas the horizontal ones reflect volcanic/magmatic activity:

From Wikipedia: A Harmonic tremor is a sustained release of seismic and/or infrasonic energy typically associated with the underground movement of magma and/or venting of volcanic gases from magma. Being a long-duration continuous signal from a temporally extended source, a volcanic tremor contrasts distinctly with transient sources of seismic radiation, such as tremors that are typically associated with earthquake and explosion.

How it's looking like now from Las Puntas de La Frontera:

Refresh your browser to get the latest traces

For the last 10 days, following the count of EQs as shown by the orange bars (≥ 2.0), it now shows a definite increase in seismic activity:

New cumulative graph starting October 10, 2011. The continuously changing scales keeps compressing the earlier graphs to the bottom and to the left!

Location of the EQs for the last 10 days:

Refresh your browser page to get the latest numbers and positions.

[Hervé]

Chronicle of the first recorded of Polly's burp:

See here for another sequence of the explosion(better colors but smaller): http://comunidad.laprovincia.es/gale...o/34763/1.html

[Hervé]

Customs interested in Polly's burping byproducts...

From Earthquake-report.com:

Update 08/11 – 20:55 UTC :

- the 53 people evacuated from the El Golfo / Frontera area are still not allowed to go home

- police is checking all luggage on the airport very carefully from people leaving the island. The action has been decided to avoid smuggling of volcano stones. Some islanders have started an online business in selling the magmatic stones for more than 300 € /piece !

- the touristic sector on the island is complaining that scientists and media personnel are not making up for the loss in cancelled tourist accommodations


Update 08/11 – 21:20 UTC - The La Restinga Webcam story (continued) :

Joke Volta has called this evening Mr. Atilano, the webcam owner and got a totally different story than the person who “tweeted” that the President of El Hierro prohibited the use of the webcam.
Mr. Atilano said (unfortunately too late) that the president story was total nonsense. A typical rumor which starts to live his own live and was probably a setup by political opponents of Alpidio Armas.
He said the real reason is simply TOO MUCH VISITORS. In only 1 hour the webcam had more than 350000 visitors! Mr. Atilano said that they are working on a solution. A stronger server and more traffic capacity may solve the problem tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

[Bridey]

WOW those are some impressive pics!! WOW, I've been following this thread since the beginning and I have to say that this story is becoming pretty exciting from my perspective. Although only from my perspective, I really feel for the people for La Restinga. I feel bad saying that I find this so exciting for that reason but geez, how often do we get to see something like this. I just find it so so fascinating!

I thank you both for this information!

[Hervé]

laprovincia.es »Specials

The volcano on the island of El Hierro warns with the biggest explosion in its 38 days of life

The underwater eruption of the Sea of Calm offered an even more spectacular appearance and released gases, ash and pyroclastic more than 25 meters above the ocean.

GUERRA PEDRO:
Ten past four in the evening at La Restinga. Scores of islanders accompanied journalists throughout the day, stood guard under the nose of the volcano. Suddenly, everything starts up: "Look, look, look, it will explode," says a neighbor. "Guaaaaaaauuuuuu"? The eyes are on the bubble that, throughout the day yesterday, threatened with a great show. Like a submarine emerging from the depths, a giant bubble of material involving magmatic water, ash and gases slowly begins to come to the surface. This is one more of the underwater explosions occur on Saturday in the Sea of ​​Calm, it is the largest, widest and certainly the most spectacular. The shock lasted five or six seconds and became the biggest event of the day in El Hierro, where a submarine eruption ejected magma from a fissure in the south, at La Restinga, and a battery of earthquake shook northern Frontera. That's life on a volcano.

Shortly after the explosion of 16:10 hours, a helicopter full of scientists, with the director of the National Geographic Institute (IGN) in front, Maria Jose Blanco, flying over ground zero in search of data to gain an understanding of what goes into the depths .

The bubble generated by the explosion could have been more than one hundred meters in diameter and, although no one confirmed the height of it, may have been above 25 meters. With respect to the one that occurred on the afternoon of Saturday, which rushed La Restinga to evacuate, it may be somewhat higher (IGN said Saturday it would be between 20 and 25 meters high), but mostly wider as the sample left on the bubbling sea of ​​calm through the whole day yesterday, which was growing in width as the hours passed. According to Severiano Morales, 77, fisherman and a regular of the bar The Liars in El Pinar, states "the devil has more than 25 meters," when he sees live images on television. A few minutes after the explosion, a strong smell of sulfur is captured around the village of La Restinga.

The news of the explosion of the evening ran like wildfire through the center of El Pinar. Behind it, the residents made ​​a pilgrimage to the volcano, which gave another show. Just an hour later, at 17:07, another explosion showed its face, though much smaller, possibly five to 10 meters in height. And in the morning were also produced at least two more, much lower in intensity.

If all the signs that appear on the surface confirmed the depths of the volcano, the eruptions have been growing up and trimmed their distance from the surface, leading to increasingly more visible explosions at sea level. Also as the days go by we can see how more magmatic materials are ejected , yesterday, something like the cinder basalt, a dark brown and increasingly large, and very similar to past eruptions in the Canaries. Nothing to do with the famous restingolitas from the start of the eruption, those deep black stones on the outside and whitish inside.

The only bathymetry so far has been made by the Ramon Margalef in the area of the submarine eruption and the following figures were thrown: a volcanic cone which base, about six hundred meters in diameter was located three hundred meters below the sea level. This cone had a height of one hundred meters and a mouth diameter of one hundred twenty, giving a real depth of focus emission of lava about two hundred meters. In this bathymetry, how the lava tongue fell off the edge of the crater also could be seen. But that was the scene just over two weeks ago. Now scientists believe that the volcano has been growing due to the large amount of magma that possibly has come out in recent days.

Tremor

The day dawned yesterday with the tremor signal quite reduced compared to the previous day. It actually started to fall late in the evening of Monday, according to some scientists' thesis, decreased tremor signal, which is the vibration generated by magma moving deep, is compatible with an increased of magma flow output, for any site. This means that the reduction of tremor signal could be generated by the fact that the magma came out with more speed through the eruptive mouths that can be open at the bottom of the Sea of ​​calm, the only way in which, at the moment, magma is believed to be emerging.

Life in the north, at Frontera, is another world. Yesterday, earthquakes continued despite decreased tremor signal. The largest of these took place at 22:58 pm, with an intensity of 3.7 degrees on the Richter scale. In the morning, a 3.5 was recorded at 11:07, and the afternoon at 17:51​​, another earthquake shook the islanders with a magnitude of 3.4. The three were felt by the population and occurred at sea, but near the coast.

Although the undersea volcano shows signs, from La Restinga, of something compatible with an imminent eruption at sea; emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) are lower than usual in places where subaerial eruptions occur. As confirmed by the Institute of the Canary Islands Volcano (InVolCan), the emission of sulfur in the atmosphere is "relatively lower than those normally recorded in volcanic systems in subaerial eruptive phase as a result of a neutralization reaction between acid volcanic gases and water alkaline nature of the sea, causing part of the sulfur dioxide emitted by the submarine volcano south of La Restinga to not reach the atmosphere and contributes to lowering of the sea water pH," as has been suggested.

So is El Hierro, more than ever before, yet every time the volcano warns even more strongly.

[Hervé]

Best video on that huge bubble of ejected magmatic material:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gn7fWSAZhLY

[randles]

New Video Released this morning by Cabildo El Hierro, showing the Volcano on a fly over with the Helicopter 8 November 2011

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2z8UA0Wwo8w

[randles]

The Island of El Hierro registered 10 Earthquakes in the night, none of which were felt by the Population

RTVE.ES 09.11.2011 - 10:06 h

The island of El Hierro have registered from last midnight to 8:25 am () ten earthquakes, none of them felt by the population, according to the National Geographic Institute (IGN). These earthquakes are recorded after a fresh burst of steam and ash from the volcano underwater, although more minor than that of Saturday.

All these earthquakes have been centered northwest of Frontera and its focus has been at depths ranging from 16 to 23 kilometers. The magnitude of these ten earthquakes ranging between 1.5 degrees on the Richter scale the slightest (that of the 1:26 hours) and 3.0 degrees of the fittest (the one at 4:15 pm).

On the other hand, records of seismic stations in El Hierro IGN show that the signal is still active tremor (constant characteristic vibration of the eruptions, produced by the movement of magma from the subsurface to the surface).

The charts indicate that the signal has had two particularly intense moments this morning, about 7.30 and 8.05 hours. Since this crisis began sismovolcánica, El Hierro has suffered more than 11,000 earthquakes, most of which have gone unnoticed by the population.

The most powerful of them took place last Friday off the coast of Border, north of the island, and reached a magnitude of 4.4.
The population demands the same treatment with The Prestige

Entrepreneurs, freelancers, fishermen and workers in El Hierro standstill affected by the activity of the island that caused the volcano have urged the government to enable aid and have requested to be treated as in his day was done with the victims by the "Prestige".

"The town is dying," warned the spokesperson of the Commission who constituted the Patron of fishermen from La Restinga, Fernando Gutierrez. He insisted that La Restinga, the rest of the City of El Pinar and the municipality of Frontera live an emergency situation that can not be solved with soft loans from the ICO and postponing Social Security payments to date institutions have offered.

[randles]

Ramon Margalef now at Port of Stake November 9 2011. http://pic.twitter.com/eQwVnayc

[randles]

A bubble of more than 3 meters in La Restinga
From: antena3canarias | November 9, 2011 |
The bubble is constant and has become a show that nobody wants to miss

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jKTUqYxCm-4

[randles]

Juan Fernandez (right) and his cousin Edward Machin, in the plaza of El Pinar. / DA

The Island of El Hierro is now known all around the World

VICENTE PEREZ | El Pinar

Juan Fernandez Hernandez is a retired carpenter, living in El Mocanal (Valverde), but with his whole family in La Restinga. This Tuesday he has come to El Pinar to see how things are going, and the town square, opposite the bar The Liars, a true center of life in this town in the volcanic emergency, talks to Diario de Avisios.

"My house has two floors and it trembled several times, and the earthquake of 4.4 was very strong on the walls, it had so much power that I think it had more degrees than what they saying," says the woodworker who does not hesitate to say with the pride of a father over a child: "Look, those windows of that house I made myself."

Juan, 83, shares the concern of restingueros and the volcanic phenomenon. "The island previously almost unknown in many nations, and has now gone around the world, but by strength of sacrifice and suffering for what is happening with the volcano." His experience now with the shaking of the earth has made him "understand what happens the people in those terrible earthquakes in which buildings are reduced to rubble, which fortunately does not happen here."

This craftsman of wood (trade with which, after retirement, has travelled the islands from fair to fair) is among the growing number of islanders who consider that the tunnel between Valverde and Frontera 'is in a wrong and bad location "in order to avoid landslides and earthquakes supporting a certain intensity, and for that reason it has been necessary to restrict traffic over volcanic phenomenon.

Making a memory trip, he remembers that in 1950, when he visited La Palma, "the still fuming volcano of San Juan" and that in 1971, when Teneguía erupted, he was in Laayoune, where he worked as Roofing 8 years, and could only just be seen on TV. But this time we live in the flesh.

Eduardo, a retired taxi driver: "I went to see my home and that all is well"

Beside him sits his first cousin, Eduardo Martín Hernández, a retired taxi driver, 86, who has a home in La Restinga, but not their usual residence. He does remember seeing the eruption of Teneguía from the north of El Hierro, and now it seems incredible that in the island is experiencing something similar, although so far under the sea.

Since its evacuated for the second time from La Restinga, and then allowed access during the day, there has been a time to see hjs home, "to see if there was any damage, but everything was in order." The ground floor of the house is rented by an Italian, who had to stay in Valverde after the evacuation. Eduardo worked as a taxi driver for 33 years in the capital of Tenerife, because migration to other home and abroad was the fate of thousands of islanders at a time that was not the volcano, but sociopolitical and economic factors, which impeded progressing the Island and the nation.

[randles]

!!Good News !!!

This morning Telefonica have been working hard with the Cabildo El hierro to install x 2 webcams at La Restinga..
The work is now completed, and they will be live this afternoon, I will provide the links as soon as they are published !!

[randles]

http://www.antena3.com/directo/

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ABOVE URL LINK....

Reports are coming in that a member of IGN has been 'intoxicated' with the emissions, Coves are closed at Tacorón and Puerto Naos due to toxic gases from the volcano..

Below is a video courtesy of Canarias Ahora showing the dead fish being washed up at La Restinga.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=aPBtWLD5ucc

[randles]

The authorities closed two beaches close to the toxic gas eruption

EFE | Valverde

Civil Protection Plan against Canary Volcanic Risk (Pevolca) today decided to ban access to the beaches south of the island of El Hierro near the center of the eruption, after detecting abuild up in these areas of gases which can be toxic for the population.

This action has been taken following the incident yesterday which involved a technician Nationaof thel Geographic Institute (IGN) while making measurements of carbon monoxide in the area, which was suddenly indisposed and needed medical attention, even though their teams did not show any records abnormal.

The Director General of Security and Emergency Canary Islands, Juan Manuel Santana, explained that this person is already well and early reports suggest from physicians that he may have suffered some kind of reaction by inhalation of copper sulphate from the bubbling gas and ash ejected periodicallyvolcano on the sea surface, within a mile of the coast.

Given this risk, the Pevolca has decided to ban access to the beaches near Puerto Naos Tacorón and because the morphology of these beaches makes them prone to accumulate gases released by the eruption under certain conditions of wind.

Santana has stated that this risk does not exist in La Restinga, situated in an open space where there has been no gas to accumulate potentially dangerous to the population, which will have free access to the town from 8.00 to 18.00.

As for the dead fish that keep popping up in the port of La Restinga and the coastal area close to the eruption, the analysis conducted by the Canary Islands Health Service indicate that depressurization and was the cause of death enhanced from lack of oxygen, not having ingested metals or toxic substances released into the sea by the volcano.

The scientific committee spokeswoman, Maria Jose Blanco, director of IGN in the Canaries, explained today that the bubbles of magmatic gases and materials that can be seen for days are more frequent than expected (initially thought to be sporadic episodes) and that, from Saturday, consist of a new material: ash, whose composition is being analyzed.

Blanco has insisted that these torrents are formed by gas accumulation at the site of the eruption, not because the volcano has grown closer to the surface.

According to the latest available, which made ​​the 28th ship of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) Ramón Margalef, the volcano has emitted 0.031 cubic kilometers of magma, 0.015 deposited on the volcano which has grown from the sea and other scattered 0.016 a tongue of lava.

Scientists continue to run the scenario that it will become an explosive eruption (for the reaction of the washing with water) if the volcanic cone is growing up to be at least 150 meters deep, but qualify that it is still far from happening.

"A volcano is created in 18 days with a height of 100 meters, but in order to grow and become unstable, it must broaden its base. And that requires an injection of much larger cubic meters. That is, as the building is higher, growth is slower, "said Maria Jose Blanco.

However, Ramon Margalef ship from tomorrow is going to perform a new bathymetry of the area to update the data on the depth at which is already the volcano's crater.

Close to a month after the eruption, the scientific committee spokesman explained that the phenomenon is behaving as expected, except for the fact that earthquakes are maintained in the north of the island, a circumstance that does not rule by day today the beginning of another submarine eruption in El Golfo.

This hypothesis is considered feasible, but unlikely at this time. And the same your assessment the scientific committee on the risk of further progress by the eruption of subsurface crack that has emerged and come to occur on land ..

[Hervé]

About gases from volcanic eruptions, see this USGS page:

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php

Carbon dioxide (CO2)

Volcanoes release more than 130 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. This colorless, odorless gas usually does not pose a direct hazard to life because it typically becomes diluted to low concentrations very quickly whether it is released continuously from the ground or during episodic eruptions. But in certain circumstances, CO2 may become concentrated at levels lethal to people and animals. Carbon dioxide gas is heavier than air and the gas can flow into in low-lying areas; breathing air with more than 30% CO2 can quickly induce unconsciousness and cause death. In volcanic or other areas where CO2 emissions occur, it is important to avoid small depressions and low areas that might be CO2 traps. The boundary between air and lethal gas can be extremely sharp; even a single step upslope may be adequate to escape death.

CO2 trapped in depressions can be lethal to people and animals



When a burning piece of cloth is lowered into a hole that has a high concentration of CO2, the fire goes out. Such a condition can be lethal to people and animals.
Air with 5% CO2 causes perceptible increased respiration; 6-10% results in shortness of breath, headaches, dizziness, sweating, and general restlessness; 10-15% causes impaired coordination and abrupt muscle contractions; 20-30% causes loss of consciousness and convulsions; over 30% can cause death (Hathaway et. al., 1991).

It's not that CO2 is lethal by itself but because, when accumulated in low areas, it displaces air (oxygen) upward, it creates an oxygen deficiency.

[Hervé]

Hahhh! ... "Communities"...


Rift between the groups of scientists who monitor the volcano



(Photo: Arcadio Suarez)

Rosa Rodriguez / La Restinga:

The differences between research groups from July are following the evolution of El Hierro sismovolcanic crisis and became apparent almost as soon as did the volcano in front of La Restinga.

The gap is so large that researchers from the CSIC and the IGN do not even share physical space. Now they are seen together only when the committee convenes the Pevolca scientists; Volcanological Institute of the Canaries (InVolCan) also attends, but as a guest.

While there was no volcano, the coexistence of IGN investigators, the agency responsible since 2004 for volcano monitoring, and the CSIC, which assist them, was cordial.

Then, inexperience and excessive prudence of the in-charge of IGN, Carmen Lopez and Maria Jose Blanco, and differences of opinion on the evolution of the eruption of La Restinga with Ramon Ortiz and Alicia Garcia, who lead the group of active volcanism CSIC, ended up breaking the team.

Ortiz, who once commented to "ask the volcano" about how it would evolve, decided that the eruption of La Restinga was over after the first bubbling and decided to settle in El Golfo "to study the seismic activity in the North".

Ortiz denies IGN's work in La Restinga and now points to the possibility of eruption in the north, agreeing surprisingly with Nemesio Pérez, coordinator of InVolCan, who CSIC and IGN ignored despite the importance of the data handled on diffuse gas.

Ortiz also has severed ties with Joan Martí, who heads the group of active volcanism of the CSIC and has only come to the island a few times. Marti still relates to IGN, but not with InVolCan.

As a satellite of this crisis, is Juan Carlos Carracedo, CSIC Canary volcanologist who has not been to El Hierro due to differences with his colleagues.

[Hervé]

Germain Padilla (InVolCan) riding the telescope optical remote sensor on the helicopter type miniDOAS the Civil Guard then proceed with the emission measurements of sulfur dioxide (SO2) air mobile position.

INSTITUTO VOLCANOLÓGICO DE CANARIAS

The InVolCan detects emissions of 109 tons per day
sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere by the volcano of El Hierro

Measurements were made using optical remote sensing in mobile air position with the cooperation of the Helicopter Service of the Guardia Civil in the Canaries

Scientists at the Institute of Technology and Renewable Energies (ITER), an agency of the Cabildo Insular de Tenerife and which now form part of volcanological Institute of the Canaries (InVolCan) have detected emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the atmosphere reached 109 ± 19 tons a day on Sunday [Day 6], while measurements made on Monday November 7 yielded an emission rate of 36 ± 9 tons per day of sulfur dioxide (SO2).

InVolCan scientists have reported these results to the direction of Civil Protection Special Plan for Volcanic Risk in the Canary Islands (PEVOLCA). These results reflect an emission rate of sulfur dioxide (SO2) relatively lower than those normally recorded in volcanic systems subaerial eruptive phase as a result of a neutralization reaction between acid volcanic gases and seawater alkaline nature. This causes some of the sulfur dioxide (SO2) emitted by the submarine volcano south of the Restinga to not reach the atmosphere and contributes to lowering the pH of seawater as this has been reflected through the measurements taken by research vessels "Professor Ignacio Lozano" and "Ramon Margalef" of the Canary Institute of Marine Sciences (ICCM) and the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO), respectively.

Measurements of sulfur dioxide emissions (SO2) have been performed using optical remote sensing and COSPEC miniDOAS type air mobile position with the support and collaboration of the Helicopter Service of the Guardia Civil in the Canary Islands in order to strengthen the geochemical program that provides InVolCan for volcano monitoring in the Canaries. The InVolCan staff has extensive experience in the use and application of optical remote sensing and COSPEC miniDOAS type to evaluate the emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) from active volcanic systems, the proof is in the published studies on the InVolCan of the emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the atmosphere by volcanoes of Santa Ana (El Salvador), San Cristóbal and Masaya (Nicaragua), Arenal and Poas (Costa Rica), Tungurahua (Ecuador), Mayon (Philippines), Sierra Negra (Galapagos) and Etna (Italy).

InVolCan is an institution requested unanimously by the Senate (2005), Parliament of the Canary Islands (2006) and House of Representatives (2009) with the aim of contributing to improving and optimizing the management of volcanic risk in Spain.

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Shoe-string budget... tell me that's not duct-tape... is it?

[randles]

Posted by Amzer Zo (here)

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Shoe-string budget... tell me that's not duct-tape... is it?

On this Island we also have duct tape..
On this Island we say..... What did you expect ? This is Tenerife Works every time