Thursday, September 29, 2011

Hierro Volcano, Canary Islands - John Seach

Earthquakes continue at Hierro volcano in the Canary Islands. Since July 2011 over 8000 small earthquakes have been recorded at the volcano. Yesterday an earthquake of magnitude 3.5 occurred. Deformation has increased significantly at the volcano in the past week. On 23rd September 2011 the alert level was raised to YELLOW. Some residents have been evacuated from near the volcano. Earthquakes are occurring in the northwest of the island at the location of a landslide that created a 100 metre high tsunami about 50,000 years ago. A major debris avalanche occurred on the northern flank of Hierro Island, dated about 13,000 years ago. It had a width of 15 km and a scarp height of 1000 m. The landslide deposited 150-180 cubic km of debris on the seafloor down to a depth of 3000 m.
More on Hierro volcano...