All eyes focused on him. Teide, where minor earthquakes have occurred since Thursday this continued on the same Saturday morning. Scientists and officials are alert to the evolution of this “earthquake swarm” in case it is the start of a volcanic event. Right now, messages are pretty reassuring because it’s a relatively common thing.
The National Geographic Institute (IGN) detected 25 earthquakes early this Saturday in Tenerife owned by someone size 2 and its epicenter was located at Guía de Isora at a depth of 23 kilometers.
All but one of these seismic movements had a magnitude greater than 1 and intensified over four hours between 1:00 and 5:00 Canarian time. Their depths ranged from 9 to 26 kilometers.
IGN had recorded 458 earthquakes at dawn on Friday, barely detecting 13 of them due to their size, and five more by Thursday morning.
The tremors don’t really matter now, scientists insist. In fact, the energy released by the sum of the 458 seismic movements detected in Cañadas del Teide on Friday would “reach an earthquake of 2 or slightly larger,” according to Itahiza Domínguez, seismologist at IGN.
within normal
However, it is not a move that can predict an impending eruption on the island, because falls into normal seismic movements from Tenerife.
While this activity is not the most common on the island, it is not uncommon either. “We have records of similar movements in 2016 and 2019”highlights In both cases, Itahiza Domínguez points out that the location, number and magnitude of earthquakes are very similar to what happened in the last few hours.
“Very small earthquakes detected thanks to these. The Tenerife network is very fragile,” he insists.
The researcher emphasizes that the movements occurred at a depth of about 13 kilometers in the Las Cañadas region southeast of Pico Viejo, with a maximum magnitude of 1.6, but “most did not reach 0.3”.
without throwing anything away
Why Teide occasionally suffers from these ‘diseases’ is still under investigation, though researchers think it may be related to the natural movements of the magmatic chamber, but In the long term, they do not exclude that there may be activity that precedes an eruption. “This may have to do with the activity of the underlying gases,” says Domínguez, who insists that Tenerife’s volcanic system is much more complex than that of the other islands.
Tenerife, in fact, always has a background activity. Between 500 and 800 earthquakes per year. “Other volcanically active islands such as El Hierro and La Palma in normal years hardly reach 20 earthquakes per year,” says the researcher. Also, as a comparison, the researcher reminds that the earthquakes detected on these two islands before the submarine and terrestrial eruptions were 30,000 in El Hierro and 50,000 in La Palma.
There was no deformation after this movement. The herd stopped at five in the morningafter three hours of continuous activity and it has not been reactivated.
“It gives us confidence because, in addition, it hasn’t gone further in other cases,” the IGN seismologist insists. But do not forget that it is necessary to maintain vigilance of the phenomenon.
Website for tracking earthquakes in Tenerife: https://www.ign.es/web/resources/volcanologia/tproximos/canarias.html
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Environment department contact address:crisclimatica@prensaiberica.es
Source: Informacion
