El Hierro Update

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El Hierro Volcano : Yellow alert – Atlantic Explorer will try to use the ROV on Tuesday

Last update: March 12, 2012 at 3:19 pm by By 


Update 12/03 – 07:28
– The Atlantic Explorer vessel of the company QSTAR SLU, hired by members of ‘Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canaria’ (ULPGC) and collaborating, the non-profit organisation, SOS Océanos is back in town. Julio received an Email from one of the people in charge that they will try to use the ROV today on Tuesday, weather permitting of course.
– 2 earthquakes so far today – M &.1 and M 1.3 both at a depth of 12 km

Update 11/03 – 23:55
– New images from Joke Volta have been loaded in our picasaweb
– A 5th earthquake with a magnitude of 0.6 occurred at 21:37

Update 11/03 – 22:58
– no more new earthquakes
– some people are looking for a new name for the new volcano. IGN scientists are talking internally about “El Volcan de La Restinga”  but a new name is certainly desirable.
– Involcan and ITER have published the new CO2 graphs who are showing a light increase to 934 ton per day.

Update 11/03 – 21:34 UTC
– Today a number of people and Joke saw a faint jacuzzi or rather degassing in the vent area. This was also confirmed by scientists.
– The degassing started already yesterday afternoon and was mentioned by some ER readers, Julio and AVCAN.
– We think it is probably too early to talk about a reactivation of the eruptive process.

Update 11/03 – 18:38 UTC
– Images Joke Volta from today showing a beautiful sunrise and a few images with a super faint jacuzzi. Click here.

Update 11/03 – 08:38 UTC
– 4 earthquakes so far since midnight. Resp. 1.8, 1.5, 0.3 and 1.7. Depths in between 8 and 12 km.

Update 10/03 – 23:10 UTC
– The Atlantic Explorer vessel is currently navigating to El Hierro for a new campaign. In the team, members from the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and SOS Océanos. Lets hope this time the conditions will be good enough for deploying the ROV.
Update 10/03 – 21:45 UTC
– The following video shows the activity at ‘El Mar de Las Calmas’ from 18:55 to 19:55 UTC  x10 normal speed, by Julio del Castillo Vivero.

– AVCAN (Actualidad Volcánica de Canarias) believe the eruption was not over and continues.
– Joke Volta has spoken with Ramón Ortiz and here we have translate his words for what he believes could be happening:

” What can be observed now we saw 2 weeks ago. I have looked at the seismic network, and there has been no variation, no anomalies. When there is an eruptive activity this is reflected in the seismic network. What could be happening is that as magma is still hot, it takes time to cool down, this material is still releasing heat and vapor, and there is still gas release. That is why there is still an exclusion zone around the volcano. Tides can affect the process that we see. As the tide changes, the pressure does too and this can alter what is happening. The effect of the tides we have observed it two weeks ago when there was a decrease in activity. The visibility of the volcano changes and this is also due to the tides.

– What we are sure of is there has been no official communication about what is happening.

for more information and updates, go to:    http://earthquake-report.com/2011/09/25/el-hierro-canary-islands-spain-volcanic-risk-alert-increased-to-yellow/