Translated.
The La Palma volcano is "very dynamic and energetic" and an eruption is "unpredictable"
The director of the National Geographic Institute in the Canary Islands (IGN), María José Blanco, explains to ABC that volcanoes are the most complex natural phenomena in their forecast
La Palma has a " very dynamic and energetic system " so it requires constant analysis "
The director of the National Geographic Institute in the Canary Islands (IGN), María José Blanco, assures that it is impossible to know the probability that La Palma will suffer the eruption of a volcano because it is an " unpredictable" phenomenon . As he has assured ABC, La Palma is in a process that is " very dynamic and energetic" so it requires constant analysis.
A short-term prognosis cannot be established, he points out, because "its evolution cannot be predicted" and it could be a matter of hours, days, months or even that it does not occur, but monitoring must be constant because "it is very fast."
As the system gains energy, the possibility is greater but at this time not the alert has been raised. He has not passed the traffic light from yellow to orange because the signs do not warn of an imminent eruption.
Volcanoes " are the most complex natural phenomena in their forecast" and they need information from all the areas involved to know the detail.
A matter of hours
The indicators change in a matter of hours and a change may occur that heralds an imminent eruption. Right now there is "no certainty" that it will happen. In the Canary Islands "there are no recent eruptions" that can serve as a reference to make a forecast, remember.
The most recent was exactly 50 years ago, on
October 26, 1971 and although the underwater eruption of the Tagoro volcano, in El Hierro, is more recent (2011), «La Palma is not El Hierro and it doesn't have to happen same".
In the reactivations after the El Hierro eruption, very energetic and of high seismicity with important deformations, no surface eruptions were produced. "Most magmatic intrusions do not end on the surface, there are more that stay under the crust than come to the surface."
More intense earthquakes
In the last eruption on La Palma, that of the Teneguía volcano in 1971 " there were very strong earthquakes felt by the population before the eruption began" and this has not yet happened, he recalls.
The same happened in El Hierro, where the population "felt the earthquakes in the fortnight before the eruption", although it also warns that La Palma is a very fractured island that may not require as much intensity of seismicity for the magma to reach the surface.
"It is a very complex phenomenon where no forecasts can be made , " he assures, this generates alarm in the population, which is something that is not appropriate. There are "many eyes" on Cumbre Vieja where monitoring and follow-up is carried out by experts from different entities and scientific fields, in addition to Emergencies through Civil Protection.
Blanco assures that "Civil Protection has planned an evacuation if necessary and residents will be given as much time as possible to get away from the area if the volcano erupts" to safeguard people and property.
What has happened these days on La Palma?
On
September 11, a seismic intensity was detected with a very high number of earthquakes, at an intermediate depth of around 12 kilometers. Since 2017, there have been a dozen seismic swarms in the area, but " never of that intensity, nor that frequency and that depth ."
They were accompanied by a small deformation on the surface of the island, but it has been rising from 1.5 centimeters to 10 today .
As the days go by, earthquakes of very small magnitudes are recorded but at two levels, deeper and closer to the surface. This turns on all the alerts, the expert said, because a high Helium 3 signal was also detected, the highest in 30 years.
This assumes that there is a "magmatic injection under the crust" that when the parameters of seismicity, gases or magma are given, warn of a pre-eruptive phase. Helium 3 is not dangerous but its volume can be as is the case of the CO2 level if it exceeds certain parameters , he warned.
Pay attention to official channels
The expert has pointed out that although social networks are good information channels for certain matters, in this case " hoaxes run" , which is why she has recommended to the residents of La Palma "avoid the alarm" and " resort only to the media and official information channels » .
https://www.abc.es/espana/canarias/abci-...7ZFHdFsmvg
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