Cumbre Vieja and the San Juan eruption of 1949

/ 18/09/2021

The volcano Cumbre Vieja in the island of La Palma has been showing signs of unrest. The question on everyone’s mind is, will there be an eruption? Maybe, or maybe not. This is always hard to know.

The Spanish National Geographic Institute reports inflation, a total of 10 cm of deformation. As such it is evident that there is magma on the move under Cumbre Vieja, it has intruded underneath the volcano.

https://www.ign.es/web/ign/portal/noticias

There have been multiple swarms of earthquakes since 2017 in Cumbre Vieja, a total of nine. Previous swarms were probably magma intrusions too, but which did not reach the surface. The recent swarm however is more shallow and more intense than its predecessors which raises the possibility that the outcome may be different.

The current swarm started on September 12. A total of 4530 earthquakes have been detected at depths of mainly around 10 km, although there are a few which have been very shallow. The swarm commenced under the summit of Cumbre Vieja, where a magma conduit probably exists which is supplying the intrusion. Earthquakes have propagated to the northwest. This probably represents the propagation of magma filled fractures, possibly sills, radially from the centre of Cumbre Vieja. However the earthquakes only show a but a blur of what is going on down there. The exact shape and pathways used by the intrusions cannot really be known with much precision. It is somewhat similar to the prelude to the eruption of El Hierro in 2011 which also seems to have commenced with a sill that later propagated a crack towards the seafloor.

Image from the NASA.

The location of the earthquakes suggest a possible eruption in the NW sector of Cumbre Vieja. However there is a factor of unpredictability. The exact path that the intrusion takes may or may not connect with the surface, such being difficult to know if there will or will not be an eruption . The precise location where the intrusion will breach the surface is also difficult to know. The fissure could open in the middle of a town, in a forest, or it could open underwater, which are wildly different situations with wildly different consequences.

We can know however the style that the next eruption of Cumbre Vieja will take, whenever and wherever it happens. To do this we must look at the past history of this volcano.

 

La Palma

La Palma is one of the Canary Islands. It was formed due to volcanic activity. The oldest rocks of the island are 3-4 million years old and belong to a submarine volcano. These submarine lavas are now found at heights of up to 1500 meters above sea level in the Barranco de las Angustias, in the old northern part of the island, which shows the enormous uplift that the island has undergone. Probably numerous sill intrusions have pushed the volcano upwards.

La Palma. From the NASA.

La Palma is shaped like an arrowhead. The northern part is formed by the old Taburiente volcano. Deep gullies dissect the ancient lava flows exposing the overlapping layers of volcanic extrusions and the frozen dykes and sills which cut through them. The volcanic edifice was destroyed by a series of giant landslides, the last of which took place around  560,000 years ago. Activity continued inside the landslide scarp until 530,000 years ago. Afterwards activity died out in the northern half of the island.

Large scarp formed due to erosion of Taburiente volcano. Some sills and dykes are visible on the left. From Wikimedia, by Zyance.

Volcanic activity in the southern half of the island has been ongoing for at least 125,000 years and has constructed another volcano known as Cumbre Vieja, or also simply as Dorsal Sur, “Southern Ridge”. It is a shaped like a ridge in a N-S direction. Despite being different edifices it seems that Cumbre Vieja is part of Taburiente’s structure. Taburiente had 5 subtle radial rifts. This is much better appreciated in submarine shield volcanoes which are often shaped like ridges or like three to six-pointed stars. Knowing well the shape of submarine volcanoes I can see that Taburiente displays the same five-pointed star structure, although being subaerial it is not so easily visible. The longest, dominant rift goes southward, known as Cumbre Nueva. It can be seen that Cumbre Vieja is the southern continuation of Cumbre Nueva.

Topography of La Palma. Note the northern volcano Taburiente which is cut by deep gullies and a central erosional crater, and the southern volcano Cumbre Vieja which is dotted by young volcanic cones. There is a bow-shaped ridge connecting both volcanoes, this is Cumbre Nueva, the ancient rift zone of Taburiente, partly destroyed by a landslide. From maps-for-free.com.

 

The main magma erupted in La Palma, as well as in the Canary Islands, is basanite, which is relatively fluid, but not as much as say Hawaii. The fluidity is comparable to the more frequently active Mount Etna in Sicily. The magma is not so fluid that all of it would flow away upon landing on the surface, but it is not so viscous that it is entirely blasted into light pumice and ash carried away by the wind. The eruption style is known as “violent strombolian” or “violent hawaiian” depending on whether it produces explosions or sustained fountains. It is the middle ground between the blazing rivers of lava and the billowing columns of ash. This style is ideal for producing pyroclastic material that rains around the fountain, rapidly constructing a mountain around the vent, known as a scoria cone. These conical mounds of ejecta are everywhere over Cumbre Vieja. Because the volcano doesn’t have any central vent that erupts repeatedly, then it makes a new fissure each time it erupts. The pyroclastic material rapidly oxidices. This gives the terrain various hues ranging from black to red, which together with the abundant canarian pine trees gives the characteristic landscape of Cumbre Vieja.

Desertic volcanic landscape near the southern point of the island. San Antonio volcano visible in the centre formed in the 1677 eruption, The brighter cone to the left of San Antonio is Teneguia, which formed in 1971. From Wikimedia by Tony Hisgett.

Other magma types present in Cumbre Vieja are the tephrite and phonolite groups which are more silicic and viscous. They are  present in trace amounts making small lava domes. A small volume of phonolite was emitted in 1585 producing tiny cryptodomes and domes, although the eruption was mainly basanitic.

Types of volcanic rocks depending on silica and alkali content. From Wikimedia by Woudloper.

Cumbre Vieja last erupted in 1971, 1949, 1712, 1677, 1646, and 1585. It is the most active volcano in the Canary Islands. Eruptions have taken place at intervals of 20-60 years. The exception being the remarkable 237 years long dormancy between 1712 and 1949. Why did this happen? It is possible that the volcano follows cycles of more frequent eruptions separated by long dormancies. Another possibility is that the enormous 6-year long eruption of nearby Lanzarote Island, occurring in 1730, induced a long dormancy in Cumbre Vieja.

It would not be unexpected that now, 50 years after the last eruption, there was a new one.

The eruption of 1949

The eruption that took place in 1949 is an interesting example of a typical Cumbre Vieja eruption.

Swarms of earthquakes had been frequent since 1936 and leading until the eruption. The morning of June 24 some fumes were noticed, and soon afterwards a towering black column of ash was rising hundreds of meters, if not more, into the sky. A new volcano had formed along the crest of Cumbre Vieja. The fissure had opened a small distance north of the highest point of the ridge. The vent is known as Duraznero.

During the following days Duraznero continued to erupt, belching out ash and rocks. Earthquakes frequently rocked the nearby communities and steaming fractures opened in the  ground around Duraznero. Magma must have been making its way into growing fractures. Over the days the erupting fissure progressively grew to a length of 500 meters and developed 5 main vents, of which Duraznero 2, at the southern end, was the most active, creating a 170 meter-wide crater. The activity was entirely explosive but of a low intensity that must have been little more than a slight annoyance to the local population. The erupted lava was tephrite. Earthquakes were more impactful, they damaged houses, cracked roads, and occasioned rockfalls. On July 6 the ash was carried downwind over the island of Tenerife where it wrapped around the summit of El Teide in a menacing black cloud.

Fissures of Duraznero. Image by KrisNM.

On July 8 a stream of lava came out from a new location known as Llano del Banco, 3 kilometres north of Duraznero, and from the other end of a system of cracks that had opened up. It did so quietly with no explosive activity whatsoever. The lava must have been degassed by Duraznero, gone into cracks, and found an outlet at a lower elevation from Llano del Banco. The lava erupted was tephrite, same as that of the earlier phase of the eruption. The initial fissure died out at about the time the new vent opened.

It is common for eruptions of Cumbre Vieja to have some vents which are dominantly explosive while others are effusive. In the eruptions of 1646, 1677 and 1712 it also happened that the vents which opened at the highest elevations had explosive activity and built large cones of scoria, while other fissures opened at lower elevations, sometimes offrift, and even at sea level, producing solely lava flows. The eruption of 1949 shows how the process works. A vent that is high up degasses the magma and then it is carried laterally through fractures towards openings downslope from which it emerges effusively.

Lava descended in fiery tongues from Llano del Banco down the flanks of the mountain. People were being evacuated as the flow headed for populated areas. It took 10 hours for the lava to reach the main road of the south of La Palma. Later that day the flow had destroyed 20 structures, including houses, cellars, and barns.

On July 10 lava cascaded over a cliff into the ocean. From this day on the entry of lava into the sea became continuous, and a lava delta was gradually constructed. Cloud of steams rising over the waters were illuminated by the convoluted streams of incandescent rock.

A new change in the eruption took place on July 12. The composition of lava erupted from Llano del Banco changed from tephrite to basanite. It became less silicic. At a similar time a new vent opened 400 meters north of the initial vent of Duraznero in the location known as Hoyo Negro. Black cauliflowers of ash pierced with flashes of lightning rose rhythmically from the Hoyo Negro vent. It erupted various magma types including basanites, tephri-phonolites and phono-tephrites. Once again the vent uprift was explosive while the vent downrift was effusive. The basanitic magmas must have released their gas into the explosions of Hoyo Negro and then come out laterally through the opening in Llano del Banco.

Hoyo Negro projected bombs to a distance of 1 kilometre from the vent snapping the trees and setting portions of the pine forest on fire. Clouds of ash frequently dusted the western part of the island. The explosions excavated a 400-meter wide crater on sloping ground. This created a spectacular 200-metre cliff against the higher side of the slope, which exposed the many layers of ejecta painted in a variety of colours.

Hoyo Negro. Image by Rafael Medina.

A raging stream of lava continued to issue from Llano del Banco and cascade towards the coast. Despite erupting continuously for 18 days the vent produced no distinguishable ejecta, and shows how the gas had been entirely removed from the melt before erupting. The ground above the fissure collapsed among loud noises, the rocks fell into the stream and were carried away, a length of 150 meters of rock above the conduit was eroded away and disappeared leaving behind a deep chasm in the forest.

On July 22 the activity of Hoyo Negro was down to a solfatara. Llano del Banco was also dying down. By July 26 the eruption had fully stopped.

Early on the morning of July 30 the eruption suddenly resumed. Duraznero and Hoyo Negro exploded simultaneously. An hour later fluid basanite lavas emerged from the location of Duraznero 1 and poured into an old crater where it formed a lava lake which then overflowed and formed a narrow stream of lava that rapidly sped down the steep slopes of Cumbre Vieja, cutting the road of Santa Cruz de la Palma, and nearly reaching the sea after 11 hours of advance, when the eruption came to a stop. This was the last episode of the 1949 eruption.

The flow of July 30, although of rapid advance, it was fed at a rate of only 10 m3/s, which is very low. It was also similar to the mean eruption rate of Llano del Banco, which was approximately 14 m3/s. The explosive activity was of little volume so it probably does not change the overall numbers too much. As such the eruption of 1949 was of very low intensity, in both its effusive and explosive counterparts. Slow eruptions are typical of the Canary Islands. Such low intensity eruptions do not pose much of a hazard to the people, in fact no one died in the 1949 eruption, despite 120 houses or so being destroyed, and people having approached the eruption in order to view it. This doesn’t mean that the hazard is inexistent.

If someone stands very close to the vents he/she could be asphyxiated by the noxious gasses or may be impacted by a lava bomb or by lightning. Rarely when lava flows reach steep slopes they collapse into blistering landslides resembling small-scale pyroclastic flows that could potentially kill someone. Conditions around volcanic eruptions can change suddenly in unpredictable ways and become hostile to humans. Safety is not guaranteed.

If Cumbre Vieja erupts in the future it will probably resemble the 1949 eruption in many ways: an earthquake prelude to the eruption that may deal damage to structures, unpredictable opening of fissures, some vents producing mainly explosive activity while others feeding mainly streams of lava that destroy human properties, and also the likely entry of lava into the sea.

Of course if the current earthquake swarm will culminate in an eruption or not cannot be known for sure. Swarms before the 1949 eruption occurred as early as 1936 and did not culminate in eruption until 13 years later.

 

San Martin volcano, formed in a 1646 eruption. Image by Rafael Medina.

 

Interesting links

Eruption of 1949 (in spanish).

IGN news (spanish).

GRAFCAN visor (includes geologic and topographic maps).

 

Related posts

1,260 thoughts on “Cumbre Vieja and the San Juan eruption of 1949”

  1. Fagradalsfjall very kindly went quiet just hours before La Palma exploded. It is however now trying to come back on-line. All cameras are in weekend mode, sorry.

    • Natthagi one seems to be functioning again Albert. Found it on Acme. Unless someone is fooling me by changing the date stamp to today.

  2. All
    If you did not know. Reuters has a live feed going from a different camera position. Better than the sixty media at this time.

    • Any informations on where (exactly) the lava is going right now?

      • Other than seaward, no, no definitive information yet that I have seen. VERY Good question though.

        BTW, I have literally “fallen off the wagon” in my coffee addiction.

        • Have been trying to find info no luck so far, nothing on local newspapers.

  5. The curtains of fire are so mesmerizing I’m getting impressions of the Northern Lights

    • That is not a very good spot for a volcano vent with a lot of houses quite nearby downhill, well, more correctly I guess is, that is not a very good spot for a town, the volcano has been there for quite a while and it’s propensity for regular eruptions that run down those hills but I suppose they are rare enough people go with the “what are the chances it will happen during my lifetime lets build here” mentality and others see that at keep building until an eruption happens… :\

      • I know La Palma well. It is a whole volcanic ridge as Hector writes. It is rough and windy in the North, but certainly safer. South of Taburiente everything is fertile.
        In the West we have the towns of Puerto Naos and Los Llanos de Aridane, in the East the capital Santa Cruz de La Palma, in the South mainly small villages, beautiful, near San Antonio and Teneguia.
        Now, an advantage can also be a risk. The volcanoes create fertile land. So who wouldn’t use it and build there with an eruption every 50 years and even dormancy in between?
        Most of this fertile land is in the middle between Los Llanos, where the lave is coming down right now, and Santa Cruz where the lava came down in 1949.

  8. My thoughts are with all those who are affected by this eruption. Hopefully the evacuation has gone well, It’s still sad to see people’s homes destroyed. Also thoughts for those who may be involved with fire fighting or rescue. Hi Lurking. I was wondering about a flank collapse as there is a very definite line of subsidence from previous eruptions. I sincerely hope that there is not too much water below ground as that would lubricate impervious dyke rock and make the land more likely to shift. Always an optimist but never good at plots and Math I watch in awe and trust Lurking’s reasoning and plotting. I too remember El Hierro and hope all stay safe and the eruption is short with well organised local monitoring of the situation. Thank goodness for Volcano Cafe and it’s level headed reporting and comments from both experts and knowledgeable amateurs. Thank you hector I read yor post last night with great interest. A brilliant insight to the events in the last 24 hours. Very timely!

    • Homes can be rebuilt, you can’t bring back the dead. We all love watching volcanoes hoping that people get out safely.

      • I agree Peter. I too hope that no lives will be lost. That’s why I hope the evacuation has gone well but having to flee from your home with little warning is traumatic. I agree homes can be rebuilt but homes contain sometimes livestock, and emotional stability. The rebuilding will take time and if uninsured, financial worry.

  9. Hello – we have another small vent arrived to the right at La Palma.

      • Well done Clive 😀 All live streams have stopped. My Spanish is not good but there is talk that an explosion took out the cameras not Clive 😀

        • Hi Diana!
          Being in the UK I am safe and well (and damp and cold). We could do with a small Surrey volcano right now.

          • Clive……. Move to the North West…… Coronation Street Land… it’s so dry here we have a water problem. Lakes in Cumbria drying up rapidly! Not a lot of chance for an eruption in Surrey..We had an earthquake here a few years ago though and insurance paid out to house damage but that’s as near as a warming event as we may get. Of course there is a miniscule possibility of geyser activity in Bath the nearest we have to anything hot in the UK . Last night I commented to my husband that I was thankful we don’t have Volcanoes in the UK. The eruption brings not only the lava streams but also ash. You can see lava streams and their course is determined by topography. The ash is as bad. The weight destroys buildings. The toxicity destroys grazing. The clean up operations destroys government coffers not to mention the cost to road and air transport and private vehicles. Private car insurance does not cover ash damage !

  10. I see the 1949 and 1971 eruptions went on for a month or less- I take it will the same here in 2021.

    • Volcanoes TEND to be repeat performers. Baring something changing their underlying physics.

      • True, one never knows with volcanoes. I must admit expected to erupt in a more isolated part of the Island-but ofcourse it doesn’t work like that in the real world.

  11. Combination of Nasa Fire Information Satellite imagery overlaid on Gurgle Urt.

    “Downhill” is probably your best hazard assumption. But only rely on local disaster civil defense for authoritative information… unless your situation is dire and requires immediate response, in that case, err on the side of caution. Your life is far more important than a building, car or a cell phone. Save your pets if you can, but don’t risk your life to do so. SELFIES are not that friken important. SEEK SAFETY FIRST. Tweet later. No one gives a S@#T if you are waiting to be immolated. Only a full blown IDIOT would risk their life to do that. Your are Homo Sapiens, you are supposed to be smarter than that.

    Warning, I’m starting to wig-out on coffee. My advise may get weird.

    • Unfortunately, the mainstream media and modern technology with platforms like Giggle and Faceblob have facilitated the reduction our IQ levels to that of the ape creatures of the Indus. Hence in Iceland and Fagrad, why there are so many candidates for the Darwin Award – walking on lava…

      Praying that people keep safe.

  13. The coastal lobes near La Bombilla, Puerto Naos, and Playa del Charco Verde are likely indicative of how this will play out.

  16. Am watching Spanish news on the tv- the scout to choose a live location did a good job- behind the reporter was a white coloured residence named-Villa Volcan.I counted six vents in action, ofcourse opened to correction. Am interested to know when the Hoy cico municipios experience an eruption in its recorded history last.

  17. This is a very cold and viscous basalt …
    My guess is that it barely toutch 1100 C perhaps below that even for this Canary Eruption. Lower in sillica than fagradalshraun But much much lower in temperatures too, explains the strombolian viscosity

    Fagradalshraun is 1240 C

    • This is one helluva show!! It will be interesting to see what has been built there. Hearts and prayers for the folks who lived on the slopes below.

    • Agree. Much like Hawaii in 2018 and before. So sad watching these homes being consumed.

      • There must have been a lot of homes destroyed by now. I’ve been watching this one for some time and amazed how close the police have been venturing between the flows, presumably to remove people who have not left.

    • Very sad watching homes be burnt and crushed by red hot lava

      • What these lava flows may lack in speed they sure make it up with depth. These flow fronts are higher than the single story rooftops. That’s a lot of material.

  24. The thing that surprises me about all these islands is only Hawaii seems to have evolved vegetation that is resistant to buring, even in Iceland the forests are pretty much the same as forests elsewhere in Europe, at least what is left of them. You can see the forest on La Palma going up in flames around the volcano, even though most of those trees would have been alive to see several previous eruptions and the island as a whole is on the more active side among island volcanoes. Maybe Hawaii just has ridiculously fast rates of resurfacing, something that should be pretty obvious but perhaps is taken too much for granted. Or maybe it is because of a random fluke that Ohia are fire resistant, just something that turned out conveniently useful.

  25. Hope it isnt toodark, this is pretty much exactly where the fissure is. I think it is slightly longer now though. I didnt draw the lava flows yet but it seems they go by now at least a good way to the ocean, at least a few km, so not as fast as in 1949 but maybe we shouldnt expect that yet as the 1949 flows were a few days into the eruption. The cone is growing up fast, already is several tens of meters high and will probably get over 100 in the end if it is typical.

  26. “… You get your chance to try, in the twinkling of an eye,
    eighty years or more or even less…”

    –“Free Four” by Pink Floyd, for Carl. (a die-hard Floyd fan)

    Good Lord I hope this lets up, La Palma citizens could use a break. This high energy jetting is insane.

    • Yes they could.. When I think of Floyd and volcanoes the song that instantly comes to mind is “One of These Days”

    • I tried indexing that to a Gurgle Urt overlay unsuccessfully.

      I think it’s time for Tequila and bed.

    • The video this evening appears to be looking south from the northern most vent. The visual global view of this will take some time. Either from off-shore or aerial beyond the effects of any ash. In that, what has international ATC done, if anything, with respect to this flight corridor?

      • I’ll go check VAAC reports.

        NOTICE, REFER TO APPLICABLE FLIGHT CONTROL CENTER FOR CURRENT ADVISORIES.

        LA PALMA – 2021-09-20 02:59 utc

        VA ADVISORY
        DTG: 20210920/0259Z
        VAAC: TOULOUSE
        VOLCANO: LA PALMA 383010
        PSN: N2834 W01749
        AREA: CANARY ISLANDS
        SUMMIT ELEV: 2426M
        ADVISORY NR: 2021/4
        INFO SOURCE: IGN VONA, SAT DATA, TV NEWS
        AVIATION COLOUR CODE: ORANGE
        ERUPTION DETAILS:ERUPTION AT 20210919/1410Z INTENSE LAVA FOUNTAINS ONGOING
        OBS VA DTG: 20/0300Z
        OBS VA CLD: SFC/FL100 N2836 W01751 – N2836 W01748 – N2821 W01745 – N2824 W01800 – N2824 W01800 – N2836 W01751 MOV S 15KT
        FCST VA CLD +6 HR: 20/0900Z SFC/FL100 N2836 W01751 – N2836 W01748 – N2821 W01745 – N2821 W01800 – N2836 W01751
        FCST VA CLD +12 HR: 20/1500Z NO VA EXP
        FCST VA CLD +18 HR: 20/2100Z NO VA EXP
        RMK: ERUPTION LOCATION IS 2836N 01752W. VOLCANIC ASH IS FALLING IN THE VICINITY OF THE VOLCANO BELOW FL100. SOME SO2 IS DRIFTED SOUTH-EASTWARD ABOVE FL100.
        NXT ADVISORY: NO LATER THAN 20210920/0900Z=

        http://vaac.meteo.fr/volcanoes/la-palma/

        I don’t have an aeronautical chart for this region available, so I have no idea what corridors are affected. Besides, I am also not a pilot.

    • Is that a prediction map, or the current lava flows?
      If it is the current this is much worse than I thought 🙁

      • I think it is going to be bad no matter how you slice it. While visually stunning, people are having to deal with this mess.

        Not a good thing at all. I’ve seen mentioned that these flows are 20 to 30 feet thick. A semi-molten slab of rock that thick crashing into your house, no matter how slowly, is devastating.

        I wish these FKing RETARDS would get off their tsunami kick in the Spanish chat channel on Youtube. Shit is already bad enough.

        And yes, I did say RETARDS. Not politically correct, I don’t give a crap. Those reprobates deserve it.

        And yes, I was not nice. If I disappear soon, it’s because I violated Rule #1 of Volcano Cafe. My apologies in advance to the sane people here… and to Carl for letting my inner Sailor out.

        Getting your jollies by trying to scare people just shows your IDIOCY and juvenile nature. Grow the Fk up.

        If you take issue with my comments, be AWARE that Volcano Cafe doesn’t endorse any specific opinion. These are mine. You don’t like it? Get stuffed. I’ve ridden out 115 mph Hurricane winds huddled with my wife and dogs in the hallway not knowing if I was going to have a house left or if we were going to eat a tree. Disasters are not fun no matter how you slice it. If a juvenile pervert takes issue with me. FOAD.

        • I have been reading the VC blog and comments since 2014.
          I hate to say it, but one or a few guys in the comments section really lowered the bar, wishing for extreme or really bad events to happen, or like now calling this funny.. Sad to see this happen to such a great site run by people I have a lot respect for.

          Yes the youtube tsunami-idiots should be called what they are.

          • In my defense….I was REALLY jacked up on coffee last night.

            Yet somehow able to doze off….

        • I have no problem with this. You are absolutely right. We are embarrassingly spectators to a disaster not participants. This is devastating for them.

          • We are spectators to forces of nature.
            We can admire it for what it is whilst still being charitable to those badly affected. These feelings are not mutually exclusive.
            TBH the numbers are relatively small, compared to hurricanes and other disasters. 1700 people die every day in the UK. Many people daily worldwide loose all their belongings in a house fire, none of us are immune.

        • Yeah, Lurk, i think about You during the hurricanes… and You probably think of me during the earthquakes.

          • I do.
            And wish the best. 😀

            So far I have not been sanctioned. The Euro people probably haven’t noticed my “non niceness”. Understandable, I don’t make a lot of noise. (Except for that Stalin rant I made some time ago… but I was being watched closely then.)

        • It’s one thing haivng a volcano erupt at the top of a hill you live at the bottom of, but something else entirely when vents start popping up in your backyard. It can’t be a pleasant feeling that one of those vents could just as easily pop up in your living room.

      • Not a prediction, it is the actual location of the vents. I found a daytime picture with a bit of the surroundings and located it exactly in google earth, the fissure might be longer and it is almost certainly not as straight, as I havent found a picture of it as a whole, but it is in this spot. Unless the eruption stops basically right now (which is very unlikely) this will be very destructive, maybe not as bad as Hawaii a few years ago but for it will for sure be close. I expect in a few days we will start seeing more fluid lava erupting, it might start leaking out even lower down, and flowing a lot faster.

        It finally happened, an eruption in an urban area. We have been pushing it for decades and the luck finally ran out…

        • Well, I haven’t been lobbying for it. Fearing it, yes. It was just a matter of time before it happened.

          • Technically yes but not really like this. Goma was not like it is today back in 2002 and the recent flows there only barely reached the city, it was narrowly avoided. Leilani estates is not considered urban, its a bit arbitrary but most houses there are basically off grid shacks just on an organised plot.

            This is an eruption sending lava into a developed if somewhat spread out area. The vent is not inside that area but so close it has direct effects, not to mention the lava flows.

    • Chad a cool alkaline basalt lava
      Whats the temperatures of these materials? Sillica content is probably much much lower than fagradalshraun
      Will We see more fluid lavas soon?

      Will the Aa be able to reach the ocean? Aa ocean entries are often steamy as hell

      Livestream here and the eruption have already built a large cone https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SIHmbnqOvk8

      • “Will We see more fluid lavas soon?”

        According to what I have previously read, yes. Underneath many of the Canarian islands is a layer of Jurassic era Phylitte… silica rich from when the Atlantic was just a shallow basin as it was forming.

        Good luck finding an image. They had the appearance of white icecream with chocolate swirls. They were also known as “Bob’s Floaters” back when El Hirro was erupting. They were the source of differences in opinion between Canarian Geologic authorities and a University in Spain. Whole rock analysis showed it to be Rhyolite while The Canaries argued for Trachyite. (one is evidence of more explosivity than the other) At the time there was a large motivation to downplay the danger of a potential eruption on El Hierro. I will not go into it further since that has no relevance to La Palma’s current problem. Though I will state that this is almost what happened to Sabinosa. {Opinion only, no further comments}

  30. It has taken me some time to track down exactly where the La Palma eruption occurred, as INVOLCAN is loathe to actually reveal the site. It is located in the “Cabeza de Vaca” area near Las Manchas, which is a pasture vineyard area up on the hill. Google maps shows https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cam.+Cabeza+de+Vaca,+38759,+Santa+Cruz+de+Tenerife,+Spain/@28.6181087,-17.8646419,3548m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xc6bed62873b66e5:0x44a811fa7207536d!8m2!3d28.6161563!4d-17.8575091

    I attempted to use Google maps to put a person on the road, then spin around with the dial to see if I could get a match to some of the photos posted on the net, but this proved harder than I imagined, even knowing the approximate area.

    After searching awhile and using Google translate to read the Spanish news, I finally located an excellent website https://www.laprovincia.es/fotos/sociedad/2021/09/19/volcan-palma-57462021.html#foto=1 which documents the eruption quite well in its beginning stages.

    It is still amazing that we still seem to have trouble locating geological events on the globe. (yes, I admit I am one of those ECEF people but this is from my aerospace engineering days) even with the help of google maps.

    • For some reason, my browser hides more recent VC posts, I go ahead and post, then find out after hitting the return button, additional posts which answered my questions, such as the location of the vents, about, which Chad posted about. The air advisory gives an approximate location, but the google maps red tear drop is fairly close.

      • Randal, I have the same problem with recent posts occasionally not showing up for me.

        Occasionally, new posts just weren’t showing. I found that going back to the home page and then reloading made them show.

    • didn’t know what ECEF person was… i was thinking well i’m an intj female but what is a ECEF?

      • I’m an INTJ on the Type indicator.

        Not the nicest person to be around. The fun bit? I match my wife’s mother.

        I administered the test to her just for shit’s and grins. My wife is not amused. Especially since my score is stronger than her mom’s. ( My wife is an ESTJ)

        • Be aware that those personality descriptors have been shown to vary somewhat over time, and in differing contexts.

          As regards the tsunami stuff ? A week ago it was the only information I had, but I knew that it had been questioned by people who’s opinions and views I respect, so I did what I normally do in such circumstances… I looked for debunks.

          It only took me seconds to find them .

          Obviously it took somewhat longer to read and digest what I had found, but it was pretty much clear as daylight.

          This is science. The ability to accept being proven wrong is in the nature of science. It is a great strength, and without it science is not what is going on.

          But we live in the days of social media, in which nobody is ever wrong.

          Ergo I have no problems with your statements here, GL. Those views are singularly unhelpful.

        • Poor Wife.
          and if You are an intj and i’m an intj it’s probably why we get along. (few others would have us…. 😉 )

        • INTP, quite interesting. Not sure how accurate it is but worth a few minutes to do the test.

        • Hey, I’m an INTJ also. Rare type, do they congregate on volcano blogs?

          Apparently yes.

      • Earth Centered earth frame which uses x,y,z coordinates instead of latitude, longitude, and altitude which most people use 🙂

      • Ah good old Myers Briggs. We had a lot to do with it at my workplace (before I retired). The tutorial staff would go around labelling each other with the various initials. Made me laugh.
        I can’t recall what I was, INTJ sounds about right. Throw in a touch of autism spectrum and you have me: silent and dull!! 🙂

    • Very large files and some video feeds take ages before I can see them, otherwise I get a ‘starfield’. Sometimes it can take days. Its probably server problems but I think it would help to post a modest .jpg rather than a link (or a link to a simple .jpg).
      Pity as it would be nice to know exactly where the fissure is.

    • Someone posted to Google maps and marked the exact eruption site and posted 3 photos https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B036'53.6%22N+17%C2%B052'07.5%22W/@28.6156294,-17.8750105,1774m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x0:0x0!2zMjjCsDM2JzUzLjYiTiAxN8KwNTInMDcuNSJX!3b1!8m2!3d28.614897!4d-17.868742!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d28.614897!4d-17.868742?hl=en

      sigh.. there always is someone… on Bouvet Island someone posted a coffee cafe despite the fact that the island is completely covered by a glacier.

  31. I have read recently that some were saying they could not sleep because dogs were barking and can hear dogs now on the live feed . Could it be they are hearing something underground there also has just been more load noises from the vents and the earthquakes started again this morning La Palma. is this just coincidence ?

    • Its also being discussed on the chat on the live video feed of TV Canarias.

    • Yes, quite possible. Dogs are known to be LITERALLY superhuman in their senses.

      My favorite video is of a lounging dog in an office building before a quake. The dog takes interest in “something” to one side, then takes off running before the shaking starts.

      • Thank you that sure proves the point.

        The dogs in La Palma have been continuously barking for a while.

        • Note… Low frequency sounds carry much further than stuff we can hear. My Chihuahua goes nutzoid when thunderstorms are in the North part of the county 45+ miles away.

          (No, I am not a Chihuahua person. He was my Stepson’s and after his divorce, he needed a home) A dog is a dog.

          It adds credence to the observation that “If a tree falls in the forest, a Chihuahua 500 miles away will bark at it.”

  32. Dogs can sense things we cannot. Their sense of smell is thousands of times better than ours and their hearing is many time ours. This is likely what spooked the dog in the video above. He/she heard it coming. They are amazing creatures.

    • STRONGLY AGREE!!!

      Dogs gave us a survival edge. To be fore warned is to be fore armed.

      Plus they taught us herd management. Pastoral humans happened because we were taught by proto-dogs. We owe our civilization to proto-dogs.

      I have a 100 lb “Toof Monster”. My job is to provide him back-up if something bad tries to come through the door. He’s in the living room on his couch monitoring the door right now.

      (The couch is a hand-me-down from a friend of my wife whose dogs it belonged to before him. Our good couch is verboten and he won’t go near it.) If he is underfoot all I have to do is say “couch” and he retreats to his.

      • Homo sapiens is gracile (slender, weak) compared to the other hominids about at the time and less well adapted. The only good reason I can think of why they outcompeted neanderthals is they had dogs working with them. A bunch of H.sap + a pack of wolflike dogs would see of any number of big strong neanderthals. Interestingly at about 8 weeks all puppies naturally adopt a human and are human-centered for the rest of their lives.

        • The idea is more that we were better at throwing things, and much less reliant on megafauna though obviously that didnt stop us anyway. Neanderthals were basically if we evolved into an apex predator through natural selection, where early Sapiens sort of cheated by using other methods though it is a bit unfair to describe it that way. It isnt that Neanderthals couldnt have thought of this too it was just somewhat unnecessary so never happened. I dont think dogs were domesticated back that far, it was a bit more recently, canids back then would have been just another animal, a competitor and potential predator.

          • Eh? Megafauna co-existed with neanderthals over several ice ages, they probably didn’t hunt then, at least effectively. Megafauna vanishes whenever there is a significant H.Sap population, everywhere.
            I think there is evidence of neanderthals having spears, not rocket science is it?

        • Trey Smith did a wonderful documentary on the Sumerians, the ancient writings of the pre-flood (Pre Noah) days. What has survived has showed that the writings were tiny and had quite long life-spans.

      • When the dogs bark I always investigate even if I know it’s just the local fox prowling about. They are doing what dogs do best. Guarding THEIR territory. You are absolutely spot on Lurking. We have their backs. Not understanding this situation leads to noisy dogs and other unwanted behaviours. Hence my outsized Lurcher shoving me off Her sofa with her large and powerful legs and feet. Then is the time I do the Apha female bit and put her in her pack place.

    • Cats too. Their hearing is more acute than dog hearing and they can see in the dark.

      In daylight they are better at detecting movement than we are, but we are better at seeing color.

      I think some species can see ultraviolet light, not sure which though.

  33. I once did a correlation study of ads for lost pets in the LA Times versus earthquake activity and found >90% rate of animals running off before significant quakes occurred (mag >= 3.0) which surprised me

    • Yep. And it looks nasty.

      And I haven’t been sanctioned… yet.

      • The Dragons are ignoring you! Perhaps you are their pack leader… 🙂

    • It’s daylight and it looks the area affected is quite large. Very sad to see one house after the other burned by the advancing lava stream. Luckely, it is not that fast so people should be able to move out in time.

    • Dunno. I gave up on english news a few weeks ago.

      Technical Note: Covid masks should be helpful against particulate aerosols. HOWEVER. They are ill suited for dealing with SO2 gases.

      A damp rag or mask can be helpful {BUT NOT FULL PROOF} against SO2. Conciser it an intermediate or emergency effort to get you by until you can get to clean air or proper breathing apparatus.

      Caveat: Not a gas free engineer, but I have been trained in the importance of gas free engineering and the use of Oxygen Breathing Apparatus and the MSA version of breathing apparatus in structural firefighting. (State of Florida Certified) Now defunct, state level is now 340 hrs of training vs the 300 hrs that I have.

      Yes I am an ass, but I am an honest ass.

      • The N95 and FFP2 masks are suitable against ash … but against gases you need one that creates an airtight seal (mandatory to shave the face) and uses an active filter (often in replaceable cartridges). I’m not going to say brands, but surely we all know some …

      • A bit of damp slaked lime or chalk in the mask will help for SO2. If you can arrange to breath through a layer of damp granules, then so much the better.
        H2S is at lethal levels if you can smell it, high levels disable this so you cannot smell very high levels either.

    • Mediocre compared to Taal.. and it hasn’t erupted proper yet…

  38. Being a Biologist I read Chad’s comment about apparent lack of fire resistant plants with interest and so found this. The Canary Islands are home to the most fire resistant pine trees in the world.
    https://www.forest-monitor.com/en/most-fire-resistant-pine-pinus-canariensis/
    Nature has a habit of being steps ahead of Homo Sapiens.
    The climate of Hawaii is conducive to rapid plant growth and regeneration. Warmth & humidity is loved by most plants. The Canary Islands are warm but the rainfall can be erratic so putting a stopper on growth in dry years. We have had this in North West England. Normally we have too much of the wet stuff. This year we have had little and plants have reacted by an early stop to growth although, because the plants are worried about their future they have produced large seed production. Fruit though, is smaller due to lack of water so apples and tomatoes in my garden may have seeds but the nutrition for animals is minimal. The winter Kale produced huge amounts of seeds but the Early Cabbages were poor as the energy went into flower production. Plants react to weather change and volcanic activity in an amazingly organised way to ensure their species continuance. Talk to your plants, they do communicate to each other by chemical means , and are not averse to TLC from us gardeners.

    • Fire resistant pines are also a feature of the SE US. We tend to have lots of lightning strikes around here.

    • I’m thinking the hawaiian flora has had the most time to evolve fire resiliancy. It’s not only the big Hawaii island, but the life time of entire emeperor sea mount chain of islands that have given opportunity to evolve. If plant spieces can island-hop that is.

    • RE:”Talk to your plants,”

      My wife talks to her plants in the morning even before she talks to me.

    • Well, the evolutionary pressure on the plants to become fire resistant due to eruptions, on islands that see a minor eruption every few years or decades is negligible compared to a plant in an area that has bush / forest fires every year. So I would not expect any adaptation of plants to fire on any of the volcano islands on earth.

      Adaptation to the ground chemistry, more likely. In particular from ash fall. That would affect a larger area and multiple years, from each eruption.

      • How about evolutionary pressure on the tortoises of Galapagos? It must be hard to outrun an eruption carrying your personal tank

    • That’s correct. I also found two houses (A and B) seen in that live stream:

      THIS MAP IS JUST A VERY ROUGH ESTIMATE!

      • Great, thanks for that. Best indication so far I have read.

        • The video shows a second lava stream slightly south of the one you see on the map. Otherwise the lcoation of the vents is already quite o.k. on the map I think.

      • But not our Chimney House! I reckon my satellite spot is definitely that chimney house – but the video is of the house being damaged by a landslide during the big earthquake prior to the eruption.

    • Will be nice cinder cone When you haves basalt thats as Viscous as this
      Its very very Viscous .. perhaps even a bit more Viscous than Etna even

    • GL thanks- I watch the TV La Palma news- found it well filmed.The locals must be beside themselves in fear.

      • It is awful. I like volcanoes but it is so easy to forget how much damage they can do. There have been a couple in recent decades. But I am glad that volcano observatories are able to give advance warnings, and there are no casualties in most cases. But loosing your house and belongings is terrible

        • Agreed that what’s happening in La Palma is awful.

          I often hope for eruptions, as I’m of the opinion (maybe wrong) that, on average, more frequent eruptions of a volcanic system lessen the intensity of said eruptions.

          That said, I very much dislike eruptions in populated areas. I didn’t like the Kilauea eruption in 2018 (Lelani Estates) but I’d have very much liked it had it been on the western rift zone instead (only uninhabited areas at risk).

          That’s why I like the one in Iceland; there’s a road and some communications lines at risk, though not much else.

          Eruptions are going to happen, so I prefer them in areas where they do as little harm as possible.

  42. Just checked the Fag Icelandic cam- good news it’s up and running-the bad news it’s pouring rain &no visibility to be seen .

  43. Whats the temperature of this lava?
    Seems almost as Viscous as Heklas 2000 lavas
    This lava haves To be quite cold to behave like this. Its very low in sillica.. ultrabasic but, its also quite cold.

    • Fagradalshraun and Kilauea is around 1240 C and much hotter deeper down

      This explains why Canaries are so Viscous .. its below 1100 C at 1075 C its even cooler than some of Etnas lavas.

      Temperature means alot.. since its effects the polymerisation of the melt

      This Canary magma is Ultrabasic But its cold too

    • Will probably be lower right now, and get hotter in a few days. I dont really know but I suspect most of the cone is built early in the eruption and the lava field forms when the hotter stuff erupts and leaks out of the base of the cone, though the transition is not smooth. 1949 was maybe different in that the fluid lava erupted a long distance away from the cones, but that seems to have also happened in 1712 and partly in 1646 so not too unusual. In those cases the vents were high up with steep slopes next to them, the vent today is not exactly in this siutuation so probably effusive vents will stay near the current site.

      • 1949 was very runny and looked just like Nyiramuragiras lavas

      • I’m not a volcanologist or an expert in metrology, but I’m curious how they measure lava temperatures and what the instrument and measurement errors are. can they actually differentiate between a lava at 1075 °C and one at 1100 °C?

    • The glow is very dull in daylight and the magma is very easily shattered to black curtains. Although it is probably fluid enough to make some pahoehoe, it is not as fluid as Hawaii or most Mid-Ocean Ridge lavas.

      It is also true that because these magmas are alkaline/potassic and probably come straight up from deeper than 10 km they must be very gas rich. Alkaline magmas tend to be richer in volatiles. That could be boosting the strength of the fountains and the tephra production. It is not always easy to compare the fluidity between alkaline and tholeiitic eruptions.

      • Héctor Sacristán

        1949 was very very very fluid go To the start of the commentary and look at the links I posted from 1949 in commentary a few days ago

        1949 became a Highly fluid Basanite a few days after the eruption started

        https://www.flickr.com/photos/banco_imagenes_geologicas/17099107561

        Fluid Basanite from 1949

        More fluid Basanites from 1949
        https://www.flickr.com/photos/albertwirtz/51139743163/in/photolist-2kV3xXH-2kNx5Zt-rLsJzm-r73X41-rLugeY-rLtMwJ

        https://www.flickr.com/photos/banco_imagenes_geologicas/16912061158/in/photolist-2kV3xXH-2kNx5Zt-rLsJzm-r73X41-rLugeY-rLtMwJ

        Basanite is very low in sillica…
        Given you haves it over 1150 C
        You gets a very little polymerisation and a Highly mobile melt

        Most Basanites are cool and does seem to have problems of getting over 1100 C

        1949 was perhaps quite hot to explain the low viscosity

        https://www.google.se/maps/@28.601475,-17.8588494,17z/data=!3m1!1e3

        Looks like the 1949 Basanite was acually very very fluid for soure, flowed over the ground like glass flood near the vent.. and the lava channel is narrow and very smooth. 1949 must have been alot hotter than 1971 to explain close to vent viscosities diffrences. 1949 was very similar to Hualalai alkaline flows

        But its true that most of the Basanites from La Palma are relativly Viscous beacuse of low temperatures

        • Perhaps you are right and the viscosity in Cumbre Vieja basanites is actually not so different from the tholeiites of Hawaii and Fagradalsfjall.

          Maybe gas is the main factor in causing the higher explosivity of fountains. Nyamuragira I’ve seen videos of the flows and the viscosity is as low as it gets, the composition is basanite too. Fountains of Nyamuragira and Cumbre Vieja do not look too different. Perhaps even though basanites and nephelinites are colder, about 100 C colder that tholeiitic basalts, their viscosities are roughly equivalent, perhaps because basanites and nephelinites have less silica. But basanites, and particularly nephelinites are much more gas rich than tholeiite basalts. Except tholeiite basalts from subduction zones that contain a lot of water the rest are very low in tholeiites volatiles.

          Cumbre Vieja sometimes does more silicic magmas like tephrites and phonolites which are more viscous, but those are rare. The eruption of Hoyo Negro in 1949 is probably a worst case scenario because it produced some phonotephrites, and even then it wasn’t so bad as long as you kept a 1 kilometre. The thing with Cumbre Vieja eruptions is that the eruption rate is usually very low, so the lava flows don’t go too fast, and the fountains cannot reach subplinian intensity either.

          • Gas-rich and high viscosity are, if I’m reading this right, a very dangerous mix.
            I earnestly hope that, if this current La Palma eruption opens vents at other locations like in 1949, there’s enough warning.

            I don’t have the knowledge to comment on the wondrously informative discussions in the details of lava chemistry I see on this site, such as between you and Jesper here, though I do read them with great interest.

            Also, thank you, Hector, for you extremely informative, as well as incredibly timely, La Palma article.

        • It also looks like the difference in color between pahoehoe and aa in alkaline lavas is not very visible. From the air they would look identical. In tholeiite basalt the contrast between silver pahoehoe and black aa is far more stronger, I think, I guess it has to do with the different glass chemistries that they have.

    • From looking at the size of cones, typical lava fountains of Cumbre Vieja probably range upwards to about 300 meters.

  46. https://imgur.com/a/n2po9By

    Flow right now more or less. It is half way to the ocean, but also still the viscous stage 1 lava. I would like to know the composition now, 1949 began as tephrite which is more silicic, even at the effusive vents. If that is happening now it could explain why these flows are not going anywhere fast and are not so hot. I do fear the change will be very abrupt, the lava flow suddenly surging and being overrun by a flood of hot new lava that rushes down at high speed.

  47. I’ve been trying to watch the live cams, has everything slowed down since yesterday, or are they just not capturing it?

  50. The volcano is still rapidly inflating which means more magma is coming into the system then leaving it. New fissure and vents could open somewhere else.

Comments are closed.