More than 300 million cubic metres of material were accumulated during El Hierro submarine eruption

General topo‐bathymetric map of El Hierro Island which shows the most recent data related to the volcanic eruption area.
General topo‐bathymetric map of El Hierro Island which shows the most recent data related to the volcanic eruption area.
Research
(14/01/2013)

A group of researchers from the Faculty of Geology of the UB and from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) have published a scientific work that describes the morphology evolution and the volume of emitted material during the submarine volcanic eruption that started on October 2011 in the Canary Island of El Hierro. The study, published on the journal Geology, edited by the Geological Society of America, focuses on the construction and evolution of volcanic islands and constitutes a new reference to study eruptions which are similar to the ones occurred in the Canary Islands and other volcanic islands.

General topo‐bathymetric map of El Hierro Island which shows the most recent data related to the volcanic eruption area.
General topo‐bathymetric map of El Hierro Island which shows the most recent data related to the volcanic eruption area.
Research
14/01/2013

A group of researchers from the Faculty of Geology of the UB and from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) have published a scientific work that describes the morphology evolution and the volume of emitted material during the submarine volcanic eruption that started on October 2011 in the Canary Island of El Hierro. The study, published on the journal Geology, edited by the Geological Society of America, focuses on the construction and evolution of volcanic islands and constitutes a new reference to study eruptions which are similar to the ones occurred in the Canary Islands and other volcanic islands.

 

The experts who participated in the study are: Miquel Canals, Galderic Lastras, Aaron Micallef and David Amblàs, from the Consolidated Research Group (CRG) on Marine Geosciences of the UB; and Jesús Rivera, Juan Acosta, Beatriz Arrese, Núria Hermida and Olvido Tello, from the group of Geology and Geophysics of the IEO, a public research institution that belongs to the Secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation of the Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness.

 
The work is based on the data obtained by the IEO experts during the six geological studies performed aboard on the Ramon Margalef research vessel, owned by the IEO, from October 2011 to February 2012. The experts from the CRG on Marine Geosciences of the UB analysed the bathymetry of the submarine volcano and its morphology changes during the eruption, within the evolution of great volcanic buildings.
 
The scientific team estimated that the volcano emitted a total volume of 329 million cubic metres of material, a quantity that is equal to the one contained by more than 120,000 olympic-size swimming pools. “It is a really modest quantity”, affirms Jesús Rivera, the person in charge of the first scientific Bimbache campaigns developed in order to observe volcanic eruptions in El Hierro and co-author of the study. “About 9,000 similar eruptions would be necessary to happen at 125 years intervals in order to construct an island as El Hierro”, states Rivera.
 
There is not any previous global study similar to the one performed if we consider the frequency in which the eruption area has been mapped; this fact allowed to make a characterization of morphological changes in a brief period of time. According to the professor Galderic Lastras, “most of Earthʼs volcanic activity takes places under the sea, at the depths of the ocean, and it goes unnoticed for human sight. On the contrary, marine eruptions which take place not really deep, like El Hierro one, are more noticeable and dangerous. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor these processes”.
 
“Geologically, the volcanic process which took place in El Hierro —explains Lastras— is not really relevant but quite frequent. Although it was an alarming situation for the island inhabitants, it constituted a unique opportunity for geologists to analyse the construction of volcanic islands such as the Canary ones”.
 
The scientific team remarks that the growth of El Hierro is the result of thousands weak eruptions similar to the latest one, which provided modest material volumes. In contrast, relief destruction comes from massive collapses of the island flanks. This new work, which constitutes an important advance in the knowledge of Canary Islands formation, could be an interesting tool to design future programmes to monitor and evaluate natural risks.