The early morning has been somewhat moved in Las Cañadas del Teide. The volcano has woken up in its long lethargy and the movement of its guts has caused a swarm of 458 tiny earthquakes, detected by the network of the National Geographic Institute (IGN) and the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan). It is not, however, a movement that can predict an upcoming eruption on the island as it falls within the normal seismic movements of Tenerife.
Although this activity is not the most common on the island, it is not rare either. “We have records of similar movements in 2016 and 2019,” highlights IGN seismologist Itahiza Domínguez, who highlights that, on both occasions, the location, number and magnitude of the earthquakes were very similar to what happened this morning. “They are very small earthquakes that are detected thanks to the Tenerife network, which is very sensitive,” he insists. In fact, if all the energy emitted by the 458 localized earthquakes tonight were added together, “it would barely reach a magnitude 2 earthquake,” says the researcher.
The movements have occurred in the Las Cañadas area, southeast of Pico Viejo, at a depth of about 13 kilometers and with a maximum magnitude of 1.6, although “most do not reach 0.3”, the researcher highlights. Although the reason why Teide suffers from time to time these ‘aches’ of age is still being studied, the researchers consider that it may be related to natural movements of the magmatic chamber, but they do not rule out that, in the long term, it may be the activity that precedes to an eruption. “It may be related to the activity of the gases found at the bottom,” says Domínguez, who insists that Tenerife’s volcanic system is much more complex than that of other islands.
Tenerife, in fact, always has a background activity of 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 a year”, indicates the researcher. In addition, as a comparison, the researcher recalls that before the submarine and terrestrial eruptions on these two islands, the detected earthquakes amounted to 30,000 on El Hierro and 50,000 on La Palma.
After this movement there has been no deformation either. The swarm ceased at five in the morning, after three hours of continuous activity and has not been reactivated. “It reassures us because, in addition, on other occasions it has not gone further,” insists the IGN seismologist. However, he recalls that it is necessary to maintain vigilance of the phenomenon.
