An international scientific study, in which members of the University of Granada and the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan) participate, has discovered a “hot heart” of magma beneath the island of Tenerifelocated less than 10 kilometers deep from the mouth of the Teide volcano, which could be a sign precursor of an eruptive process.
The finding is the result of a scientific collaboration between researchers from the Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics from Novosibirsk, in Russia, Involcan and the University of Granada. Research has revealed the secrets of the interior of the island of Tenerife through a new seismic tomography study, which has included the analysis of microseismicity located in the interior of the island, reports the University of Granada.
As Involcan explains, these results constitute an important tool for control and interpret the increase in seismicity in Tenerife and the emission of carbon dioxide from the Teide crater, a process that, in fact, the institute has been detecting since the end of 2016.
This activity could be related to the slow rise of a diapir, a ‘magma bubble’, at depths greater than 10 km below Mount Teide. Therefore, this new knowledge will be very useful to detect precursor signs of a possible eruptive process in Tenerife and thus anticipate more quickly.
According to the researchers, the tomography clearly shows that, in the crust below the Las Cañadas calderathe presence of small magmatic reservoirs at depths less than five kilometers is possible.
very explosive eruptions
These reservoirs allow the magma to cool, changing its chemical composition towards phonolite, a type of magma that is potentially explosive. These magmatic reservoirs may be the source of very explosive eruptions like the one that occurred in the Montaña Blanca volcano around 2,000 years ago and which was of a sub-Plinian type, the scientists explain.
The study also explains why eruptions in tenerife that occur outside the Las Cañadas caldera have a more effusive character.
The results of this study have recently been published in the Journal of Geophysical Researchone of the most relevant international scientific journals in the field of geophysics published by the American Geophysical Society.
This study has been possible as a result of the launch in 2016 of the Canary Islands Seismic Network managed by the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands and which currently has 19 broadband seismic stations that have allowed lowering the detection and location capacity of thousands of micro-earthquakes in Tenerife.
The data, together with those previously recorded by the National Geographic Institute (IGN), have made it possible to use seismic tomography to investigate the interior of the island to a depth of 20 kilometers, and determine the speed of the seismic waves S, which are the most sensitive to the presence of hydrothermal fluids and magma.
Reference study: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JB025798
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