A scientific team has achieved view for the first time hot heart under the Teide. This is the main conclusion of an investigation that has just been published by the magazine Journal of Geophysical Research, a benchmark among the most relevant international scientific publications in the field of geophysics and edited by the American Geophysical Society (AGU). The interpretation of these results constitutes a valuable tool to understand the increase in seismicity in Tenerife and the emission of carbon dioxide through the Teide crater, a process that has been detected by the Volcanological Institute of Canary Islands since the end of 2016.
In addition to the Involcan staff, experts from the Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysic of Novosibirsk (Russia) and the University of Granada participated in this collaboration to shape the a new seismic tomography study using the microseismicity located in the interior of the Island.
Nemesio Pérez: “This model provides more information about what happens in the cortex”
Nemesio Pérez, co-author of the study, qualified this newspaper yesterday that “we all know that since mid-2017 seismicity has changed in Tenerife and that the microseismicity, reflected through the seismic swarms, has helped to make this model possible”, specifies the scientific coordinator of the Involcan, who is part of a team that also includes Ivan Koulakov, Luca D’Auria, Janire Prudencio, Iván Cabrera-Pérez, José Barrancos, German D. Padilla and José M. Ibáñez.
The tomography confirms without a doubt that, in the crust below the Las Cañadas caldera, the presence of small magmatic reservoirs at depths of less than 5 kilometers is possible. In addition to being “amazing”, this discovery has been valued by the Involcan as very useful for a better interpretation of the precursor signals of a possible eruptive process in Tenerife. “There is no need to carry out any other reading other than the one that appears on Involcan’s social networks,” Pérez remarks to avoid any situation of alarmism from the content of the information recently released by the Journal of Geophysical Research. In the article, yes, reference is made to the fact that this activity could be related to the slow rise of a diapir [un tipo de intrusión en el que se fuerza a un material más dúctil deformable y móvil a través de las rocas suprayacentes quebradizas]or a magma bubble, at depths greater than 10 kilometers below Mount Teide.
The tomography confirms without a doubt that, in the crust below the Las Cañadas caldera, the presence of small magmatic reservoirs is possible at depths less than 5 km. In addition to being “amazing”, this discovery has been valued by the Involcan as very useful for a better interpretation of the precursor signals of a possible eruptive process in Tenerife. “There is no need to carry out any other reading other than the one that appears on Involcan’s social networks,” Pérez remarks to avoid any situation of alarmism from the content of the information recently disseminated by Journal of Geophysical Research. In the article, yes, reference is made to the fact that this activity could be related to the slow rise of a diapir [un tipo de intrusión en el que se fuerza a un material más dúctil deformable y móvil a través de las rocas suprayacentes quebradizas]or a magma bubble, at depths greater than 10 kilometers below Mount Teide.
basaltic magmas
The relevance of the reservoirs that are analyzed in the study is connected with the cooling and the change of the chemical composition towards somewhat more evolved magmas such as phonolitic magmas, which is a potentially explosive material. In the Involcan statement it is mentioned that these magmatic reservoirs may be the source of highly explosive eruptions like the one that occurred about 2,000 years ago at Montaña Blanca and that it has been cataloged as a sub-Plinian eruption. However, at the same time, the research explains why the eruptions in Tenerife that occur outside the Las Cañadas caldera, along the NE and NW ridges, have a more effusive character, with magma not being able to stagnate long enough to evolve into potentially more explosive magmas.
The Seismic Network of the Canary Islands, which has been managed by Involcan since 2016, has played a decisive role in this research based on the 19 broadband seismic stations that have allowed the detection and location capacity of millions of micro-earthquakes to be lowered in Tenerife. “If we did not have access to this information, we would not be talking about this model now,” exalts Nemesio Pérez before making an easy-to-understand simile. “Knowing what happens under the bark expands our knowledge and allows us to know how to act in certain situations”, adding in the last part of his speech that “if a person knows in detail how he manages the current account, in the end it will happen account if you are spending more on telephone, electricity, water… The more information we have, the better.».
several more steps
In another scientific collaboration with the University of Granada, developed from 2007, it was possible to obtain the first three-dimensional model of the tenerife island (2012), but now this seismic tomography study gives a quality leap in the world of research thanks to the use of the joint data that had been registered with specialists from the National Geographic Institute (IGN), since at this time it is possible to investigate the interior of the Island up to a depth of 20 kilometers. In addition, the official statement from Involcan highlights the importance of being able to determine the speed of seismic S waves, which are the most sensitive to the presence of hydrothermal fluids and magmas. The first time display of that hot heart [material magmático] It supposes a plus to a study that was oriented to know a little better what is happening below us.
