Saturday, October 2, 2021

Satellite images of the Cumbre Vieja eruption on the island La Palma, in the Canary Islands. Plus, a new vent has just opened up, suggesting more pressure from below. Stay tuned...

 



5 comments:

  1. As I understand it, the big danger here is a large part of the volcano slumping or blowing out into the Atlantic causing a tsunami to cross the ocean hitting the U.S. East coast some 50-100 feet high. Scientists have been worrying about this specific issue with this specific volcano for years.
    Haven't heard anything in our MSM about this. Have you?

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    1. As I understand it....this volcano wouldn't do it. It would have to be a large portion of the western half of the island sluffing-off into the sea in a much larger event.

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    2. If I recall correctly, a geologist wrote a paper postulating this about 20 years ago and it sent everyone in the Caribbean into a tizzie (I was working there at the time). La Palma is a volcanic seamount and the ocean around it is deep, plus the island has a large structural fault running down the middle. So if a large portion of the island were to slip along the fault line, it would have a long way to slide downhill (underwater), hence the tsunami risk. But I think in this case science did what it was supposed to do: It got other geologists looking into it and I think the upshot was, yes there is a fault, but the catastrophic danger levels are pretty low when the expected energy of the eruptions here are taken into account. I think it's generally accepted that the initial assessment of the danger was too high.

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  2. There are a lot of volcanoes popping off these days, CW. Don't come to me for answers. Life imitates art, even on the Canary Islands. Do they still have canary birds there?

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    1. The Canary Islands are named after dogs (canids), not birds. If there are any canaries there, they were brought by the settlers.

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