Beginning on September 12th, 2021, one of the most dangerous volcanoes on the planet
began to shows signs that it was waking up from its dormancy.
A series of several hundred earthquakes began at the La Palma Volcano, also sometimes referred
to as the Cumbre Vieja volcano.
This ongoing earthquake swarm hints at the movement of magma beneath the volcano.
Due to how shallow the earthquakes are occurring at, the chance of an eruption in the next
several months has vastly increased.
Because of this, the volcano alert level was just changed from green to yellow, which is
a major development.
So, why is this volcano so dangerous?
In 1949 a large crack was discovered after a small eruption.
This crack represents a fault line which caused a large segment of the island to shift 4 meters
or 13 feet towards the sea.
The worry here is that this fault line could move much more significantly during a future
eruption, causing a massive block of material to collapse into the ocean, generating a massive
tsunami.
Such a theorized tsunami would go on to devastate the coasts of North America, South America,
Africa, and Europe which wave heights measuring between 2 and 300 meters in height.
This video will discuss the ongoing seismic unrest, and the realistic chances of what
might happen next.
The Cumbre Vieja volcano is located on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands.
As we zoom in on this volcano, its most obvious feature are 2 large collapse scars.
The more prominent of the two is Caldera Taburiente, which formed approximately 1 million years
ago when more than 100 cubic kilometers of the volcano's edifice slid into the ocean.
The younger caldera collapse is less visible, but its scarp can be seen just east of the
1480 lava flow vents.
It formed 500,000 years ago.
The entire island is volcanic in origin, as much like the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific,
it formed due to an underlying hotspot in the mantle.
Over more than 30 million years, this hotspot has caused westward shifting volcanism to
build a chain of volcanoes, including the dangerous decade volcano known as Mount Teide
on Tenerife.
These volcanoes have almost all produced catastrophic summit collapses, meaning that more such collapses
will occur in the future.
On the island of La Palma, earthquake swarms have occurred every few years beneath the
ridge known as Cumbre Vieja due to an ever present supply of magma intruding into the
volcano.
Since record keeping began on the island, this magma only ever reached the surface and
produced an eruption about once every 100 years.
These eruptions tend to be relatively small, and produce cinder cones with long distance
lava flows which head towards the ocean.
As you can see by the map shown on screen, these lava flows have frequently traveled
over populated areas.
The eruption in 1971 was a lucky exception, as it occurred on the rather sparsely populated
southern tip of the island.
With this being said, the reason why La Palma was placed on a yellow alert is that the ongoing
seismic swarm is the shallowest and strongest to occur since its last eruption about 50
years ago.
Typically these swarms occur at 30 kilometers depth but instead this one occurred at between
9 and 14 kilometers depth.
Although this is still quite deep, it means that the magma is likely to remain for an
extended period of time.
It is shallow enough of a depth that the magma is now present in the underground magma chambers,
which means that an eruption can now occur with only a few days warning for the immediate
future.
Over the next few months there is a low double digit chance, perhaps twenty four percent,
that this intrusion will create an eruption.
If this was to occur, it would most likely be safe to view and small, much like the historical
eruption in 1971.
Although this could cause some destruction via lava flows, it is highly unlikely to generate
a massive summit collapse.
Technically speaking, every eruption regardless of size could trigger the feared summit collapse,
with a chance of about 1 tenth of 1 percent during each new eruption.
Luckily, there are many sensors on the section of the island expected to eventually collapse.
These sensors would detect warning signs far in advance, due to the aforementioned section
subsiding towards the ocean at a much faster speed than is normal.
I hope that you enjoyed this video!
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