Live Volcano on La Palma
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Science This is how the volcanic eruption in La Palma is explained in graphics
The rivers of fire that came out of the volcano that erupted last Sunday are now an immense blackish structure whose movement is almost imperceptible, although it continues to expand and devastate land and homes in its path.
The lava flow continues its advance from Cumbre Vieja towards the sea, but it does so more and more slowly.
A trend that will change, predictably, if it finds an incline.
“It is slowing down because it has reached flatter terrain and, from what you can see, the magma that is coming out is more explosive;
This means that it
is more viscous and has less capacity to flow, less speed
.
That is why the pouring is stopping », explains Pablo Gabriel Silva, professor of Geology at the University of Salamanca.
The main lava flow moved at four meters per hour on Thursday, in contrast to the 700 meters per hour it reached on Sunday or 200 meters at Tuesday time. “Everyone is waiting for me to reach the sea ... and maybe it won't even come. We do not know if it will arrive or not, ”he weighs. «If things continue like this, it will come. From what is seen, the forward capacity is very small.
It may take days or weeks to get there, if it goes at that speed,
”estimates Silva. "It goes in slow motion."
"Of the six eruptions for which there are records,
all have been in this part of the island and all have emitted lava that have reached the sea
", intervenes Eumenio Ancochea, professor of Petrology and Geochemistry at the Complutense University of Madrid and member of the College of Geologists.
Is it going to reach the sea?
We do not know.
But, so far, the six that we know have all reached the sea, "he adds.
"Obviously, from the seventeenth century we only have someone describing the eruptions and sending a report to the Kingdom," clarifies Ancochea.
"But those of 1949 and 1971 are well documented, and
the one now is working in a similar way
," he says.
That would give us an idea.
The slow fall of the lava has aroused great expectations, after the authorities anticipated, at first, that it would begin to pour into the ocean on Monday at 8:00 p.m. local time. On Tuesday morning, all the media were waiting for the expected encounter between magma and sea water to take place, but
the pouring was practically stopped on Todoque
.
"The truth is that I do not know why the arrival of the lava into the water has become an event", pointed out on Tuesday morning, when an imminent outcome was still expected, the volcanologist Stavros Meletlidis, from the National Geographic Institute (IGN) .
"
There are more important things in this eruption, such as people's safety
. I don't know what they are waiting to see, but ... I don't know if it will disappoint them," this expert anticipated at that time.
The column emerging from the crater reached four and a half kilometers high on Thursday.
Experts have shown their
concern about the ash that the eruption is leaving in the atmosphere
, so they maintain vigilance in case it is necessary to interrupt air traffic.
The front of the main stream reaches
12 meters high
, while the lava expands to 600 meters in some areas.
It already occupies a total of
166 hectares
of land that will take a long time, perhaps centuries, to become fertile again.
It has destroyed
350 homes
and buildings.
On the other hand, experts said Thursday that seismic energy was beginning to decline very slowly, and the bulging of the ground, which is around 20 centimeters, has stopped growing, which could be
a sign that the eruption is stabilizing.
.
The volcano has already emitted
26 million cubic meters of matter
, more than double the 11 million that had been predicted before the eruption.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
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