• TERESA GUERRERO

    @teresaguerrerof

  • JUAN C. SÁNCHEZ

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    @_JuanCsanchez_

  • ÁLVARO MATILLA

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Updated Sunday, October 10, 2021-02: 04

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  • Volcanology The La Palma eruption combines three different volcanic activities

  • This was the arrival of the lava to the sea "We saw an impressive waterfall but there were no explosions"

The most important volcanic eruption that La Palma had suffered in the last century lasted for forty-two days until last September 19 volcanic activity returned to the island. In 1971, there was another eruption, that of the Teneguía volcano, which lasted 23 days but did not affect populations or crops.

What happened during the summer of 1949 may offer some clues about the evolution of the current eruption in the Cumbre Vieja park, which in the 20 days that it has been running has already exceeded the surface destroyed during the episode that occurred 72 years ago. years ago, known as the eruption of the Nambroque volcano (for the area in which it originated) or San Juan, because it began to roar at 11 am on June 24, the day of San Juan. It stopped its activity suddenly but resumed it four days later and did not stop permanently until August 4.

So far, the Cumbre Vieja volcano has only stopped emitting material for a couple of hours.

It happened on September 27 but that same afternoon, he resumed his activity in a more intense way.

These unforeseen and unpredictable stops are common, according to volcanologists, and do not mean that the end of volcanic activity is near.

Last Thursday we saw how on its way to the sea, the lava reached the fajana that was created in 1949 during that eruption that created a new land that has been used during these decades to harvest bananas because volcanic soils are very fertile.

Both eruptions, that of 1949 and that of 2021, have been classified as grade 2 according to the Volcanic Explosivity Index, which uses a scale from 0 to 8 (with 8 being the most explosive), and both are also classified as Strombolian type with phreatomagmatic episodes (when in contact with a water source).

The current one is also having Hawaiian episodes (with a more fluid lava).

Higher lava emission

On October 1, the Cumbre Vieja volcano (which originated in the area known as Cabeza de Vaca) had already exceeded the amount of lava emitted during the two eruptions that occurred on La Palma in the last century, although the instruments used now they are more accurate. According to scientists' estimates, more than 80 million cubic meters of magmatic material have already emerged, compared to 55 million in the 1949 episode and 43 million cubic meters measured in 1971.

The Cumbre Vieja volcano has also surpassed the surface washed away by lava.

While in the San Juan eruption it expanded by an area of ​​450 hectares and in Teneguía by 213 hectares, on Friday the area affected by the current eruption reached 471.8 hectares.

As detailed at a press conference by the technical director of the Canary Islands Volcanic Emergency Plan (Pevolca), Miguel Ángel Morcuende, 120 hectares correspond to agricultural operations (59.3 hectares of banana, 33.4 of vineyard and 7.36 of avocado) and 26.4 kilometers to highways.

On the other hand, the fajana formed in the sea by the current eruption already exceeds 34 hectares, compared to the 80 hectares that the San Juan volcano won from the sea and the 29 hectares of land that the Teneguía created.

Previous earthquakes

As the geographer engineer Juan M. Bonelli Rubio narrated in 1949 in a delightful historical account collected by the Instituto Geográfico y Catastral (

Contribution to the study of the eruption of the Nambroque or San Juan

volcano), the eruption of the San Juan volcano was also preceded due to several seismic shocks, as has happened again this year because on September 11 a seismic swarm began on La Palma.

"Already before the eruption, on June 21, two intense seismic shocks were felt, and on the 22nd and 23rd, immediately after the eruption, other frequent shakes of little intensity, but which had sowed concern as logically might be expected. "wrote Bonelli Rubio in 1949, who regretted not having on La Palma, as the Americans had in Hawaii, a seismological Observatory in the vicinity that would have been able to capture other seismic shocks premonitory of the eruption" that could have allow us to glimpse or glimpse something of what was forged inside the island's land and perhaps even predict the probable place of the future eruption ".

The engineer would have been amazed by the large number of instruments that today allow the volcano to be monitored and studied, although it is still impossible to determine when it will stop emitting lava.

In his account, he listed the known eruptions on the island since the one that occurred in 1585 in Los Llanos.

In 1646 the Tigalate eruption took place, whose crater opened in the same region of the 1949 eruption, a couple of kilometers further south, on the so-called Cabrito mountain.

Shortly after, in 1667, the eruption of Fuencaliente took place, the most important of the four historical ones that are recorded, while in 1712, the eruption of El Charco took place.

For more than two centuries, La Palma remained calm.

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Know more

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