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Tenerife has experienced a noticeable burst of seismic activity this week, with 92 small earthquakes recorded in just two days, but volcanologists are keen to stress that this does not mean an eruption is on the horizon.

 

According to the Volcanology Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan), the tremors were detected on Monday and Tuesday in the south west sector of the Las Cañadas caldera, inside Teide National Park. The largest quake reached a magnitude of 1.8, and the others were even weaker, which means none of them were strong enough for residents or visitors to feel.

 

Involcan describes the recent activity as “slightly above the usual average,” yet still within what they consider normal for an active volcanic island like Tenerife. Over the last year alone, their network has located 2,320 earthquakes on the island, which works out at just over six events a day. As the institute puts it, the current swarm “cannot be considered unusual for the island of Tenerife.”

 

Scientists say the key lies in where these quakes are happening and what is causing them. The epicentres are in an area where small earthquakes occur regularly, and Involcan believes they are “very likely” linked to the movement of hydrothermal fluids at depth, rather than magma rising towards the surface. They explain that this is part of an ongoing “pressurisation process of the magmatic–hydrothermal system” that has been observed since late 2016.

 

In that time, around 130 seismic swarms have been recorded on Tenerife, along with “significant increases” in diffuse carbon dioxide emissions from fumaroles around the Teide crater. Involcan says these longer term trends “clearly indicate that the volcanic activity at depth in Tenerife has undergone significant changes over the past nine years.”

 

Even so, the message from the experts is measured rather than alarmist. “This seismic episode does not imply changes in the likelihood of a volcanic eruption, either in the short or medium term, which remains low,” the institute emphasises. In short, the latest swarm is another sign that Tenerife’s volcanic system is evolving slowly, but there is still no evidence of an imminent eruption.

 

 

Image: alex vanvloten/Pixabay