La Palma volcano eruption update: voluminous lava flows invade the cone's flanks as crater area partially collapses
Mon, 4 Oct 2021, 11:58
11:58 AM | BY: T
Lava fountain and lava flows from the vent at La Palma last night
Seismic signal since yesterday (image: IGN)
Ash plume this morning (image: Eva / @evis ka / facebook)
Earthquakes under La Palma during the past 3 days (image: IGN)
Yesterday afternoon, a portion of the southwestern crater area collapsed, effectively creating an elongated depression where the summit vents are aligned. A flood of lava poured onto the western flank as a result, and for some time, the lower vent (the one that formed 10 days ago on the SW flank) produced violent dome-shaped liquid lava fountains.
Later on, this vent decreased the fountaining activity, while one of the adjacent higher summit vents began to produce pulsating, very tall lava fountains reaching approx. 500-600 m:
The effusive vent beyond the NW foot of the cone seemed to have decreased its activity a lot, perhaps due to crusting over and tunneling of the lava flow.
Volcanic tremor remains stable at high levels. Earthquakes have increased in number and average size. During the past 24 hours, there were 22 quakes of magnitudes 3.0-3.7, many of them felt in the area. Additionally, 44 quakes between 2.0 and 3.0. occurred, while there are probably hundreds of smaller quakes as well that cannot be detected within the signal dominated by the tremor.
All in all, the situation remains tense, and it's impossible to predict what will happen next.
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