Volcano fear hits Tenerife

Another volcano we have to worry about, and could erupt at any moment.

BRITS off to Tenerife are being warned of the danger of a massive volcano eruption.
Experts are worried about “semi-volcanic activity” in 12,200ft Mount Teide — Spain’s highest peak.

Tenerife, largest of the Canary Islands, does not have evacuation plans if there is an eruption.

Scientist Dr Alicia Garcia said: “Tenerife is our great worry and problem.

“The Canary Islands have become very vulnerable because of the high level of tourism.”

About 1.5million Brits visit Tenerife each year and many take the cable car up Mount Teide.

It erupts around once every 100 years — and the last was in 1909.

www.thesun.co.uk...

Wow, if that mountain fall into the sea, East Coast gonna get WET..
I saw a program on Discovery about it ...

The wave the huge mass of rock is going to make in the ocean gonna be making huge tsunamies....

That almost sounds like a huge possible coastal event in the near future. I wonder where i have heard something like that before....

Times are changing, I hope people are prepared.

That would be too bad...such a beautiful island!

I say so be it. The Island's beauty has been marred by human settlement and commerce.

Originally posted by ChemBreather
Wow, if that mountain fall into the sea, East Coast gonna get WET..
I saw a program on Discovery about it ...

The wave the huge mass of rock is going to make in the ocean gonna be making huge tsunamies....

It certainly doesn't look good:
www.youtube.com...

I agree it is cause for concern although The Sun refers to observations supposodly made in january but according to this source those observations were made in january 2005.

Still, increased volcanic activity in a popular tourist destination should be taken very seriously.

No, it would seem i was mistaken somewhere, The Sun does not qoute the source i provided, sorry.

*scratches head and decides its time for bed*

[edit on 23/4/09 by logicalview]

reply to post by ChemBreather


HOLD ON GUYS

Firstly the programme was based on Las Palma's a different island to Tenerife, where this current activity is meant to be happening.....

Also the Mega Tsunami programme has been debunked, used flawed and made up modelling, positions of faults, historical evidence and extrapolated a 4km fault to 25 KM!

Many experts in this area of science have not accepted the programme, and the theory never went to peer review before the programme was Aired!

The report states:
- 'La Palma has a very stable construction.'
- 'The island has an abundance of obstacles which would prevent any block from sliding quickly'
- 'Any block would break into pieces'
- They modelled the island, but 'whatever they tried they couldn't generate a significant tsunami'
- they even modelled the island higher and steeper but still couldn't get La Palma to slide into the sea.
- 'the so-called steam-kettle effect was modelled, but simply blew some steam out through the top of the ridge but excerpted no lateral pressure. (Needed by Ward/Day/McGuire to kick-start the rock-slide)'
- 'they calculated that the lateral pressure needed to move half of La Palma would be the equivalent of 600 million jet-fighter engines'
- 'the island might possibly become unstable if the island grows taller, at the current rate that would take at least 10000 years'
- of the BBC Horizon programs claim that 'a huge massive block of rock is just waiting to slide into the sea' they accuse the researchers (Ward/Day/McGuire) of having 'a complete lack of insight into ground mechanics'
- even under the most extreme circumstances they could only create a wave 15cm to 100cm tall at the coast of America
- the Delft researchers join the chorus of scientists who state that Ward/Day/McGuire used an incorrect algorithm to calculate the size of the tsunami.

From a Dutch Research project in response to the Discovery Programme

Also

Here is Real Time Siesmicity at Tenerife, very very quite at the moment

Weekly activity report for worldwide volcanoes shows nothing:

New Activity/Unrest: | Ebeko, Paramushir Island | Fernandina, Galápagos Islands | Kliuchevskoi, Central Kamchatka (Russia) | NW Rota-1, Mariana Islands (Central Pacific) | Pagan, Mariana Islands (Central Pacific) | Paluweh, Lesser Sunda Islands (Indonesia)
Ongoing Activity: | Batu Tara, Komba Island (Indonesia) | Chaitén, Southern Chile | Karymsky, Eastern Kamchatka | Kilauea, Hawaii (USA) | Koryaksky, Eastern Kamchatka | Nevado del Huila, Colombia | Rabaul, New Britain | Redoubt, Southwestern Alaska | Shiveluch, Central Kamchatka (Russia) | Suwanose-jima, Ryukyu Islands (Japan) | Tungurahua, Ecuador

Smithsonian Institute

This whole Sun story comes from the long standing fears of an imminent eruption that was highlighted by Seismic Activity in 2004 and before, it has been calm since.

The scientist quoted, was only rehashing old news, the island will one day go, is sort of due for one, but maybe not in our lifetimes, and seemed more imminent 4 yrs than now.

Speaking on Tuesday, Ricardo Melchior, president of the island government, the Cabildo, was critical of Alicia García from the CSIC Higher Council for Scientific Investigation for speaking of concerns amongst scientists of the situation on Tenerife; he noted that another scientist from the CSIC, Juan Carracedo, says there is no risk, and added that the discrepancy between their opinions is proof of the need for a Volcanic Institute on the Canary Islands.

The Only recent story not from 2004 besides the SUn and glasgow Herald

Yep it will go again, but so will all active volcanoes, but when no one knows, and certainly nothing has happened over the last few months to indicate anything likely now.

Kind regards,

Elf.

[edit on 23-4-2009 by MischeviousElf]

reply to post by ChemBreather


The volcano that your talking about is the one in la palma which is the next island over.....if tenerife goes up it would wipe out all the other canary islands within hours......i used to live in fuerteventura and have been to tenerife twice and have been up that volcano!
Its twice the size of la palma volcano.....scary stuff.

NASA detail

The island of Tenerife itself is the third largest volcanic ocean island on Earth by volume. Teide is also the third highest volcano on a volcanic ocean island.[3] It is also unstable and possibly in a more advanced stage of deformation and failure than the much publicised Cumbre Vieja.[4]
en.wikipedia.org...

The large triangular island of Tenerife is composed of a complex of overlapping Miocene-to-Quaternary stratovolcanoes that have remained active into historical time. The NE-trending Cordillera Dorsal volcanic massif joins the Las Cañadas volcano on the SW side of Tenerife with older volcanoes, creating the largest volcanic complex of the Canary Islands.

www.volcano.si.edu...

We analyze the role of low-strength materials in the potential structural instability related to volcano spreading at the active Teide stratovolcano (Tenerife, Canary Islands). To study the low-strength materials we took advantage of a network of large tunnels within the volcano, excavated for water supply, which allows the in situ inspection and reconstruction of both volcano and substratum structure. We identified two factors which are potentially important to Teide's instability: 1) a dipping low-strength substratum breccia layer; and 2) a hydrothermally-altered weak core inside the volcano. Despite we do not find clear structural evidence for volcano substratum spreading, both Teide topographic shape and the summit faulting are features similar to those accepted as examples of volcano flank spreading over a weak core. The detected asymmetric deformation of the edifice makes the north flank of Teide a strong candidate for a potential failure.

cat.inist.fr...

Interesting stuff.

If the volcano does erupt and, as the last snippet states, the north flank fails, I'd be more concerned for the coast of Europe and the British Isles than America for the potential of a tsunami.


[edit on 23/4/09 by masqua]

Lets not forget that Teide sits in a large Caldera, either. If it can have an eruption that creates one, and then continues to build up, that has to be an interesting set of rock features. If it does go on the north side though, I doubt it will make a mega tsunami, for the simple reason that to do so would need to move a lot of material. Granted, that is possible for volcanism (ie see Yellowstone) to do so, but I would only expect a normal sized tsunami, if at all, because there is quite a distance between it and the Atlantic.

Of course, if it does go up, I really wouldn't want to be in the Canary Isles at the time.

Im praying it doesnt blow because my family all live in the Canaries!

Just found this article and thought of this thread amongst others.

Of course there are several probable causes for a tsunami hitting New York. I wonder whether there has been a landslide/volcano collapse in this region before?

this doesnt sound good.