The lava flows from the new vents have quickly crossed the Tacande road and are enlarging the northern margin of the flow field, covering new so-far untouched land in that part. Updated data on the extent of lava flows and maps can be expected tomorrow.
The ongoing eruption is already counting as the largest on La Palma Island in over 500 years. It has likely overtaken the 1585 eruption at Tahuya as the largest by volume eruption on the island in recorded history. The latter erupted approx. 300 million cubic meters (or 0.3 cu km) of lava, while the exact volume of the current and still ongoing eruption is estimated to be at about this value already.
La nueva colada supera la carretera de Tacande, afectando a nuevos terrenos#eltime #lapalma #pevolca #erupcionlapalma #volcan #volcanlapalma https://t.co/22h4ei17M1 pic.twitter.com/ntSd1TAL9H
— El Time (@ElTimeLaPalma) November 28, 2021
Along with the new vents allowing magma to quickly rise through a new (and compared to the older vents likely „easier“) path, volcanic tremor has jumped up significantly this morning.
At the same time, the inflation from the past days has been neutralized by an almost equal deflation signal – this suggests that the extra amount of magma stored recently has been erupted during the ongoing surge of activity that began this morning. How long it will last will be shown in the near future.
The opening of the vents was not accompanied by significantly changed seismic activity, which indicates that the magma needed little energy to break through the ground at nearby locations as before. Earthquakes have increased marginally in numbers, but not in energy during the past 24 hours. The National Geographic Institute recorded 91 events of magnitudes up to 3.5.
The activity at the old and new vents produces dense ash plumes, rising to 1,600 m above sea level and drifting southwest over the Atlantic Ocean (and sparing the airport on the east coast).
As to the other lava flows, activity continues to feed them as well: according to the latest official summary of the situation, the flows labelled #7, #4-5 and #1-9, as well as #10, which has merged with #11 further south, but stopped its advance. Various active fronts are fed by the tube system, most notably in the area near Laguna Hill.
The total area covered by lava flows, including the lava deltas, stands at 1,151 hectares.
