Potential trouble - the El Hierro Volcano
Not being reported much in the mainstream media but...
From the
London Daily Mail:
Evacuation of smallest Canary Island begins after earthquake 'swarm' sparks fears of volcanic eruption
A holiday island popular with Britons is preparing for a mass evacuation because of a possible volcanic eruption.
Experts have recorded 150 tremors on El Hierro, the smallest of the Canary Islands, since yesterday - raising fears of an imminent eruption.
Last night 53 people were ordered out of their homes over fears of landslides and the army has been called in to prepare for a possible evacuation.
The concern:
Some 50,000 years ago, massive landslides triggered by earthquakes caused a large part of the island to crack off and fall into the Atlantic Ocean, according to Irish Weather Online.
That created the El Golfo valley on the island and caused an 300ft-high tsunami that probably reached the American coast.
This feeds into the belief that volcanic activity on La Palma - the most tectonically active of the Canary Islands - could trigger a mega-tsunami.
The theory - which has never been confirmed - claims that a possible fault line through the island would cause a major landslide under certain circumstances.
That landslide would then spark a tsunami that would cause extensive damage all down the Atlantic Coast of the U.S., the Caribbean, Western Europe, West Africa and the east coast of South America.
Up to the minute reporting from
Earthquake Report -- Part five
Every indication is that the eruption will form new land and be a quiet island building similar to Iceland's Surtsey.
Posted by DaveH at October 22, 2011 1:52 PM