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Canary Islands Eruption Could Create New Land

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-call-dibs dept.

wanzeo writes "An undersea volcano is erupting off the coast of the Canary Islands, bringing the potential for new land formation. The lava peak has grown 100 meters from the ocean floor, and is now just 70 meters from the surface. It has been seen ejecting rocks from the sea and producing jets of water 20 meters high. Increasing seismic activity has been monitored since July, an indication that magma is rapidly moving toward the surface. Local residents have been evacuated because of the potential danger from falling rocks or violent steam explosions if the lava gets too close."

30 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Dibs! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dibs on the new land!

    1. Re:Dibs! by Compaqt · · Score: 2

      SeaLand II, here we come!

      Seriously, though, I will anoint you King if I can get a duchy out of the deal.

      --
      I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
    2. Re:Dibs! by jimicus · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're far too late - a bunch of British expats have already bought the land and started the process of getting planning permission to build themselves villas and a shopping centre.

    3. Re:Dibs! by JustOK · · Score: 5, Funny

      only if it's passed from the left-hand side.

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    4. Re:Dibs! by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Funny enough, that already happened. In 1811 a similar underwater eruption near the Azores archipelago caught the eye of a captain of a HMS Sabrina, a British warship. After noticing that the underwater volcanic eruption formed a small island, HMS Sabrina's captain decided to claim it for Britain through the cunning use of flags, in essence stealing portuguese land from under them and thumbing the nose at the Portuguese crown, which also happened to be an allied state. They named the new island Sabrina island and proceeded to have a diplomatic row over this small episode. In the end the joke was on Britain, as the newly formed island crumbled into the sea.

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    5. Re:Dibs! by sa1lnr · · Score: 2

      Expats?

      Isn't that Brit speak for job stealing foreign immigrants. :)

    6. Re:Dibs! by laejoh · · Score: 5, Funny

      Cunning use of flags? The captain's name was Baldrick?

    7. Re:Dibs! by erick99 · · Score: 2

      Is there international law to deal with new land? I would be curious to know if that is the case. If land popped up in the middle of the ocean, well outside whatever countries consider to be within their own waters, how could one go about claiming the land? By the way, I don't want any land - I have a hard enough time keeping a townhouse with a tiny front yard and tiny backyard maintained.

      --
      http://www.busyweather.com/
    8. Re:Dibs! by icebike · · Score: 4, Informative

      Funny enough, that already happened. In 1811 a similar underwater eruption near the Azores.

      While this island lies clearly within the territorial limits of the Canary Islands (Spain) the question of Lo'ihi is not so certain.

      Lo'ihi is still some distance (~969 meters) below the surface, but growing steadily, and when it breaks the surface it will be 30km from the Big Island in Hawaii, which is well outside the US claimed 22km territorial limit. The chances of the US allowing anyone else to claim it are slim to none, but the precedent set in 1811 would pretty much assure the US will have boots on the ground before anyone else gets a chance.

      While Hawaiian volcanoes are typically slow growing, Lo'ihi is thought to be fed by the same lava plume feeding the Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes. Should the plume find easier going to the east, Lo'ihi could draw upon pretty vast resources and grow much faster.

      --
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    9. Re:Dibs! by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      Do you think this volcano might shake that bit of rock loose and sink the USA?

      https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Megatsunami#Canary_Islands

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jlaiJRwU6Q

      --
      No sig today...
    10. Re:Dibs! by Cheeko · · Score: 2

      Even if it DOES grow much faster, you're still talking faster in Geological terms.

      It will be thousands and more likely tens of thousands of years before Lo'ihi breaks the surface.

      Also (was on the big island not 2 weeks ago) while visiting I the USGS site in Volcanoes National park, the prevailing belief is that long term Lo'ihi will merge with the big island as another peak the way Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea already have.

  2. How far off shore? by TooTechy · · Score: 2

    I read the articles, and it's possible I missed something, but how far away from the existing land masses is the eruption and in which direction? All I saw was a vague mention of "South" at some point.

    Anyone?

    1. Re:How far off shore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I read the articles, and it's possible I missed something, but how far away from the existing land masses is the eruption and in which direction? All I saw was a vague mention of "South" at some point.

      Anyone?

      Sure, between 2.6 and 3 km south of "La Restinga", "El Hierro" island

    2. Re:How far off shore? by kwark · · Score: 3, Informative

      From the TFA (photos):
      http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-74922-16.html

    3. Re:How far off shore? by TooTechy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thanks!

    4. Re:How far off shore? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      Nice, currently modded 'informative'.

      How about this - TFA has some beautiful pictures including nifty maps and satellite views. Even a computer generated 3D view of the sea floor.

      Outstanding!

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. Cause? by jamesl · · Score: 4, Funny

    I blame global warming.

  4. Not so far from Cumbre Vieja by djmurdoch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The eruption is near the island of El Hierro, about 90 km south of the volcano Cumbre Vieja on La Palma. A few years ago Cumbre Vieja was in the news as a possible source of a mega-tsunami that would devastate the west coasts of Africa and Europe and the east coast of North America. Wikipedia has the story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbre_Vieja. The problem is that the volcano is unstable, and it could collapse and dump 500 km^3 of rock into the ocean.

      Hopefully 90 km is far enough away not to bother it...

    1. Re:Not so far from Cumbre Vieja by Anynomous+Coward · · Score: 2

      From that site:

      No se sabe en este momento si Ryanair, famoso por volar a los aeropuertos fuera de la ciudad, planea abrir una ruta a la isla recién nacida.

      LOL.

      --
      I'm not a coward by any name.
    2. Re:Not so far from Cumbre Vieja by RockDoctor · · Score: 2

      A few years ago Cumbre Vieja was in the news as a possible source of a mega-tsunami that would devastate the west coasts of Africa and Europe and the east coast of North America.

      And from some of that satellite imagery in the photo gallery accompanying TFA, you can clearly see why : the concave collapse scar that makes up the NNE coast of the island ; the corresponding scar making up the SW side. The ESE side doesn't have a clear concave shape, but in the digital elevation models that give the topography in images 9 and 10 of the photo gallery you can see arcuate ridges in the landscape on that side. To me that reads "collapse scars" too.

      IIRC, from notes on a volcanology course I attended on Tenerife earlier this year, there are clear signs of in excess of 20 major landslip events around the Canaries.

      The problem is that the volcano is unstable,

      ALL volcanoes are unstable, until they erode/ collapse to be level with their surrounding landscape. It's in the nature of being a pile of material with additional material being injected into the centre of the pile. Can you think of a counter-example of such a construction process that doesn't result in an unstable edifice? I can't, unless you look at the trivial case where the material viscosity is low enough that the edifice can't support itself and simply flows away.

      it could collapse and dump 500 km^3 of rock into the ocean.

      Which can be said for any volcano with a volume of more than 500 km^3 and which is in the ocean.

      Please note that this doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be X (for any large X) km^3 of rock above the sea surface. An undersea collapse that relocates (say) 100km^3 of rock from (say) Lo'ihi seamount off the Hawaiian coast, to a position spread out on the seabed 50km away and several km deeper, will still *move* sufficient km^3 of water from one point to another to generate tsunami at the surface. You don't need to dump rock into the ocean.

      (About 9000 years ago, something like 3500 km^3 of soft sediment relocated from the edge of the Norwegian continental shelf into the deep Atlantic ; the tsunami deposits have been found up to 30m AMSL in my area (which influences my house-buying options) and as far away as the Netherlands-Belgium-German border around 100km inland from the present coast. The "Storegga Slide" ; look it up.)

      --
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  5. More information by Sduic · · Score: 2

    Data Update 13/11 – 12:20 UTC : - Joke reports ups and downs. NO jacuzzi, but a brownish stain coming up now and then. NO magmatic material (at least not visible) in the stain area. - The stain coloring cannot be seen on the webcam. Joke stands 150 meter above the sea level and has a better view over the sea.

    Data Update 13/11 – 12:15 UTC : Webcam live again (eruption camera not stable – wind instability or technicians working on it)

    Data Update 13/11 – 10:38 UTC : - Joke has arrived at the Naos viewpoint and reports that a new stain is forming approx. or on the location of the former jacuzzi. The new stain is brownish at the inside , green at the ourskirts and a layer of foam at the edge. - she also says that people currently in La Restinga are reporting a strong gas smell

    Data Update 13/11 – 10:27 UTC : - 10 (volcanic) earthquakes since midnight. The strongest one being a 2.7 magnitude earthquake. - The depth varying from 18 to 23 km (only -10 km depth would be a very important new event) - GPS deformation (the change of the surface because of the pressure of the magma) is relatively unchanged, which is one of the indications (in combination with harmonic tremor) that the eruption i probably still going on.

    Source

    Incidentally, what are the chances they'll just end up with an atoll? Would this land rush be damp squib?

    --
    *this space intentionally left blank
    "One of the four pointers saying 'come and see', and I saw, and beheld a white
    1. Re:More information by alphatel · · Score: 3, Funny

      Data Update 13/11 – 12:20 UTC : - Joke reports ups and downs. NO jacuzzi, but a brownish stain coming up now and then. NO magmatic material (at least not visible) in the stain area. - The stain coloring cannot be seen on the webcam. Joke stands 150 meter above the sea level and has a better view over the sea.

      Data Update 13/11 – 12:15 UTC : Webcam live again (eruption camera not stable – wind instability or technicians working on it)

      Data Update 13/11 – 10:38 UTC : - Joke has arrived at the Naos viewpoint and reports that a new stain is forming approx. or on the location of the former jacuzzi. The new stain is brownish at the inside , green at the ourskirts and a layer of foam at the edge. - she also says that people currently in La Restinga are reporting a strong gas smell

      Data Update 13/11 – 10:27 UTC : - 10 (volcanic) earthquakes since midnight. The strongest one being a 2.7 magnitude earthquake. - The depth varying from 18 to 23 km (only -10 km depth would be a very important new event) - GPS deformation (the change of the surface because of the pressure of the magma) is relatively unchanged, which is one of the indications (in combination with harmonic tremor) that the eruption i probably still going on.

      Source

      I'm sorry but the whole thing reads like reporting from a flatulent fat man's bathtub.

      --
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    2. Re:More information by chill · · Score: 3, Informative

      Incidentally, what are the chances they'll just end up with an atoll? Would this land rush be damp squib?

      Zero. An atoll is made up of coral, not volcanic rock.

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    3. Re:More information by Jimme+Blue · · Score: 4, Informative

      Incidentally, what are the chances they'll just end up with an atoll? Would this land rush be damp squib?

      Zero. An atoll is made up of coral, not volcanic rock.

      I believe that answer is actually much greater than zero (possibly 1.00), depending upon the the allowed timescale. Coral atolls are formed on top of old volcanices.

      From the last the last of the following links:

      "In 1842 Darwin explained the creation of coral atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean based upon observations made during a five-year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836. Accepted as basically correct, his explanation involved considering that several tropical island types—from high volcanic island, through barrier reef island, to atoll—represented a sequence of gradual subsidence of what started as an oceanic volcano. He reasoned that a fringing coral reef surrounding a volcanic island in the tropical sea will grow upwards as the island subsides (sinks), becoming an "almost atoll", or barrier reef island, as typified by an island such as Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, Bora Bora and others in the Society Islands. The fringing reef becomes a barrier reef for the reason that the outer part of the reef maintains itself near sea level through biotic growth, while the inner part of the reef falls behind, becoming a lagoon because conditions are less favorable for the coral and calcareous algae responsible for most reef growth. In time, subsidence carries the old volcano below the ocean surface and the barrier reef remains. At this point, the island has become an atoll."

      http://www.eoearth.org/article/Atoll
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_Hawaiian_volcanoes
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoll

  6. Artificially created islands? by BlueCoder · · Score: 2

    Makes me wonder if it might be possible to exploit weak spots in the earth crust to create islands artificially. Second I wonder how safe it would be.

    But suppose instead of destabilizing the crust you instead you just drilled down to the magma and pumped it out? If you could build a piping system that
    could pump magma under cold ocean without clogging up the pipe that is... Forget about super conductors... what about super insulators at high temperatures?

    Maybe in a couple hundred years... Should be possible to create the equivalent land mass of Hawaii in a few different places in the worlds or to at least double or triple their the land masses of existing islands within a ten year controlled period.

    And for places like Yellowstone maybe even create a few mountains nearby to relieve the pressure.

  7. Re:Where's the video? by diegocg · · Score: 4, Informative

    Somthing like this?

  8. Re:Buy Land by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, I wonder what real estate agents on the Canary Islands are going to say now.

    Get it while it's hot?

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  9. Re:Buy Land by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, I wonder what real estate agents on the Canary Islands are going to say now.

    Get it while it's hot?

    Hopefully cooler heads will prevail.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  10. Better article by Smallpond · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Wired article from last month has better pictures and more information

    http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/el-hierro-eruption-continues-but-not-likely-to-form-new-island/

  11. Re:Hmm by RockDoctor · · Score: 2
    (1) they can fall down the submarine slopes. Just because the fluid they're falling through is inimical to your particular respiratory equipment, doesn't change the fundamentals of the situation.

    (2) As with the generic model of a volcano (typically envisioned as a strato-volcano, though this is actually a parasite cone on the flanks of a hybrid of shield- and strato-volcano), rock as magma and fragments of pumice is being injected at a central point on the volcano, then falls away down the flanks with little regard for whether the highest point of the edifice is in water or air.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"