The formation of the first islands, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, began 20 million years ago. By contrast, El Hierro and La Palma, where the volcano erupted on September 19, are the youngest islands, 1.2 million and 1.8 million years old, respectively. The hot spot is still below them, which is why these islands have active volcanoes that expand their surface, wrote El País.
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In 2011, the magma reservoir formed an underwater volcano on the island of El Hierro, which almost reached the surface. In this way, all the Canary Islands have been formed, which are in fact giant volcanoes.
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The oldest islands will eventually disappear
For example, La Palma measures 6,500 meters from the bottom of the ocean, which is a few hundred meters less than the highest peak in South America, And Aconcagua. The oldest islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, on the other hand, shrink due to erosion and eventually disappear completely below sea level.
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“The eruption on La Palma is without a doubt the most destructive in the history of Spain,” said 79-year-old geologist Juan Carlos Carracedo, who dedicated his life to studying volcanoes in the Canary Islands.
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Since La Palma was conquered by the Castilians in 1493, seven other volcanoes have been recorded, whose lava has eroded houses, crops and harbors during eruptions. However, the impact of these disasters was much smaller than the current eruption, as the island was less populated and without economic engines in the form of banana greenhouses and tourism.
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“Even Timanfaya on Lanzarote did not do so much damage in 1730,” added Carracedo, professor emeritus at the University of Gran Canaria.
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The last chapter in the history of volcanic activity
A lava flow from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Palma has destroyed or damaged more than 1,000 buildings since September 19 – far more than has been reported in other eruptions. This is the last chapter in the history of two tens of millions of years of volcanic activity in the Canary Islands. The phenomenon brings extinction and creation, because without the volcano, these islands would not exist at all.
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For the past five centuries, the country has always opened up to Cumbre Vieja, an impressive mountain ridge stretching to the south of the island, which intersects almost 30 craters. The lava tongues of most previously recorded eruptions, as now, have advanced along the western slope of Cumbre Vieja. Many of them reached the sea, where they created platforms expanding the size of the island.
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“The eruption that created the largest piece of land at the sea was from 1949,” Carracedo continued. “They covered the area with fertile land brought from another part of the island and planted banana trees, a tropical plant that grows best at sea level. (Plantations) are therefore currently one of the most productive on the island, “he added.
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Causes an earthquake
Volcanologists believe that there is a hot spot under the Canary Islands, a reservoir of high-temperature magma that is constantly trying to find a place to get to the surface. It causes earthquakes and earthquakes until it boils. It is the same type of volcanic activity that created the US Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
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However, the hot spot theory is controversial in some respects, El País recalls. By itself, it fails to fully explain all volcanic activity in the Canary Islands, such as the relatively recent eruptions on older islands such as Lanzarote.
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Crater collapse
In any case, the activity of the volcanic complex does not end. The lava flow on La Palma continues to thicken after another volcanic crater collapsed on Sunday, Reuters reported.
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The lava from the volcano continues to flow into the sea water, now it flows from four cracks. Authorities have ordered several thousand residents not to leave their homes due to the poisonous gases released into the air on the west coast of the island, where a mass of lava has been flowing into the sea for several days.
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WITHOUT COMMENT: So far, lava has hit over 1,000 buildings and covered about 338 hectares of land.
Video: IGME-CSIC, AP
“The Spanish government will help restore the island of La Palma, where the eruption of the volcano forced thousands of people to leave their homes and destroy hundreds of buildings,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez promised on Sunday. He stated that the government would approve aid of 206 million euros (5.2 billion crowns) for the island, and at the same time assured that there was no danger to tourists on the island.
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The eruption of Cumbre Vieja volcano has destroyed over 1,000 buildings. About 6,000 people out of a total of 83,000 residents of La Palma were evacuated. A mass of lava has devastated about thirty kilometers of roads, with more damage added to banana growers.
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End? Hard to say…
As Petr Brož, a domestic expert from the Institute of Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, recently mentioned on his Twitter, we don’t really know how long the eruption will last. “It can end in five minutes, it can run for days, weeks, months, maybe even years. All variants are known from history, “he wrote.
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“We are facing a test of perseverance … We do not know when the eruption will end,” the Spanish prime minister now remarked.
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