The submarine volcanic eruption that began in mid-October in the Canary Islands, off the island of El Hierro, continued in early November 2011. Satellite acquired this natural-color image of El Hierro and a plume of volcanic material in the surrounding waters on November 2, 2011. The waters south of the island have been bubbling and fizzing with heat, sediment, bits of volcanic rock, and minerals for weeks, with the plume stretching tens of kilometers. The eruption is believed to be venting about 50 to 100 meters below the water surface, and it is warming the waters by as much as 10 degrees Celsius.
Caption and Photo source: NASA
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It is rare that the birth of an island can be watched by humans in real-time, but that could be what is happening in Spain’s Canary Islands.
Residents of La Restinga on the island of El Hierro were recently evacuated after weeks of earthquakes and the growing threat of an erupting underwater volcano that is making its presence known on the surface with an expanding, bubbling patch of dark debris.
The seismic activity off the coast alerted scientists to the fact that something interesting was happening under the sea…
