Photo : Involcan
More than 54 earthquakes were detected in the marine fault zone separating Tenerife and Gran Canaria, between Sunday morning and early Monday morning.
Starting from 12:23 on Sunday, October 7, 2018 until 07:00 Monday, October 8, 2018, the Canary Seismic Network detected a seismic swarm between the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, of which 54 small magnitude earthquakes were located at depths of between 10 and 20 km below the earth’s crust.
The largest recorded earthquake in this recent seismic swarm measured 2.0 on the Richter scale. The swarm was located in the same area as a similar swarm recorded between April 29 and May 4, this year, when 160 earthquakes were detected the maximum magnitude measured of which was 2.5. The map shows the hypocenters of this last seismic swarm (red color) and those of the seismic swarm of April-May 2018 (gray color).
These swarms were all located in one of the most active seismic zones of the Canary archipelago, where small earthquakes can be located daily. Seismic swarms, although very frequently related to volcanic activity, are also often recorded in areas of tectonic activity. For the moment Involcan is treating this phenomenon as being of purely scientific interest and say that it does not involve any kind of risk for the population so far as they can tell from available evidence.
The Canary Seismic Network is operated by the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (INVOLCAN)
