August seismic activity in the Canary Islands
The National Geographic Institute (IGN) has released its monthly report on seismic activity recorded across the Canary Islands. The data reveals the islands experienced 213 earthquakes in August, a notable increase from the 125 registered in July. Reassuringly for residents and visitors alike, none of these tremors were felt by the population.
Epicenter of activity: Tenerife’s volcanic landscape
The bulk of the seismic activity was concentrated on the island of Tenerife, where 122 earthquakes with magnitudes between -0.3 and 1.8 (mbLg) were detected. The most intriguing events were two “swarms” of micro-seismic activity. The first occurred on August 7th in the Las Cañadas del Teide area, southwest of Pico Viejo. This swarm was active for over three hours, with more than 700 very low-magnitude events detected.
A second, smaller swarm took place on August 30th in the same general area, lasting about 70 minutes and resulting in 42 detections. From this, 19 events were precisely located at depths around 5 kilometers below sea level, with a maximum magnitude of 0.8.
Offshore tremors and island-specific data
The strongest tremor of the month, measuring 2.9 in magnitude, had its epicenter in the ocean approximately 20 kilometers east of Gran Canaria. Significant activity was also recorded in the marine area between Gran Canaria and Tenerife, home to the Enmedio submarine volcano. Here, 57 earthquakes were registered with magnitudes up to 2.3 and remarkable depths reaching 71 kilometers.
On the island of La Palma, 13 tremors were located, mostly in the vicinity of the 2021 eruption lava flows and the central part of the Cumbre Vieja ridge, with a maximum depth of 17 km. Meanwhile, three earthquakes were detected west of El Hierro, all with epicenters at sea and magnitudes up to 2.5.
No significant ground deformations detected
For those monitoring the archipelago’s volcanic activity, a key finding is that throughout August, geodetic observations and InSAR analysis did not detect any significant ground deformations that could be linked to magmatic processes. The report concludes that no notable changes have been observed in the long-term deformations in central Tenerife since 2023, though longer observation periods are needed to fully assess their evolution.
