La Palma volcano dust cloud reaches Puerto Rico in the Caribbean

La Palma volcano dust cloud reaches Puerto Rico in the Caribbean

La Palma volcano dust cloud reaches Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. image: twitter

A dust cloud from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma has reached the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico 

A dust cloud from the Sahara desert, containing sulphur dioxide (SO2) originating from the volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma, has today, Sunday, October 3, affected the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico.

The cloud has reportedly caused a deterioration in the air quality of the Caribbean territory, and was disclosed through social networks by the Caribbean Astronomy Society. In online posts, the entity revealed how the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) had detected the sulphur dioxide cloud.

Subsequently, the satellite had traced the origin back to the Canary Island of La Palma, and the Cumbre Vieja volcano. The volcano has now been active since September 19, and has allegedly emitted as much as 3,401 tons of sulphur dioxide per day into the atmosphere in its volcanic plumes.

The emission of these gases is becoming richer in sulphur and poorer in carbon over time, reflecting the emission of more degassed magma from a shallow conduit. The diffuse emission associated with the Cumbre Vieja ridge has reached values ​​of 1,813 tons per day, and the emission of invisible gases does not represent a danger to the population.

Seismicity activity is reported to be similar to that of the first few days of the eruption, at depths of between 10 to 15km, although some have been at a greater depth than 20km.

Involcan has reported dozens of earthquakes registered during the last 24 hours, the strongest at a 3.6 magnitude, felt with intensity III. High frequencies have also been registered in some seismic stations near the lava delta. The deformations show a slight downward trend in the stations far from the eruptive centre, as in recent days, while in the nearby stations they continue to show stability, as reported by 20minutos.es.

A clear increase on the efussive activity has been observed in the last minutes, here is the latest image from Involcan, posted on their Twitter feed at around 8pm local Canaries time.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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