To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Timanfaya National Park, the Mancha Blancas Visitor and Interpretation Center held three conferences given by different experts in volcanology this Tuesday afternoon.
There is a recurring message that the scientific community has been conveying since the start of the program of activities commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Timanfaya National Park. We must have "a strong historical memory" to learn from the past, guarantee "scientific research" that allows us to take timely measures, and ensure that the population "knows what to do in the event of a volcanic crisis."
This is not an alarmist or catastrophic message: it is science at the service of society, in an active volcanic territory like the Canary Islands, where Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and Gran Canaria have the lowest volcanic hazard index in the archipelago, but Tenerife, El Hierro, and La Palma have the highest.
The management of the Tao, Nuevo del Fuego, and Tinguatón eruptions in 1824 can be considered a "success" for several reasons. The population of Lanzarote had prior knowledge: Timanfaya was "a traumatic experience" that left its mark on society and the landscape. "This is not always the case because many emergencies are quickly forgotten, and it is important to keep in the society's memory that we live in a volcanic area, that these things can happen, and we must know how to react," explained Inés Galindo at the Geology Conference held at the Mancha Blanca Interpretation and Visitor Center.
In that 19th-century Lanzarote, the reaction was immediate. "It was the first time such a complete management was done." A single and military command, with criteria and sanctioning power, immediately began working on the ground and organizing work groups (initial reconnaissance, fracture measurement, assistance to affected people, damage identification, sample collection...). The island's chief mayor, Captain Ginés de Castro, kept a detailed diary of the eruption, an "essential" tool for monitoring the eruption's evolution.
"The population was an active part of the emergency system," Inés Galindo emphasized. Listening for underground noises or detecting that the ground is hot (things that citizens can perceive in the pre-eruptive phase) is "essential" information for the scientific community to "predict what is going to happen." It is also necessary for the entire population to know the Es Alert system, "a very important tool for saving lives and alerting us that we may be in danger."
Mazo: a new chronological sequence for Timanfaya
A fault had a significant effect on the Mazo eruption, which was the fourth eruption of Timanfaya and caused a change in the orientation of the fracture in which the craters opened. A study describes for the first time how a debris avalanche affected this monogenetic volcano (the most numerous type in the Canary Islands: small volcanoes that have erupted only once).
It happened in January 1731, and after numerous field works, analyses, and rereading of chronicles, IGME geologist Nieves Sánchez explained that there is evidence that the volcano was created in a single day, forming a very unstable elevation of 200 meters that collapsed immediately. It was a Strombolian eruption during which the cone collapsed, generating such a violent explosion that it left volcanic bombs half a kilometer away.
Timanfaya has an assigned volcanic explosivity index of 3 (moderate), but with the geological features identified in Mazo, the researchers consider it to have been a 4 (high). This would force us to "reconsider the danger associated with this type of volcano."
Dr. Carmen Romero, promoter of the study in Mazo, specialist in geomorphology, and one of the scientists who knows the Timanfaya National Park best, after forty years of working there, explained that surprisingly there are few studies on the characteristics of the park's lavas. "We continue to see them as a homogeneous patch, and that is not the case," she warned.
In just one hectare, up to seven different morphologies can be identified. It is a very complex lava field with a great deal of morphological variety. "In Timanfaya, we can see all the morphologies of basaltic volcanism."
The latest cartography reveals almost 64 km2, a larger area of pyroclasts and lapilli fields than we previously considered, and 148 km2 covered in lava. "It is an excellent lava field worldwide," said Carmen Romero.
