Earth tremor in La Gomera

There has been a minor earthquake of magnitude 2.1 registered on Tuesday morning, Aug. 3rd 2021, at 03:17 am. The tremor occurred at a depth of 14 kilometres and W-NW of the island's capital San Sebastian de La Gomera at latitude 28.0996, longitude -17.1381. The event was not felt by anyone, but comes as a bit of a surprise because La Gomera is considered volcanically dead, while all neighbouring islands are still active.

 

Closer but insignificant quake off north coast

Just a few days after the locally felt tremor off the north-western coast of La Gomera another seismic tremor averaging just 1,6 (with a peak value of 2,2 mbLg at GOM station) on the Richter scale was registered less than 25 hours ago a short distance off La Gomera's north-north-eastern coast in a depth of 15.2  kms. Quakes of such a minor strenght are inappreciable and happen frequently in and around the Canary Islands, but are rare near La Gomera's coastline. Read more...

Minor earthquake felt in La Gomera

The red star (left) shows the epicentre of the minor earth tremor

A minor earth tremor averaging 2.8 on the Richter scale occurred at a depth of only eight kilometres in the Atlantic very close to La Gomera's west-north-western coast at around 11:10 pm late Tuesday night, January 22nd 2019

This is nothing to worry about, as La Gomera's former volcanoes are long extinct and the island has not experienced any volcanic activity for far more than a million years, being one of the oldest islands in the Canaries. La Gomera existed long before the volcanically very active neighbouring island of El Hierro was even born. However, the abundant seismic activity in and around the Canary Islands rarely comes as close and in such shallow depth as Tuesday night's minor earth tremor.

Generally volcanic activity in the Canaries is of a 'mild nature', but magma movements deep under and around the Canary Islands cause regular tremors. It is however a rare occurrence that such a quake is registered by the seismic station situated in the mountains of the national park with an epicentre so close to La Gomera, and last night's tremors were felt by the population in La Gomera's sparsely populated west and north, see the pointers in the map above, which the show locations of verified reports published by the Spanish National Geographic Institute (IGN). This quake also registered at all seismic stations in neighbouring islands, with the peak value 3.9 having been recorded at the station in La Gomera (EGOM)  a few seconds before 23:10h, at the start of the tremor.

The last minor quake recorded close to La Gomera was recorded in September 2017, see previous post...

Evento	Fecha	Hora UTC	Hora Local (*)	Latitud	Longitud	Profundidad (km)	Magnitud	Tipo Mag.	Int. max.	Localizacion
es2019apdcj	22/01/2019	23:09:47	23:09:47	28.2262	-17.5079	8	2.8	mbLg	II	ATLÁNTICO-CANARIAS

Earthquake felt in Tenerife and Gran Canaria

The red star shows the epicentre and the pointers indicate locations where the quake was reportedly felt

A 4.2 magnitude earthquake was felt his morning at 6.36am according to the Spanish National Geographic Institute (IGN). The institute's stations spread across the Canaries registered a seismic movement with its epicentre located in the Atlantic between the islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife, at a depth of 14.3 kilometres.

The tremors which lasted about one minute were felt in several municipalities of both islands and some people there were woken up by the quake. According the National Geographic Institute’s records, the earthquake reached a peak magnitude of 4.6 within a few seconds of starting. Another three very minor quakes were detected in the same area at between 1.7 and 1.9 magnitude before the stronger one. There were no reports of any damage.

The sea area between these two islands experiences minor earthquakes very regularly and today's slightly stronger one would still be seen as part of normal seismic activity in this area, so please ignore any alarmist reports that some irresponsible media sources have published (e.g. The Express (UK) ran the sensationalist headline: ''TENERIFE EARTHQUAKE: Atlantic smashed by 4.2 magnitude quake near La Palma volcano''.) Yeah La Palma, where doom to 'smash' us all is supposedly brewing below the surface, had to be mentioned again. Sorry but the only word for that headline, and for the La Palma doomsday scenario hype of a few years ago, is BULLSHIT !

Minor earthquake close to La Gomera

Evento	Fecha	Hora GMT	Hora Local (*)	Latitud	Longitud	Profundidad (km)	Magnitud	Tipo Mag.	Int. max.	Localizacion
es2017ldmmo	17/09/2017	20:49:03	21:49:03	28.1755	-17.1168	9	2.0	mbLg		E AGULO.IGM

A minor earth tremor of 2.0 on the Richter scale occurred at a depth of nine kilometres close to La Gomera's north-eastern coast at around 9 pm on Sunday night, Sept. 17th 2017.

This is nothing to worry about, as La Gomera's former volcanoes are long extinct and the island has not experienced any volcanic activity for far more than a million years, being one of the oldest islands in the Canaries. La Gomera existed long before the volcanically very active neighbouring island of El Hierro was even born.

Generally volcanic activity in the Canaries is of a 'mild nature', but magma movements deep under and around the Canary Islands cause regular tremors. It is however a rare occurrence that such a quake was registered by the seismic station situated in the mountains above the town of Agulo with an epicentre so close to La Gomera.

Quake of 3,7 close to El Hierro

07/11/2015 20:01:13UTC    27.6906 (Lat.) -18.0586 (Long.) 

There has been an earthquake of 3,7 magnitude with the epicentre at 14 kms depth just off the southwest coast (see above) of the island of El Hierro just after 8pm (UTC) last night. The quake was widely felt on El Hierro.

The seismic activity had become very quiet over the past year and a half after a relatively active period which began in July 2011 and culminated in the underwater eruption of a new volcanic vent which came close to the surface and several stronger tremors which caused landslides and forced the closure of the island's main road tunnel. Luckily there were no injuries and life returned to   normal. The total number of seismic tremors recorded there since July 2011 now stands at an impressive 22.000 !

06/11/2015 04:01:00 UTC

Lately there appears to be an increase in seismic activity around the Canary Islands and especially El Hierro again. Only two days ago there was an earth tremor between Tenerife and Gran Canaria, also of 3,7 magnitude on the Richter scale, which was felt in several locations on both islands and according to some press reports even in Vallehermoso on La Gomera. This one was at a depth of 30 kms and is in an area where slight tremors occur fairly regularly.

About a week before that a 3,1 quake occurred far off the southwest coast of El Hierro at the same depth.

All these quakes are minor, but they show that the magma beneath the Canary Islands never really rests and it lets us feel that from time to time. While the 'young' island of El Hierro is especially active, its much, much older sister La Gomera is volcanically long extinct and quiet.
UPDATE: The strength of the El Hierro tremor has been revised and is now set at 3,8. 
On Nov 10th there was quake of 3,1 recorded east of La Oliva on Fuerteventura.