Seismic swarm on Teide: 500 earthquakes detected in just three hours

The National Geographic Institute (IGN) has detected between 04:00 and 07:20 hours (UTC) this Thursday an anomalous microseismic activity in Las Cañadas del Teide, with at least 500 earthquakes detected in the same area where seismic swarms have been recorded in recent years.

This anomalous microseismic activity has been located southwest of Pico Viejo, where seismic swarms have been previously recorded in October 2016, June 2019 and June and July 2022, according to the IGN.

The activity began with a series of 10 earthquakes of magnitude less than 1.1 (mbLg) at a depth of between 8 and 12 kilometres in the area, followed by long-duration signals, without defined seismic phases, and with high frequency content. This gave way to a long series of hundreds of events of small and similar magnitude, which occur at almost regular intervals of time, in the form of a "drum roll", as specified by the IGN. Due to the weakness of the seismic parameters recorded, the earthquakes with a lower magnitude have been detected by the automatic system, but they are not located with sufficient quality to be included in the official IGN catalogue.

The IGN indicates that it will continue to monitor the activity in this area.