Fears as Spanish island's biggest volcano has 40 percent of erupting, according to experts
The swarm of 700 tiny earthquakes, felt in Las Cañadas, southwest of Pico Viejo, in this week had left islanders fearing Teide might erupt at the height of Tenerife's busiest tourist season.
The active volcano is a major draw for nature enthusiasts, bringing in more than three million visitors a year. The latest swarm began at 2am local time on August 7th and carried on until dawn.
The peak last erupted in 1909 but experts have now suggested there's a 30 to 40 per cent chance of another eruption within the next 50 years.
This week experts at the National Geographic Institute (IGN) said further investigations suggest that it's unlikely the volcano will erupt very soon, with the swarm not at a level of magnetic intrusion that suggests major activity is set to happen imminently.
Director of the IGN in the Canary Islands, Itahiza Domínguez, said the four-hour spurt of activity on Tenerife wasn't a cause for concern, although it is the sixth swarm recorded in the Las Cañadas area since 2016.
In a statement, reports El Dia, he said: 'You could say this is nothing, but it's clear that this is yet another step in magmatic activity.
'We have to work as if the next intrusion were tomorrow. It could happen; it happened in La Palma.'
He added: 'Someday there will be an eruption in Tenerife, we don't know if in one year, ten years, or a hundred years.'
Before an eruption there are clear precursory signals in seismicity, gas and ground deformation.
Researchers say the tremors are part of the islands' normal seismic activity and differ greatly from those felt before the eruption of the Tajogaite volcano in nearby La Palma in 2021.
Tajogaite, known as 'cracked mountain', erupted for 86 days, ending in December of 2021 spewing ash and rivers of lava over the Aridane valley below - with homes, roads, fields and banana plantations swallowed whole.
La Palma, home to about 85,000 people who live mostly from fruit farming and tourism, is roughly 22 miles long and 12 miles wide at its broadest point.
The Canary Islands are found between the African, Eurasian and American tectonic plates, exposing them to regular seismic activity.
Mount Teide is the highest mountain in Spain, and forms part of the most visited national park in Europe; it can be seen from almost all of the north of Tenerife and much of the south too.
According to Eric Dunham, an associate professor of Stanford University's School of Earth, energy and Environmental Sciences, 'Volcanoes are complicated and there is currently no universally applicable means of predicting eruption. In all likelihood, there never will be.'
However, there are indicators of increased volcanic activity, which researchers can use to help predict future eruptions.
Researchers can track indicators such as volcanic infrasound, when the lava lake rises up in the crater of an open vent volcano, a sign of a potential eruption - the pitch or frequency of the sounds generated by the magma tends to increase.
Gas emissions too are major signifiers. As magma nears the surface and pressure decreases, gases escape.
Sulfur dioxide is one of the main components of volcanic gases, and increasing amounts of it are a sign of increasing amounts of magma near the surface of a volcano.
And changes to a volcano's ground surface (volcano deformation), which appear as swelling, sinking, or cracking can be another major indicator, say experts
Which can be caused by magma, gas, or other fluids (usually water) moving underground or by movements in the Earth's crust due to motion along fault lines. Swelling of a volcano cans signal that magma has accumulated near the surface.
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