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Arquivo para December 7th, 2021

Between science and believe

07 Dec

Whenever the weather changes: rains, floods, storms, hurricanes and now volcanoes and earthquakes something worries us, it is necessary to separate what is in fact supernatural from the natural that exists, even if catastrophic, science helps, but it doesn’t always have answers ready.

It was like a Covid-19 problem and the La Palma volcano is now drawing attention for its unpredictability, but it has helped science that has collected a much larger number than in other eruptions and its variation also helps to study different influences, the shape of the soil, the earthquakes and temperatures close to the volcano, the type of soil (in this case there are several deep cracks) and the type of lava effusion.

A recent opinion article, volcanology is not a science that can make predictions, in fact, in the opinion of physicists such as Werner Heisenberg and philosophers such as Edgar Morin their predictions, even though possible, are hypotheses, but in the case of volcanology the Cumbre Vieja, volcano of La Palma, has helped.

An article published in the journal Science and which was the subject of an article in the journal El Pais, by researcher Marc-Antoine Longpré elaborated a series of opinions, including that: “The course-term forecast is based on technology and on the recognition of patterns of behavior of volcanoes, as well as constant improvement, as volcanologists gather more data”, as is the case with this eruption of Cumbre Vieja, in La Palma, in the Canary Islands.

The article published in the prestigious journal Science, begins by explaining that it had 50 years of rest and is historically the most active of the Canary Islands, it erupted on September 19, 2021, and will complete one of the longest eruption periods of the day. December 19, when it will reach 3 months of eruption and the article informs that the longest on record was 3 months and 3 weeks.

But the seismic patterns started on the date of September 11th, I wrote the article: “the number of detected earthquakes quickly increased to several hundred per day, of which only a subset was located”, and grouped in much smaller depths (<12 km ) and of lower seismicity than the previous one (around 3 to 4 degrees on the Richter scale), and with a displacement to the area of =the volcano that erupted on the 19th, this already marks a pattern for eruptions (see graphics of author) Another fact observed was the appearance of two fissures, in addition to the elevation of the ground and the formation of the volcanic cone, each fissure measuring about 200 m in length, 1 km above sea level and 2 km from the village of El Paraèso which was rapidly evacuated without reaching the residents.

The author informs that the eruption shows no signs of abating, and speaks of the social drama for the local population and compares saying that it is similar to Kilauea, and asks if interested parties, of course, are including financial and political interests, if in the long term will it be possible to permanently reduce the risk associated with urban development on the flanks of the Cumbre Vieja?

This is the important social fact, preventing deaths as happened recently with the eruption of the Semeru Volcano in Indonesia where 14 deaths initials (today it rose to 34), the article was prophetic in this regard, since it was published days before this eruption, yes extraordinary things are possible and even even supernatural, but who has the authority to assert them? it is necessary to avoid fake news and a climate of terror that contributes nothing, but caution, as is the case with the Pandemic, is necessary and prudent.

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