11,000 Earthquakes in 10 Months—Here's Why

Added: 2026-05-29

[00:00:00]Nobody can explain why a region beneath the Canary Islands just recorded over 11,000 earthquakes in less than a year.

[00:00:06]And what's happening underground right now could reshape an entire island. Deep beneath the western Canary Islands in a zone called Hierro, something massive is moving upward through the ocean floor.

[00:00:17]Scientists detected a 30 km wide body of magma pushing its way through fractured oceanic crust. And they can actually measure how fast it's rising. This isn't some distant threat. It's directly connected to La Palma, an island that erupted catastrophically in 2021. That eruption created a 4 km wide collapse scar at the summit, a massive crater left behind when the volcano emptied itself. But here's the terrifying part.

[00:00:43]Volcanologists confirmed in 2023 that this crater isn't staying empty. Fresh magma is actively refilling it at a measurable rate of 0.3 cubic km per year. That means the volcano isn't done.

[00:00:56]The mantle plume beneath the seafloor is feeding new molten rock directly into the mountain. Those 11,000 earthquakes since January 2024 are essentially a countdown timer. The ground is fracturing, magma is rising, and the system is pressurizing. Scientists are watching this in real time, tracking every tremor. What happens when that refilled magma chamber gets full enough to erupt again? We might find out sooner than anyone expected.