Renewed submarine volcanism off the southern coast of El Hierro, as seen on November 5, 2011. Image courtesy of IGN.es

Trying to keep up with the news at El Hierro in the Canary Islands is hard – the seismicity and tremor has been almost nonstop for 6 months now and over the last few weeks, the submarine eruptions have waxed and waned – but now we seem to have entered another period of strong submarine activity (see above), which might possibly be closer to the ocean surface.

UPDATE 3:15 EDT: It looks like the phreatomagmatic explosive activity is beginning south of El Hierro. Prensa El Hierro tweeted (translated): “Juan Manuel Santana have just announced that produce water columns and ash.” La Restinga is being evacuated as a precaution. Some new video/images of the area shows small explosive plumes/jets from the ocean surface that suggest the eruption is enterting a Surtseyan phase. Here is a live feed of TV from El Hierro with updates.