On the slope of Tajogaite volcano There is a duct of about 80 meters in length to which scientists have baptized as the “red tube” in the striking color of its walls. It is one of the many pipes for which the volcano evicted millions of cubic meters of lava during the eruption of September 2021, but it has special interest because the ventilation has lowered the interior temperature a bit and has allowed scientists for the first time to the “mouth of hell.”
“Here we see the vibrant red that has the wall of the tube; It is composed of a very superficial layer and forms stalactites that look like melted chocolate, ”explains Octavio Fernández, coordinator of the volcanic cave team that is cartographing these new Fire pipes. We are about 30 meters from the entrance Secret of the cave with the biologist and speleologist Francisco Govantes and the photographer Saúl Santosin addition to our guide. Hundreds of lava drippers that were paralyzed when the duct, such as the interior of a melted cake hangs on the walls and roof of the cave.
This area arrives a jet of outside air that counteracts the heat of the walls, but the next step is to advance another 50 meters at temperatures above 50ºC. The goal is to reach a place where a small opening on the roof, or Jamo, once again ventilates the gallery and see if we can continue the exploration.
It does not cool. It does not cool much, ”says Octavio Fernández. The heat is suffocating and the air burns the throat. “Gentlemen, we turn because you can’t be here”
We advanced crouched and with a firm step on the slag of the ground of the cave, but when you arrived in the Jameo area something does not go as our guide expected. “Does not cool. It does not cool much, ”says Octavio Fernández when we reach the place where we had to take a break. The heat is suffocating and the air burns the throat. “Gentlemen, we turn because you can’t be here. Slowly, don’t fall! ”
Then 60 seconds of descent to the race pass, trying not to touch the walls, which can be at 100 degrees, and containing their breath so as not to aspire to the burning air.
“It was bad. It is one of the worst conditions that we have encountered lately, ”acknowledges the speleologist when reaching the starting point, where the fresco of the entrance is like a breath of life. The ventilation conditions have caused the air to be well above 50ºC in the area where it should go down, as if the heart of the volcano were exhaling its breath towards the gallery. As proof of the extreme temperature, the photographer has melted the rubber of the gloves and the biologist have chamuscated some hair of the beard. “This has been a ROOM escape”, Jokes, already safe.
Life in the underworld
In this place where humans barely endure a few seconds, the team of Ana Millerof the IRNAS-CSIC, has collected samples and has found new species of extremophile microorganisms. Since they agreed to the cave in February 2023 with the help of Octavio Fernández, she and her team have found several thermophilic bacteria unknown so far for science. “We were studying the remains of life that have 300 years in the tubes of the Timanfaya National Park, in Lanzarote, when the eruption of the Tajogaite occurred and gave us a unique opportunity to document the process of ecological succession From the beginning, ”Miller explains by phone.
Entering the red tube is the closest thing to being on another planet
Ana Miller
– IRNAS-CSIC researcher
Scientists have already managed to cultivate some of these bacteria in the laboratory and are waiting to describe their physiology and metabolism to be able to name them. According to Miller, the interest of these extremophile microorganisms is double: on the one hand, for biomedicine, since their metabolites could have antimicrobial properties and be used for antibiotics against resistant strains; And on the other, from the perspective of astrobiology, because the lava tubes are analogs of the tubes detected on Mars. “Entering the red tube is the closest thing to being on another planet,” says the expert.
“Life always makes its way, it doesn’t matter what you put on,” he says Raúl PérezGeologist of the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME-CSIC) and another of the scientists that have explored these caves. The system that formed during the eruption of the palm is quite unique because it was a long and continued rash that lasted 85 days. And, in addition, because the type of eruption due to the temperature and viscosity of the lava favored the formation of the tubes. “They were made at several levels, which there is a three -dimensional and labyrinthine network,” he says. “Each of these tubes was a tap that expelled an impressive molten lava flow.”
The islands of life
What makes the red tube special, in addition to its color, is that it is the only one to which you can enter, although it cools much more slowly than they expected. “The others are more than 200 degrees,” says Octavio Fernández. The speleologist remembers the first foray into the red tube in which he picked up a sample in which he found life, despite the fact that the temperature is extreme. “A little above I picked up a stalactite with a sterile bag, so as not to contaminate it,” he explains. “And there bacteria that did not know each other.”
It is not the only place where life makes its way on the ground razed by eruption. During the two days in which we accompany Octavio Fernández through the volcano exclusion zone, going down with him to the caves that is cartographing in 3D, we run into small creatures that are colonizing the sterile terrain here and there.
In the perimeter zone of the volcano there are buried trees with some green sprouts, and we even pass by a buried in ashes that is giving figs. Above, on the edge of one of the main craters we find a couple of crickets that walk through the ash and in many of the cracks they nest spiders. A ladybug poses in our equipment in the part where the volcano still oozes sulfur and poisonous gases, near the so -called “700ºC crack”, and when we approach the entrance of the “tube of the lava waterfall” we are surprised by the flight of two pigeons, whose nest we find later inside the cave.
The terrain becomes more inhospitable near the craters, in one of whose ridges we see a tourist into shorts that has undertaken a suicidal incursion by an area with gas emissions. “You Cannot Be There. You Must Leave!”(He can’t be there. He must leave!), Our guide shouts in English, before losing sight of him and giving part by phone to the authorities of his presence.
Below we went into the areas of the castings, where the tongues of fire illuminated the night sky of the palm. We leave behind a forest of dead trees that stand out as stakes in black ash and walk on the call Malpaísthe loose rocks that creak to our path like crystals. In the lavic channels, sticks stand out that solidified when the flow stopped, frozen in time by cooling. In some points the lava is so fine that it is split as a cookie, with the danger of putting your foot in a hole that is still very hot.
We entered with Octavio Fernández in the gallery under the “ugly horn” and the “beautiful horn”, two norbotones of magmatic material formed by the thrust of the gases. The domes have some holes, the result of the bombardment of the last night in which the volcano dedicated himself to destroying part of his work, with a final traca. The restless speleologist separates from us and disappears by a pipe with the lidar chamber with which he scan the tunnels. After a while, dozens of meters reappear in another hole, such as a marmot that moves from one side to another through its underground kingdom.
On the slope of the tajuya crater, the internal heat of the volcano manifests itself with force and reddens the cheeks. From the soil emanate toxic gases that force us to wear a mask and the world becomes vaporous and strange. While the speleologist is changing the probe that measures the temperature of one of the cracks, we see a human figure to which our guide shouts to stop, because it will go without protection in an area where she can die suffocated. “I still there! Do not advance anymore! ” It is a civil guard who has been looking for the tourist that we have seen four hours before and, like him, does not seem to be aware of the danger.
The last “Kipuka”
Just below the main facade of the volcano is the “cracked mountain”, an elevation that can be considered the last Kipuka Intact after the eruption, a Hawaiian term to name the vegetation islands that are surrounded by lava and isolated from the rest of the ecosystem. “In the Canary Islands to these promontories that have survived the passage of the casts we call them Isletswhich is not a bad name, since after all they are surrounded by a sea of lava, ”says Francisco Govantes from the top.
In the first weeks, after the eruption there were other Kipukassome with houses isolated by the laundry, but little by little the machines have opened the accesses and leaving this place as the last redoubt. Within the cracked mountain some pines and vinegar grow that, according to Govantes, will act as a bridge and facilitate the colonization of sterile land by fungi and lichens. “If you look, at this point the casting is very wide,” he says. “If we did not have the islet I would have to colonize from the edges and save very large distances.” The same happens with the dozens of pine branches that, dragged by the wind, will serve as food for xylophagous insects, such as life -carriers.
A dividing border
When we turn around and take the view towards the summit of the volcano, emerged during the 85 days that shook the lives of the inhabitants of La Palma, the dividing line between life and death can be perfectly appreciated. The contrast between the green and full of life summits and the black cones of the volcano. “Over time, this cone will become that cone,” the biologist predicts. Here the landscape evolves at extraordinary speed and natural events that in other places have been in a few hours.
Below some houses that the eruption left half to bury, between the 3,000 constructions and 74 kilometers of roads that the lava took ahead. The background sound of machines reveals frantic activity and haste to return to normal life, also of humans. The scientists regret that the desire to build again on the same places has taken some unique geological formations ahead that could be conserved and economically exploited to compensate for those who have lost everything, following the model of the Timanfaya National Park, in Lanzarote.
“Some are determined to put each path where it was and that is nonsense,” says Octavio Fernández, who in addition to speleologist is an architect and warns that building on an area that is being settled and that is crossed by a network of tunnels can add a new misfortune. “People have been given false hopes and some think that the houses are under the lava,” says Govantes. “But everything that had been demolished by a lava block at 1,200ºC that in some places was 60 meters high,” he concludes. “This is not Pompeii, there is nothing below.”
#Descent #red #tube #palm #volcano #life #mouth #hell
