Accusations that earthquake monitoring information collected on Tenerife is being manipulated by scientists to hide the truth from the public have been vigorously denied by Spain’s National Geographic institute (IGN).
The accusations have emerged in a petition which has already gathered a large number of signatures and calls for greater transparency in the publication of key monitoring data on seismic activity in Tenerife.
Reacting to the campaign, in which scientists are said to be ‘doctoring’ charts and data to hide the true extent of tremors and other signs of significant movement, IGN’s head in the Canaries Itahiza Domínguez said that false rumours have been around for years and increase when news is given of increased volcanic activity.
He insisted that all the data collected by the Institute is made available on its website and is accessible by the public, although stressing that the interpretation of the information should be left to experts.
The IGN director went on to explain in detail how state of the art seismographs locate don all the Canary Islands detect and record all seismic waves triggered by earth movements and these detections are collated into maps. The systems automatically highlight any anomalous phenomena – such as concentrations of large numbers of small earthquakes in a short period – for analysis by the institute’s scientists.
Domínguez acknowledged that fake news and other types of disinformation on social media are a regular occurrence, but the institute does not have the capacity to refute each one individually. “We are not in a position to monitor everything that appears on Internet to check if someone is saying something specific [about activity on the island]”, he added.
Photo: IGN
