DESCRIPTION:
Canary Islands Volcanoes and Volcanics, Spain

The largest island group (in the Atlantic Region), the Canaries, is reached by favorable winds from Europe and was an important base for early voyages to the new world. In fact, Christopher Columbus recorded a 1492 eruption on Tenerife ...

The Canaries were mentioned by Pliny around 40 A.D., and were often rediscovered in the following centuries. They were claimed by Portugal in 1341, the year of the region's first historical eruption (a somewhat questionable report of activity somewhere on Tenerife), but were awarded to Spain by the Pope 3 years later. They were settled in 1402 and conquest of the indigenous Guanches population was complete by 1496. The Canaries now have the largest population in the region and, as part of Spain, claim Pico de Teide as the nation's highest point.

Volcanism in the region is largely caused by hotspots in oceanic crust, and the region has the highest proportion of fissure vent volcanoes (as primary features). Several known volcanoes lie along or near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that separates the Eurasian and African plates from the North and South American plates, but the Canaries and Cape Verdes lie just west of the African continental margin.

Fuerteventura
Fissure vents
529 meters high
Holocene

Gran Canaria
Fissure vents
1,950 meters high
Radiocarbon

Lanzarote
Fissure vents
670 meters high
Historical

La Palma
Stratovolcano
2,426 meters high
Historical

Tenerife
Stratovolcano
3,715 meters high
Historical

Pico del Teide
Stratovolcano of Teneriff, Canary Islands

Teneriff
Stratovolcano, Canary Islands

The Canary Islands lie in an intraplate setting, on the African continental shelf. Volcanism may result form a mantle hotspot beneath the islands. The alignment of vents and fissures in the Canary Islands suggests northeast-, northwest-, and north-south-trending faults. Las Canadas Caldera is siturated at the intersection of three such fissures or rift zones, called dorsals, of which the northwest- and northeast-trending ones have been dominant in recent geologic and historical time (Carracedo, 1985).

The Las Canada Caldera formed initially by collapse following a large plinian eruption that produced the Granadilla pumice (Booth, 1973), perhaps around 150,000 years B.P. (Arana and others, 1985). Thick plinian and phreatoplinian pumice deposites occur on Tenerife (Fuster and others, 1968; Ridley, 1972; Booth, 1973; Arana and Carracedo, 1978). Subsequent gravitational failure of part of the north wall left the caldera open to the north (Booth, 1979). Pico Viejo and Teide Volcanoes have grown within the area of collapse, north of the escarpment.

The eruption of 1492 was probably from the Teide vent (Soler and others, 1984).

An eruption of Siete Fuentes on 31 January 1704 (volume 0.4 x 10⁶ cubic meters) was preceded by 7 days of premonitory seismicity; eruptions of Volcan Fasnia on 5 January 1705 (volume 2.5 x 10⁶ cubic meters) and of Montana Arenas on 2 February 1705 (volume 24 x 10⁶ cubic meters) were preceded by several days of seismicity, and an erutpion of Montana Negra on 5 May 1706 (volume 66 x 10⁶ cubic meters) was preceded by one evening of seismicity (data from F. Machado and A. Hernandez Pacheco, cited in Carracedo, 1985).

Volcan Chahorra eruption, 1798

A flank eruption along the northwest dorsal (Volcan Chinyero) in 1909 was preceded by 18 months of seismicity, including earthquake swarms in July, August, and especially November 1908. Maximum activity was 14 shocks in two hours, as felt in Orotava.

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