La Palma, Canary Islands
Today was our first of two days in the Canary Islands with a visit to La Palma, the most volcanically active island in the archipelago. La Palma has erupted 8 times since 1430 and the last event took place in 1971. We took a drive across the islands from the cloud-shrouded windward (eastern) side to the sunny leeward side for a visit to the famous Taburiente caldera, one of the largest in the world. The caldera is 9km rim-to-rim and 2 km deep. It is largely formed by erosion of the volcanic material which formed the original volcano and today is home to a beautiful forest of Canarian pines. The caldera is the centerpiece of a magnificent National Park and there are many hiking trails within its walls. On the opposite rime of the caldera we could just make out the dome of the Roque de los Muchachos Solar Observatory which is operated by the Swedish Institute for Solar Physics. This particular site was chosen because of the unusually good viewing conditions found on the west side of La Palma which are regarded as some of the best in the world. As we walked into the caldera a short distance we could see lovely volcanic dikes cutting across the older lavas and displaying well-developed chilled contact zones at the edge with more crystalline interiors where the molten material in the center, having been insulated by the chilled contact zones was able to remain hot enough to allow the growth of small mineral grains. The caldera walk, in addition to providing a little welcome exercise revealed a textbook of examples of volcanic processes which could be easily seen and understood. In this beautiful pine forest, we found our geology lessons extremely enjoyable.
Today was our first of two days in the Canary Islands with a visit to La Palma, the most volcanically active island in the archipelago. La Palma has erupted 8 times since 1430 and the last event took place in 1971. We took a drive across the islands from the cloud-shrouded windward (eastern) side to the sunny leeward side for a visit to the famous Taburiente caldera, one of the largest in the world. The caldera is 9km rim-to-rim and 2 km deep. It is largely formed by erosion of the volcanic material which formed the original volcano and today is home to a beautiful forest of Canarian pines. The caldera is the centerpiece of a magnificent National Park and there are many hiking trails within its walls. On the opposite rime of the caldera we could just make out the dome of the Roque de los Muchachos Solar Observatory which is operated by the Swedish Institute for Solar Physics. This particular site was chosen because of the unusually good viewing conditions found on the west side of La Palma which are regarded as some of the best in the world. As we walked into the caldera a short distance we could see lovely volcanic dikes cutting across the older lavas and displaying well-developed chilled contact zones at the edge with more crystalline interiors where the molten material in the center, having been insulated by the chilled contact zones was able to remain hot enough to allow the growth of small mineral grains. The caldera walk, in addition to providing a little welcome exercise revealed a textbook of examples of volcanic processes which could be easily seen and understood. In this beautiful pine forest, we found our geology lessons extremely enjoyable.
