Geology Of The Canary Islands
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Geology Of The Canary Islands
The geology of the Canary Islands is dominated by volcanic rock. The Canary Islands and some seamounts to the north-east form the Canary Volcanic Province whose volcanic history started about 70 million years ago. The Canary Islands region is still volcanically active. The most recent volcanic eruption on land occurred in 2021 and the most recent underwater eruption was in 2011-12. The Canary Islands are a long, east-west trending, archipelago of volcanic islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Northwest Africa. The islands are located on the African tectonic plate. The Canary Islands are an example of intraplate volcanism because they are located far (more than ) from the edges of the African Plate. From east to west, the main islands are Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma, and El Hierro. There are also several minor islands and islets. The seven main Canary Islands originated as separate submarine seamount volcanoes on t ...
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Map Of The Canary Islands
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although most commonly used to depict geography, maps may represent any space, real or fictional, without regard to context or scale, such as in brain mapping, DNA mapping, or computer network topology mapping. The space being mapped may be two dimensional, such as the surface of the earth, three dimensional, such as the interior of the earth, or even more abstract spaces of any dimension, such as arise in modeling phenomena having many independent variables. Although the earliest maps known are of the heavens, geographic maps of territory have a very long tradition and exist from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the , wherein ''mappa'' meant 'napkin' or 'cloth' and ''mundi'' 'the world'. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to ...
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Fuerteventura
Fuerteventura () is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the North Africa region, and politically part of Spain. It is located away from the northwestern coast of Africa. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 2009. Fuerteventura belongs to Province of Las Palmas, one of the two provinces that form the autonomous community of the Canary Islands. The island's capital is Puerto del Rosario, where the Insule Council is found, the government of the island. Fuerteventura has 119,732 inhabitants (), the fourth largest population of the Canary Islands and the third of the Province. At , it is the second largest of the Canary Islands, after Tenerife. From a geological point of view, Fuerteventura is the oldest island in the archipelago. Toponymy The island's name is a compound word formed by the Spanish words for "strong" (fuerte) and "fortune" (ventura). Traditionally, Fuerteventura's name has been regarded as a reference to the strong winds aro ...
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Erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distinct from weathering which involves no movement. Removal of rock or soil as clastic sediment is referred to as ''physical'' or ''mechanical'' erosion; this contrasts with ''chemical'' erosion, where soil or rock material is removed from an area by dissolution. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, or for thousands of kilometres. Agents of erosion include rainfall; bedrock wear in rivers; coastal erosion by the sea and waves; glacial plucking, abrasion, and scour; areal flooding; wind abrasion; groundwater processes; and mass movement processes in steep landscapes like landslides and debris flows. The rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Typically, physical erosion procee ...
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Shield Volcano
A shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a warrior's shield lying on the ground. It is formed by the eruption of highly fluid (low viscosity) lava, which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more viscous lava erupted from a stratovolcano. Repeated eruptions result in the steady accumulation of broad sheets of lava, building up the shield volcano's distinctive form. Shield volcanoes are found wherever fluid low-silica lava reaches the surface of a rocky planet. However, they are most characteristic of ocean island volcanism associated with hot spots or with continental rift volcanism. They include the largest volcanoes on earth, such as Tamu Massif and Mauna Loa. Giant shield volcanoes are found on other planets of the Solar System, including Olympus Mons on Mars and Sapas Mons on Venus. Etymology The term 'shield volcano' is taken from the German term ''Schildvulkan'', coined by the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess in 1888 an ...
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Island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. Sedimentary islands in the Ganges delta are called chars. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands, such as the Philippines, is referred to as an archipelago. There are two main types of islands in the sea: continental and oceanic. There are also artificial islands, which are man-made. Etymology The word ''island'' derives from Middle English ''iland'', from Old English ''igland'' (from ''ig'' or ''ieg'', similarly meaning 'island' when used independently, and -land carrying its contemporary meaning; cf. Dutch ''eiland'' ("island"), German ''Eiland'' ("small island")). However, the spelling of the word ...
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Strait
A strait is an oceanic landform connecting two seas or two other large areas of water. The surface water generally flows at the same elevation on both sides and through the strait in either direction. Most commonly, it is a narrow ocean channel that lies between two land masses. Some straits are not navigable, for example because they are either too narrow or too shallow, or because of an unnavigable reef or archipelago. Straits are also known to be loci for sediment accumulation. Usually, sand-size deposits occur on both the two opposite strait exits, forming subaqueous fans or deltas. Terminology The terms ''channel'', ''pass'', or ''passage'' can be synonymous and used interchangeably with ''strait'', although each is sometimes differentiated with varying senses. In Scotland, ''firth'' or ''Kyle'' are also sometimes used as synonyms for strait. Many straits are economically important. Straits can be important shipping routes and wars have been fought for control of them. ...
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Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and North and South America to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean split at about 8°N. Scientific explorations of the A ...
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Seabed
The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of the ocean is very deep, where the seabed is known as the abyssal plain. Seafloor spreading creates mid-ocean ridges along the center line of major ocean basins, where the seabed is slightly shallower than the surrounding abyssal plain. From the abyssal plain, the seabed slopes upward toward the continents and becomes, in order from deep to shallow, the continental rise, slope, and shelf. The depth within the seabed itself, such as the depth down through a sediment core, is known as the “depth below seafloor.” The ecological environment of the seabed and the deepest waters are collectively known, as a habitat for creatures, as the “benthos.” Most of the seabed throughout the world's oceans is covered in layers of marine sediments. ...
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Islet
An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanent or tidal (i.e. surfaced reef or seamount); and may exist in the sea, lakes, rivers or any other sizeable bodies of water. Definition As suggested by its origin ''islette'', an Old French diminutive of "isle", use of the term implies small size, but little attention is given to drawing an upper limit on its applicability. The World Landforms website says, "An islet landform is generally considered to be a rock or small island that has little vegetation and cannot sustain human habitation", and further that size may vary from a few square feet to several square miles, with no specific rule pertaining to size. Other terms * Ait (/eɪt/, like eight) or eyot (/aɪ(ə)t, eɪt/), a small island. It is especially used to refer to river i ...
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La Graciosa
Graciosa Island or commonly La Graciosa (; Spanish language, Spanish for "graceful") is a volcano, volcanic island in the Canary Islands of Spain, located north of Lanzarote across the Strait of El Río. It was formed by the Canary hotspot. The island is part of the Chinijo Archipelago and the Chinijo Archipelago Natural Park (). It is administrated by the municipality of Teguise (municipality), Teguise in the neighboring island of Lanzarote. In 2018 La Graciosa officially became the eighth Canary Island with few real effects. Before then, the island had the status of an islet, administratively dependent on the island of Lanzarote. The only two settlements on the island are Caleta de Sebo in the southeastern part of the island and summer-residence Casas de Pedro Barba. The population is about 700. Tourism is the main industry along with fishing. Every year, tourists flock to the island for its tempered climate and its sandy volcanic coasts. The island has a school, lyceum, pos ...
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El Hierro
El Hierro, nicknamed ''Isla del Meridiano'' (the "Meridian Island"), is the second-smallest and farthest-south and -west of the Canary Islands (an autonomous community of Spain), in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, with a population of 10,968 (2019). Its capital is Valverde. At , it is the second-smallest of the eight main islands of the Canaries. Name The name ''El Hierro'', although spelled like the Spanish word for 'iron', is not related to that word. The ''H'' in the name of the metal is derived from the ''F'' of Latin ''ferrum'' (compare ''higo'' for 'fig'), a phonetic mutation that was complete by the end of the Middle Ages. The confusion with the name of the metal had effects on the international naming of the island. As early as the 16th century, maps and texts called the island after the word for 'iron' in other languages: Portuguese ''Ferro'', French ''l'île de Fer'', and Latin '' Insula Ferri''. Nevertheless, the origin of the name ''ero'' or ''er ...
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La Palma
La Palma (, ), also known as ''La isla bonita'' () and officially San Miguel de La Palma, is the most north-westerly island of the Canary Islands, Spain. La Palma has an area of making it the fifth largest of the eight main Canary Islands. The total population at the end of 2020 was 85,840, of which 15,716 lived in the capital, Santa Cruz de La Palma and about 20,467 in Los Llanos de Aridane. Its highest mountain is the Roque de los Muchachos, at , being second among the peaks of the Canaries only to the peaks of the Teide massif on Tenerife. In 1815, the German geologist Leopold von Buch visited the Canary Islands. It was as a result of his visit to Tenerife, where he visited the Las Cañadas caldera, and then later to La Palma, where he visited the Taburiente caldera, that the Spanish word for cauldron or large cooking pot – "caldera" – was introduced into the geological vocabulary. In the center of the island is the Caldera de Taburiente National Park; one of four nation ...
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