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Evolution of La Palma, Canary archipelago

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Abstract

La Palma is the northwestern island in the Canary archipelago. The island is volcanically active and in recent years there have been two eruptions (1949 and 1971). The oldest rocks that crop out on the island are altered spilitic lavas and they are intruded by numerous dykes and a number of mafic and ultramafic plutonic rocks. These rocks form part of the floor of the huge Caldera de Taburiente. In the walls of the Caldera one finds a 1000 metres thick unit that is composed of lavas and tephra. The rocks are called the El Time formation; and they together with the rocks of the Cumbre Vieja ridge are mainly composed of accumulative mafic rocks, basanites, hawaiites, benmoreites and phonolitic trachytes. These sodarich alkalic rocks are considered to have evolved by fractional crystallization of a basanitic magma in a near surface environment.

It is proposed that La Palma developed on a relatively cold section of a plate of oceanic lithosphere that was over 100 m.y. old. During the Alpine-Atlas orogeny this section of the African plate was disrupted and a basanitic magma was extruded onto the sea floor. The volcanic focus of this eruption became established as a local centre for the degassing of the mantle and as a result this area has experienced a long series of eruptions.

During the first phase in the evolution of La Palma the submarine edifice of the island was constructed and the rocks of the Caldera Floor formation were emplaced. After a period of marine erosion the huge old volcano Taburiente developed in the northern half of the island. During the final phase in the evolution of the island the southern section of the volcanic edifice subsided and formed the El Paso tectonic basin and the volcanic rift zone along which the many smaller volcanoes of the Cumbre Vieja ridge have developed.

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  1. Department of Geology and Geophysics, The University of Sydney, 2006, Sydney, N. S. W., Australia

    Eric A. K. Middlemost

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Middlemost, E.A.K. Evolution of La Palma, Canary archipelago. Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 36, 33–48 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00372833

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