On Friday 28th September is Volcanoes Night in Fuencaliente. This free event, open to everybody, offers the chance to meet volcanologists and geologists and find out what they do. Much of the program is in Spanish, but there will be 30 minute guided tours around San Antonio volcano explaining the geological history of the island with translations to English available (starting 4pm), and science cafés in the wrestling arena, starting…
Concepción is a headland on the boundary between Santa Cruz de la Palma and Breña Alta. The top is at 400m, and the sheer cliff down to the beach is about 300 ft (100 m ) high, which is about the size of a mature California redwood tree, or a Saturn V moon rocket. These days it’s got a tunnel drilled through it, but until 1917, the only way to…
Crater of St Antony’s Volcano. You can see people on the skyline at the right. The most recent eruption in the Canary Islands was Teneguía, in 1971 (see Thursday, 21 February 2008 Which Planet Are You On?). It’s a nice place to visit, but you have to be fairly fit. St. Antony’s Volcano (Volcan San Antonio) is nice in a completely different way. For one thing, it looks like a…
And the blue sky on that last one that gives the game away. Yes, it’s Earth, not Mars. It’s actually the Teneguia volcano, on the southern tip of La Palma. The red colouring comes from iron in the rocks. The reason why there’s no visible vegetation is that the volcano last erupted in 1971, just 37 years ago. Some of these little holes in the ground (just big enough to…