La caldera de Las Cañadas, Tenerife: pasado , presente y futuro

• Autores: Joan Martí Molist
• Localización: Geotemas (Madrid), ISSN 1576-5172, Nº. 6, 1, 2004 (Ejemplar dedicado a: IV Congreso Geológico de España (Zaragoza, 12-15 julio, 2004)), págs. 155-158
• Idioma: español
• Enlaces
  • Texto Completo Ejemplar
• Resumen

  • The Las Cañadas caldera is one of the best exposed volcanic calderas in the World and one of the few known in evolved alkaline volcanoes. It truncates the pre-Teide central volcanic edifice, the Las Cañadas edifice, which started to grow up at the end of the construction of a large basaltic shield that forms the main part of Tenerife. The origin of the Las Cañadas caldera is controversial, as it has been interpreted as the result of either multiple vertical collapses or a giant sector collapse. The available stratigraphical, structural, volcanological, geochronological and geophysical data, as well as its comparison with other well know collapse calderas should not offer any doubt about its direct relationship with a long history of phonolitic explosive volcanism. However, the existence of large landslide events on Tenerife, which have significantly modified the flanks of the Las Cañadas volcano, has also been used as a potential explanation for the origin of the Las Cañadas depression, although important restrictions exist when trying to quantitatively explain the mechanics of such a caldera process on Tenerife. This contribution points out on the origin of this controversy, on the interpretation of the available data, and on how future studies could properly address a better knowledge of the Las Cañadas caldera.