Those who have been lucky enough to walk through the Teide National Park will have enjoyed, not only the enormous biological wealth that this space houses, but also the spectacular geological monument that the volcano represents.
At 3,718 meters above sea level, it is the highest mountain in Spain and the third highest volcano in the world .
The study we are reviewing today was published in the journal Geomorphology , and carried out by an international team of scientists led by Vicente Soler, a researcher at the Volcanological Station of the Canary Islands (IPNA-CSIC). The results of the work confirm one of the theories about the origin of Teide, according to which a geological slide from the north of the island of Tenerife to the sea caused a great depression that was filled with materials until it formed what is now the peak. highest in our country. The area is now surrounded by vertical walls – except for the upper part – which “would be the scar caused by that great landslide,” Soler confirmed to the SINC agency.
To reach these conclusions, the scientists analyzed a hundred samples of the first lavas emitted after the landslide, which according to the dating occurred 180,000 years ago. The results revealed that the new volcano in the Canary Islands began to form 120,000 years ago. The bulk of the fill in the Icod valley, which serves as the base for the stratovolcano, was produced in a period of 40,000 years , a figure that, although it may seem like a long time, “on a geological scale it is a very short interval,” explained Soler. .
Ancient rocks in the volcano
In addition, the researchers carried out dating studies on the rocks that make up the volcano to find out, for example, how long it took for the magmas, originally basaltic, to evolve into other types of materials. Since its formation began, magmas have been differentiating to form new materials. For example, in the White Mountain is pumice stone from an eruption that occurred just 2,000 years ago.
How to know the age of a rock? In this study, “it has been deduced by the relationship of its potassium and argon content, since the amount of the two chemical elements is proportional to the time elapsed since their cooling,” Soler indicates.
