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68-592: Fira is a city of whitewashed houses built on the edge of the 400 metres (1,312 feet) high caldera on the western edge of the semi-circular island of Thera. The two main museums of interest are the Archaeological Museum of Thera , 30 metres (98 feet) east of the cable car entrance, and the Museum of Prehistoric Thera at the southeast corner of the White Orthodox Cathedral of Ypapanti ( [it] ) , built on

136-524: A " sister city " relationship with El Dorado Hills, California . The local economy is primarily based on agriculture and tourism. Bananas are grown throughout the island with many banana farms on the western side of the island in Los Llanos de Aridane. Other crops include bird of paradise flowers, oranges, avocados and grapes. Local ranchers raise cattle, sheep and goats. Fishermen operating from Santa Cruz de La Palma, Tazacorte, and Puerto Naos catch fish for

204-409: A caldera, possibly an ash-flow caldera. The volcanic activity of Mars is concentrated in two major provinces: Tharsis and Elysium . Each province contains a series of giant shield volcanoes that are similar to what we see on Earth and likely are the result of mantle hot spots . The surfaces are dominated by lava flows, and all have one or more collapse calderas. Mars has the tallest volcano in

272-475: A chamber, greatly diminishing its capacity to support its own roof, and any substrate or rock resting above. The ground surface then collapses into the emptied or partially emptied magma chamber, leaving a large depression at the surface (from one to dozens of kilometers in diameter). Although sometimes described as a crater , the feature is actually a type of sinkhole , as it is formed through subsidence and collapse rather than an explosion or impact. Compared to

340-400: A diameter of 290 km (180 mi). The average caldera diameter on Mars is 48 km (30 mi), smaller than Venus. Calderas on Earth are the smallest of all planetary bodies and vary from 1.6–80 km (1–50 mi) as a maximum. The Moon has an outer shell of low-density crystalline rock that is a few hundred kilometers thick, which formed due to a rapid creation. The craters of

408-463: A hole at the top of the hat to allow them to see out, while giving the appearance of dancing midgets. People come from all over the world for the celebration which happens every five years. The image of the Virgin is taken down from her sanctuary (located in a hilly area on the outskirts of Santa Cruz de La Palma ) and paraded around the city of Santa Cruz with the festival lasting nearly two weeks before she

476-467: A magma chamber whose magma is rich in silica . Silica-rich magma has a high viscosity , and therefore does not flow easily like basalt . The magma typically also contains a large amount of dissolved gases, up to 7 wt% for the most silica-rich magmas. When the magma approaches the surface of the Earth, the drop in confining pressure causes the trapped gases to rapidly bubble out of the magma, fragmenting

544-553: A massive terminal inflorescence . Echium webbii , a branched shrub with several smaller, dark blue flower spikes, is another island endemic with close relatives on Tenerife. Other La Palma endemics include members of the daisy family , such as Sonchus palmensis , Argyranthemum haouarytheum Pericallis papyracea and Cheirolophus sventenii . Several animals are native or endemic to La Palma, including the: In addition, many other animals have been introduced, including rabbits and Barbary sheep , or aoudads, which have become

612-583: A noticeable drop in temperature around the world. Large calderas may have even greater effects. The ecological effects of the eruption of a large caldera can be seen in the record of the Lake Toba eruption in Indonesia . At some points in geological time , rhyolitic calderas have appeared in distinct clusters. The remnants of such clusters may be found in places such as the Eocene Rum Complex of Scotland,

680-443: A ring of mountains ranging from 1,600 m (5,249 ft) to 2,400 m (7,874 ft) in height. On its northern side is the exposed remains of the original seamount . Only the deep Barranco de las Angustias ("Ravine of Anxiety") ravine leads into the inner area of the caldera, which is a national park. It can be reached only by hiking. The outer slopes are cut by numerous gorges which run from 2,000 m (6,562 ft) down to

748-470: A serious threat to endemic flora A biosphere reserve was established in 1983, and extended and renamed in 1997 and 2002. The official natural symbols associated with La Palma are the red-billed chough ( graja ) and Pinus canariensis (Canary Island pine). At the time of European colonization, the Canary Islands were inhabited by native Canarians, referred to collectively as Guanches , although

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816-423: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Caldera A caldera ( / k ɔː l ˈ d ɛr ə , k æ l -/ kawl- DERR -ə, kal- ) is a large cauldron -like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption . An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the structural integrity of such

884-448: Is a result of the volcanic formation of the island. The highest peaks reach over 2,400 m (7,874 ft) above sea level, and the base of the island is located almost 4,000 m (13,123 ft) below sea level. The northern part of La Palma is dominated by the Caldera de Taburiente , with a width of 9 km (6 mi) and a depth of 1,500 m (4,921 ft). It is surrounded by

952-463: Is active, last erupting in the 2021 La Palma eruption , which destroyed more than 2600 buildings and caused one death. Beyond Punta de Fuencaliente at the southern tip of the island, the Cumbre Vieja continues in a southerly direction as a submarine volcano . Like all of the Canary Islands, La Palma originally formed as a seamount through submarine volcanic activity. Along with Tenerife, La Palma

1020-431: Is called Plateia Theotokopoulou , with a bus and taxi station, banks, and pharmacies. From Fira there is a panoramic view of the 18 kilometres (11 miles) long caldera from southern Cape Akrotiri to northern Cape Ag. Nikolaos, plus the volcanic island Nea Kameni at the center with Thirassia Island. Large cruise ships anchor in the small harbor between Nea Kameni and Fira. This South Aegean location article

1088-405: Is ejected, the emptied chamber is unable to support the weight of the volcanic edifice above it. A roughly circular fracture , the "ring fault", develops around the edge of the chamber. Ring fractures serve as feeders for fault intrusions which are also known as ring dikes . Secondary volcanic vents may form above the ring fracture. As the magma chamber empties, the center of the volcano within

1156-548: Is far more exposed to marine air systems than easterly islands, caused by the Canary Current . As altitude increases moving inland, the climate becomes cooler and more humid, which provides conditions for laurisilva cloud forests to occur, such as the one in the Natural Park of Bosque de los Tiles. The island is part of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife . The island is divided into 14 municipalities: La Palma has

1224-756: Is heated by solid flexing due to the tidal influence of Jupiter and Io's orbital resonance with neighboring large moons Europa and Ganymede , which keep its orbit slightly eccentric . Unlike any of the planets mentioned, Io is continuously volcanically active. For example, the NASA Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft detected nine erupting volcanoes while passing Io in 1979. Io has many calderas with diameters tens of kilometers across. La Palma La Palma ( Spanish: [la ˈpalma] , local pronunciation: [lɐ ˈpɑ(l)mɐ] ), also known as La isla bonita (English: The Beautiful Island ) and historically San Miguel de La Palma ,

1292-600: Is predominately Roman Catholic and since 1676, has been known for the festival of Fiestas Lustrales de la Bajada de la Virgen de las Nieves (the bringing down of the Virgin of the Snow , Virgen de las Nieves ), which has a rich history, from the time of the Bishop of the Canaries, Bartolomé García Ximénez. The festival features the dancing of "enanos" or midgets. The costumes that people wear have

1360-509: Is prevalent in the northern coast and in the mid to high altitudes of the island. At lower altitudes, particularly at the south and southwest coasts, the climate becomes semi-arid ( Köppen : BSh ). Average temperatures at the coast vary from 18 °C (64 °F) in January and February to 24 °C (75 °F) in August and September. For a Canary island, the weather is quite cloudy, as La Palma

1428-529: Is relatively young (1.25 million years old) and unusually well preserved, and it remains one of the best studied examples of a resurgent caldera. The ash flow tuffs of the Valles caldera, such as the Bandelier Tuff , were among the first to be thoroughly characterized. About 74,000 years ago, this Indonesian volcano released about 2,800 cubic kilometres (670 cu mi) dense-rock equivalent of ejecta. This

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1496-415: Is returned. The last time this event was performed in 2015 and the next will be in 2025, as in 2020 had to be cancelled due to the global pandemic of COVID-19. The Virgin of the Snow is the patron saint of La Palma. Many women on the island have the name "Nieves" in her honor. Every 5 August the annual festival of the Virgin is celebrated. La Palma has a road network of some 1,200 km (746 mi). All

1564-759: Is the Roque de los Muchachos , at 2,426 metres (7,959 ft), being second among the peaks of the Canaries after 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 " –

1632-714: Is the most northwesterly island of the Canary Islands , Spain , which is a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in Macaronesia in the North Atlantic Ocean . La Palma has an area of 708.32 square kilometres (273.48 sq mi) making it the fifth largest of the eight main Canary Islands. The total population at the start of 2023 was 84,338, of which 15,522 lived in the capital, Santa Cruz de La Palma and 20,375 in Los Llanos de Aridane . Its highest mountain

1700-416: Is the most volcanically active of the Canary Islands. Its base lies almost 4,000 m (13,123 ft) below sea level and reaches a height of 2,426 m (7,959 ft) above sea level. About a half a million years ago, the Taburiente volcano collapsed with a giant landslide , forming the Caldera de Taburiente . Erosion has since exposed part of the old seamount in the northern part of the caldera. Since

1768-500: The San Juan Mountains of Colorado , where the 5,000 cubic kilometres (1,200 cu mi) Fish Canyon Tuff was blasted out in eruptions about 27.8 million years ago. The caldera produced by such eruptions is typically filled in with tuff, rhyolite , and other igneous rocks . The caldera is surrounded by an outflow sheet of ash flow tuff (also called an ash flow sheet ). If magma continues to be injected into

1836-534: The Atlantic and inundate much of the eastern seaboard of North America, and many of the islands in the Caribbean and northern coasts of South America between six and eight hours later. They estimate that such a tsunami could have waves possibly 50 m (164 ft) or higher causing massive devastation along the coastlines. Modelling suggests that the tsunami could inundate up to 25 km (16 mi) inland. The claim

1904-577: The Canary Islands archipelago, is a volcanic ocean island. The volcano rises almost 7 km (4 mi) above the floor of the Atlantic Ocean . There is road access from sea level to the summit at 2,426 m (7,959 ft), which is marked by an outcrop of rocks called Roque de Los Muchachos ("Rock of the Young Men"). This is the site of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory , one of the world's premier astronomical observatories. La Palma's geography

1972-417: The Earth's volcanic activity (the other 40% is attributed to hotspot volcanism). Caldera structure is similar on all of these planetary bodies, though the size varies considerably. The average caldera diameter on Venus is 68 km (42 mi). The average caldera diameter on Io is close to 40 km (25 mi), and the mode is 6 km (3.7 mi); Tvashtar Paterae is likely the largest caldera with

2040-502: The English term cauldron is also used, though in more recent work the term cauldron refers to a caldera that has been deeply eroded to expose the beds under the caldera floor. The term caldera was introduced into the geological vocabulary by the German geologist Leopold von Buch when he published his memoirs of his 1815 visit to the Canary Islands , where he first saw the Las Cañadas caldera on Tenerife , with Mount Teide dominating

2108-510: The Moon have been well preserved through time and were once thought to have been the result of extreme volcanic activity, but are currently believed to have been formed by meteorites, nearly all of which took place in the first few hundred million years after the Moon formed. Around 500 million years afterward, the Moon's mantle was able to be extensively melted due to the decay of radioactive elements. Massive basaltic eruptions took place generally at

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2176-647: The San Juan Mountains of Colorado (formed during the Oligocene , Miocene , and Pliocene epochs) or the Saint Francois Mountain Range of Missouri (erupted during the Proterozoic eon). For their 1968 paper that first introduced the concept of a resurgent caldera to geology, R.L. Smith and R.A. Bailey chose the Valles caldera as their model. Although the Valles caldera is not unusually large, it

2244-720: The Solar System, Olympus Mons , which is more than three times the height of Mount Everest, with a diameter of 520 km (323 miles). The summit of the mountain has six nested calderas. Because there is no plate tectonics on Venus , heat is mainly lost by conduction through the lithosphere . This causes enormous lava flows, accounting for 80% of Venus' surface area. Many of the mountains are large shield volcanoes that range in size from 150–400 km (95–250 mi) in diameter and 2–4 km (1.2–2.5 mi) high. More than 80 of these large shield volcanoes have summit calderas averaging 60 km (37 mi) across. Io, unusually,

2312-511: The Spanish have kept records, there have been eight eruptions – all of which have occurred on the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge: At Cumbre Vieja ridge a new monogenetic volcano burst on 19 September 2021 after several seismic crises that rocked the island, among other anomalies regarding volcanic surveillance. At 85 days, it is the longest known and the most damaging volcanic eruption on La Palma since records began. The total damage caused by

2380-414: The alpine/subalpine habitats present only in these two islands. Like Tenerife, La Palma also has its own alpine violet, Viola palmensis . Echium pininana is endemic to La Palma and the tallest species in the genus, reaching over 4 m. It is related to Echium wildpretii which occurs, with separate subspecies, in the subalpine zone of both Tenerife and La Palma. Both species are monocarpic , producing

2448-468: The archipelago in 1312 and remained for two decades until expelled by a native uprising. In 1404 the Spaniards began the conquest of the islands. Though the first landing on La Palma was in 1405, it took until 1493 and several bloody battles until the last resistance of the natives was broken. The conqueror of La Palma was Alonso Fernández de Lugo , who defeated Tanausu , the last king on the island. He ruled

2516-522: The area known as Acero (Caldera de Taburiente). Tanausu was ambushed after agreeing to a truce arranged by Fernández de Lugo and Juan de Palma, a Guanche who had converted to Christianity and who was a relative of Tanausu. For the next two centuries, settlements on La Palma became rich as the island served as a trading post on the way to the New World . La Palma received immigrants from Castile , Majorca , Andalusia , Portugal and Catalonia . The island

2584-411: The base of large impact craters. Also, eruptions may have taken place due to a magma reservoir at the base of the crust. This forms a dome, possibly the same morphology of a shield volcano where calderas universally are known to form. Although caldera-like structures are rare on the Moon, they are not completely absent. The Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex on the far side of the Moon is thought to be

2652-577: The caldera atop Fernandina Island collapsed in 1968 when parts of the caldera floor dropped 350 metres (1,150 ft). Since the early 1960s, it has been known that volcanism has occurred on other planets and moons in the Solar System . Through the use of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, volcanism has been discovered on Venus , Mars , the Moon , and Io , a satellite of Jupiter . None of these worlds have plate tectonics , which contributes approximately 60% of

2720-412: The city of Santa Cruz de La Palma and the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria. The minas galerias (water tunnels) carry water from sources in the highlands to towns, villages and farms. La Palma receives almost all of its water from the mar de nubes ( sea of clouds ) of the northeast trade winds . The water condenses on the vegetation, from where it runs into the ground. Eventually it collects inside

2788-664: The collapsed magma chamber, the center of the caldera may be uplifted in the form of a resurgent dome such as is seen at the Valles Caldera , Lake Toba , the San Juan volcanic field, Cerro Galán , Yellowstone , and many other calderas. Because a silicic caldera may erupt hundreds or even thousands of cubic kilometers of material in a single event, it can cause catastrophic environmental effects. Even small caldera-forming eruptions, such as Krakatoa in 1883 or Mount Pinatubo in 1991, may result in significant local destruction and

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2856-505: The flanks to become sufficiently high and unstable to cause a massive collapse. A 2008 paper looked into the worst-case scenario of a massive landslide and subsequent megatsunami. The authors concluded that waves could reach heights in the range 10 to 188 meters in the Canary Islands, but that the waves would dissipate as they radiated out into the Atlantic Ocean. They predict 40 meters height for some nearby island systems. For continents,

2924-463: The human species was reduced to approximately 5,000–10,000 people. There is no direct evidence, however, that either theory is correct, and there is no evidence for any other animal decline or extinction, even in environmentally sensitive species. There is evidence that human habitation continued in India after the eruption. Some volcanoes, such as the large shield volcanoes Kīlauea and Mauna Loa on

2992-429: The island of Hawaii , form calderas in a different fashion. The magma feeding these volcanoes is basalt , which is silica poor. As a result, the magma is much less viscous than the magma of a rhyolitic volcano, and the magma chamber is drained by large lava flows rather than by explosive events. The resulting calderas are also known as subsidence calderas and can form more gradually than explosive calderas. For instance,

3060-412: The island. The Canary Island pine is found on all of the western Canary Islands, but it is particularly abundant on La Palma. The pine forests are also home to two recently discovered and extremely rare La Palma endemics: Lotus eremiticus and L. pyranthus . Cytisus supranubius , a white-flowered broom known locally as Retama del Teide, is native to La Palma and Tenerife, being restricted to

3128-430: The landscape, and then the Caldera de Taburiente on La Palma . A collapse is triggered by the emptying of the magma chamber beneath the volcano, sometimes as the result of a large explosive volcanic eruption (see Tambora in 1815), but also during effusive eruptions on the flanks of a volcano (see Piton de la Fournaise in 2007) or in a connected fissure system (see Bárðarbunga in 2014–2015). If enough magma

3196-484: The local markets. La Palma has abundant plant life, including several endemic species. Although large areas have been deforested , the upland areas of La Palma retain much of the evergreen laurel forest , where species of Lauraceae , such as Laurus azorica , Persea indica , and Ocotea foetens are a characteristic component. This is a relictual population of the Pliocene subtropical forests which used to cover

3264-561: The magma to produce a mixture of volcanic ash and other tephra with the very hot gases. The mixture of ash and volcanic gases initially rises into the atmosphere as an eruption column . However, as the volume of erupted material increases, the eruption column is unable to entrain enough air to remain buoyant, and the eruption column collapses into a tephra fountain that falls back to the surface to form pyroclastic flows . Eruptions of this type can spread ash over vast areas, so that ash flow tuffs emplaced by silicic caldera eruptions are

3332-418: The main roads are asphalted and in a good state, although there are many sharp bends, some very narrow. In order to reach some small hamlets in the north of the island it is necessary to travel on unpaved roads. A good paved road approximately 180 km (112 mi), circumscribes the island. Several bus routes exist that unite the main settlements on the island. A road crosses the island from Tazacorte on

3400-577: The mountains. After the Spanish occupation of La Palma, the native Canarians vanished by either being killed, sold into slavery or by assimilating into the Spanish population. It is believed that the Canary Islands were known to the Phoenicians and Greeks , but the earliest written evidence is by the Roman writer Pliny The Elder , who quoted Juba II of Numidia , but Juba's writings were subsequently lost. The Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello reached

3468-513: The natives of La Palma are more correctly known as Auaritas (See Canary Islands in pre-colonial times ). The origin of these natives is unclear but they are believed to share common ancestry with the Berbers of North Africa. The Guanches had a Neolithic culture divided into several clans led by chiefs. Their name for La Palma was Benahoare . The main remnants of this culture are their cave dwellings, enigmatic petroglyphs and paved stone paths through

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3536-468: The only volcanic product with volumes rivaling those of flood basalts . For example, when Yellowstone Caldera last erupted some 650,000 years ago, it released about 1,000 km of material (as measured in dense rock equivalent (DRE)), covering a substantial part of North America in up to two metres of debris. Eruptions forming even larger calderas are known, such as the La Garita Caldera in

3604-462: The ring fracture begins to collapse. The collapse may occur as the result of a single cataclysmic eruption, or it may occur in stages as the result of a series of eruptions. The total area that collapses may be hundreds of square kilometers. Some calderas are known to host rich ore deposits . Metal-rich fluids can circulate through the caldera, forming hydrothermal ore deposits of metals such as lead, silver, gold, mercury, lithium, and uranium. One of

3672-463: The rock strata, and is then drained via the galerias into aqueducts and pipes for distribution. The galerias have been cut into the rocks over centuries. It is possible to walk alongside many of the aqueducts, a popular activity for tourists (similar to the levadas of Madeira ). The tour to the Marcos y Corderos waterfall and springs is also popular. There is an extensive network of irrigation canals in

3740-500: The sea. Today, only a few of these carry water due to the many water tunnels that have been cut into the island's structure. From the Caldera de Taburiente to the south runs the ridge Cumbre Nueva ('New Ridge', which despite its name is older than the Cumbre Vieja , 'Old Ridge.') The southern part of La Palma consists of the Cumbre Vieja, a volcanic ridge formed by numerous volcanic cones built of lava and scoria . The Cumbre Vieja ridge

3808-514: The site of an earlier church destroyed in the 1956 Amorgos earthquake . The town also hosts a number of churches, including the Cathedral of Ypapanti and the Three Bells of Fira . Access to Fira is mainly by roads on its eastern side, climbing from its port via the zigzag footpath on foot or on donkeys, or by riding the steep cable car from its lower terminal by the port. The central square of Fira

3876-473: The sunny side (western side). This is due to the clouds not being able to cross the mountains, an effect caused by the counter trade wind. La Palma Airport is served mainly by Binter Canarias and CanaryFly , and Iberia , with flights to and from Tenerife and Gran Canaria , and also to and from mainland Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands. There is also ferry service between

3944-541: The thousands of volcanic eruptions that occur over the course of a century, the formation of a caldera is a rare event, occurring only a few times within a given window of 100 years. Only eight caldera-forming collapses are known to have occurred between 1911 and 2018, with a caldera collapse at Kīlauea , Hawaii in 2018. Volcanoes that have formed a caldera are sometimes described as "caldera volcanoes". The term caldera comes from Spanish caldera , and Latin caldaria , meaning "cooking pot". In some texts

4012-566: The valley of Los Llanos de Aridane . These canals carry water from the mountains throughout the valley and allow for the cultivation of bananas, avocados, flowers, and other plants. Due to the location of the island and the height of its mountains, some 2,400 m (7,874 ft) above sea level, a number of international astronomical observatories have been built on the Roque de los Muchachos . The particular geographical position and climate cause clouds to form between 1,000 m (3,281 ft) and 2,000 m (6,562 ft), usually leaving

4080-590: The volcano amounts up to 843 million euros . The Special Commissioner for the Reconstruction of the island of La Palma, created in 2022 to coordinate and promote the actions adopted by the General State Administration to repair the damage caused by volcanic eruptions and for the reconstruction of the island. Hector Izquierdo Triana , born in La Palma and secretary of state for finance at that time,

4148-407: The west coast to the capital city on the east coast of the island. This road is a two-lane highway that includes a pair of two-lane tunnels. The older tunnel is shorter (1,100 m (3,609 ft)) and higher than the newer tunnel (2,880 m (9,449 ft)). When traveling from one side of the mountain to the other it is common to enter one side in complete clouds (the east side) and come out to

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4216-573: The western flank is stable with no evidence of aseismic creep . Other experts agree that the fracture resulting from the 1949 eruption is a shallow and inactive surface expression that should be monitored, but consider the possibility that it is unstable as being almost nonexistent. Also, it is likely that the morphology of the floor of the Atlantic Ocean would hinder the propagation of a transoceanic tsunami. In 2006 Jan Nieuwenhuis of Delft University of Technology simulated several volcanic eruptions and calculated it would take another 10,000 years for

4284-633: The world's best-preserved mineralized calderas is the Sturgeon Lake Caldera in northwestern Ontario , Canada, which formed during the Neoarchean era about 2.7 billion years ago. In the San Juan volcanic field , ore veins were emplaced in fractures associated with several calderas, with the greatest mineralization taking place near the youngest and most silicic intrusions associated with each caldera. Explosive caldera eruptions are produced by

4352-581: The worst effects would be expected in Northern Brazil (13.6 m), French Guiana (12.7 m), mid-US (9.6 m), Western Sahara (largest prediction at 37 meters) and Mauritania (9.7 m). While still large, this would not qualify as a megatsunami (apart from locally in Macaronesia ), with the highest prediction for Western Sahara comparable to the 2011 Japanese tsunami . La Palma can be characterized by two main climate types: The Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb/Csa ), characterized by dry summers and humid winters,

4420-606: Was also explored in a BBC docu-drama called End Day which went through several hypothetical scenarios of disastrous proportions. However, nowhere in their papers do the authors make any claim about the imminent collapse of the flank. Rather, they state that they have modelled the worst-case scenario. In 2002 the Tsunami Society published a statement stating "... We would like to halt the scaremongering from these unfounded reports..." The major points raised in this report include: A geological survey published in 1999 concluded that

4488-486: Was appointed to this responsibility. In an episode of the BBC Horizon series broadcast on 12 October 2000, two geologists hypothesised that during a future eruption, the western flank of Cumbre Vieja , with a mass of approximately 1.5 x10 kg, could slide into the ocean. This could then generate a giant wave, known as a " megatsunami " around 650–900 m (2,130–2,950 ft) high. The wave could radiate out across

4556-401: Was introduced into the geological vocabulary. In the center of the island is the Caldera de Taburiente National Park , one of four national parks in the Canary Islands. The full name of the island is "San Miguel de La Palma" ("Saint Michael of La Palma"), usually abbreviated simply to "La Palma". La Palma is nicknamed "La Isla Bonita" ("beautiful island"). La Palma, like the other islands of

4624-464: Was the largest known eruption during the ongoing Quaternary period (the last 2.6 million years) and the largest known explosive eruption during the last 25 million years. In the late 1990s, anthropologist Stanley Ambrose proposed that a volcanic winter induced by this eruption reduced the human population to about 2,000–20,000 individuals, resulting in a population bottleneck . More recently, Lynn Jorde and Henry Harpending proposed that

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