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The teide

A network of National Parks in the Canary Islands attempts to conserve the most typical ecosystems. The Teide National Park, in the centre of the island of Tenerife, shelters the best example of Canary Island vegetation.

Teide With an average altitude of over 2,000 metres, the Teide National Park offers you one of the most spectacular examples of volcanic activity in the world. El Teide, with a height of 3,718 metres above sea level, is the highest mountain in Spain. It is a stratovolcano which rests on an ancient and gigantic cauldron-shaped depression made up of two semi-calderas separated by the Roques de García.

Teide reaches a summit at Pilón de Azucar, which still shows residual activity in the form of fumaroles and sulphur at 86ºC. The cauldron, or caldera, known as Las Cañadas, takes its name from the most typical structure of the Park: la Cañada, a sedimentary plain that is normally situated at the foot of the walls of the caldera.

The genesis of the great Las Cañadas Circus still causes controversy among geologists, with theories ranging from an explosion, erosion, collapse and major landslides. The most widely accepted theory until the early nineties was the collapse theory as the basic cause. The theory assumes that it is a caldera with two sub-calderas, an eastern one and a western one, separated by the Roques de García and formed by collapses and landslides. The current volcanic edifice was later formed in the northern sector of Las Cañadas caldera. This is Teide - Pico Viejo.

This stratovolcano and the caldera are the two largest structures in the National Park.

Investigations of the Island´s subsoil, however and studies of the sea bed and the submarine relief in recent years have confirmed the theory presented by local geologist and geographer Telesforo Bravo in 1962. Las Cañadas, along with the Orotava and Güimar valleys are depressions formed by gravitational landslides of more than 100 Km3 of part of the island.

Dating places the Güimar valley event 0.8 million years ago, the Orotava valley event at 0.5 million years ago and Las Cañadas 0.17 million years ago.