Teide

data (160% elevation). Teide ( ) or Mount Teide ( , ; 'Peak of Teide') is an active stratovolcano on the Spanish island of Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands. Its summit (at ) is the highest point in Spain and the highest of any island in the Atlantic Ocean. Measured from its base on the ocean floor, Teide reaches a total height of , making it the third-tallest volcano in the world; UNESCO and NASA also rank it as Earth's third-tallest volcanic structure. Its elevation above sea level makes Tenerife the tenth-highest island in the world. Teide began forming approximately 170,000 years ago as a result of volcanic activity following a catastrophic landslide. Its base lies within the Las Cañadas caldera, the remains of an older, eroded, and extinct volcano, at an elevation of about above sea level. Teide is an active volcano, with its most recent eruption occurring in late 1909 from the El Chinyero vent on the northwestern Santiago rift. Due to its history of destructive eruptions and its proximity to several large towns, including Garachico, Icod de los Vinos, and Puerto de la Cruz, the United Nations Committee for Disaster Mitigation designated Teide as a Decade Volcano. Together with Pico Viejo and Montaña Blanca, Teide forms the Central Volcanic Complex of Tenerife.…

data (160% elevation). Teide ( ) or Mount Teide ( , ; 'Peak of Teide') is an active stratovolcano on the Spanish island of Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands. Its summit (at ) is the highest point in Spain and the highest of any island in the Atlantic Ocean. Measured from its base on the ocean floor, Teide reaches a total height of , making it the third-tallest volcano in the world; UNESCO and NASA also rank it as Earth's third-tallest volcanic structure. Its elevation above sea level makes Tenerife the tenth-highest island in the world. Teide began forming approximately 170,000 years ago as a result of volcanic activity following a catastrophic landslide. Its base lies within the Las Cañadas caldera, the remains of an older, eroded, and extinct volcano, at an elevation of about above sea level. Teide is an active volcano, with its most recent eruption occurring in late 1909 from the El Chinyero vent on the northwestern Santiago rift. Due to its history of destructive eruptions and its proximity to several large towns, including Garachico, Icod de los Vinos, and Puerto de la Cruz, the United Nations Committee for Disaster Mitigation designated Teide as a Decade Volcano. Together with Pico Viejo and Montaña Blanca, Teide forms the Central Volcanic Complex of Tenerife. The volcano and its surroundings form Teide National Park, which covers an area of and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007. Teide is the most visited national park in both Spain and Europe, and ranks among the top 10 most visited national parks worldwide, attracting over 5 million visitors annually. In 2024, the park received 5,242,653 visitors, setting a historical record. The Teide Observatory, a major international astronomical facility, is situated on the mountain’s slopes. Additionally, the volcano has frequently appeared in films, television series, and programs set on the island of Tenerife. ==Geography== ===Location=== Teide is located on Tenerife, the largest island of the Canary Islands, situated in the Atlantic Ocean, northwest of the coast of Western Sahara. The volcano is located in a central position on the Tenerife island. Administratively, the Canary Islands are a Spanish autonomous community. Teide itself is located within the commune of La Orotava in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. ===Topography=== Before reliable measurements were available, Teide was considered by Europeans to be the highest mountain on Earth for a long time. With a height of , it is the highest point in Spain and the Atlantic Ocean. If it is measured from the ocean floor, it surpasses , making it the third highest volcanic structure in the world after Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, both on the island of Hawaii. The formation of the mountain is marked by its long and complex volcanic history. It rests on the Las Cañadas caldera, an asymmetric depression in diameter in the form of a horseshoe which opens to the north. The floor of the caldera varies from in altitude, although its sides in the south rise to , the level of Mount Guajara. To the north, the slopes of Teide continue directly to the ocean, with a break in the slope at around . The volcano of Teide itself can be described as a volcanic cone in diameter at its base, with quite steep slopes, approximately 20 to 40° for a total volume of . The summit is marked by a small volcanic cone, about high, named , which has a summit crater in diameter and deep. A secondary cone, named Pico Viejo emerges on the western slopes of the main peak; its crater is much larger, with a diameter of and a depth of . It rises to , but with a low prominence, not more than higher than the slopes of the main volcano. On the outside of these two main peaks, the relief Teide also has some smaller formations, of which the most notable are , , and , situated next to the base of Teide. The slopes of Teide are covered in radial ravines. However, the majority of the ravines have been covered by recent lava flows, the , in particular the northern part. The main ravines, with prominence around , are located on the south slope: from east to west, the , and . ===Climate=== Despite their proximity to the Sahara, the Canary Islands have a relatively temperate climate. The sunshine duration is very high due to Teide's subtropical latitude and proximity to the Azores high, and sees a very high UV index caused by the height of the peak (greater than 11 in the middle of the summer). This sunshine of around 3,450 h per year is partially compensated by the Canary current, a relatively cold ocean current which makes the climate more temperate. The situation at the level of Teide and its caldera is very unlike the climate at its base. In effect, the climate of Tenerife is marked by an inversion layer around at an altitude of , isolating the high-altitude zones from ocean influences present at the lower altitudes. This leads to a more continental climate on Teide, with strong changes in temperature over the course of the day (typically on the order of 15 °C) and in the course of the year (with a range of -15 °C in winter to 30 °C in the summer). Humidity is also very affected by this inversion layer. The presence of the Azores high in the northwest of the Canaries in summer induces relatively constant winds (trade winds) blowing from the northeast to the southwest. These winds carry moisture across the Atlantic and deliver rain to the north of Tenerife, forming in particular a dense layer of clouds between of altitude. But the inversion layer also stops these clouds from rising, and the climate is thus very dry below the level of Teide. The precipitation in the caldera is thus less than 500 mm per year, the majority falling in the winter, and in total, around one third in the form of snow. Variation can be quite high from one year to the next. Meanwhile the peak of Teide is covered by wave clouds, forming the "hat of Teide" ( ) which was probably confused with signs of an eruption by sailors. ==Geology== ===The Canary Islands=== Teide is a stratovolcano created by the same forces which formed the Canary Islands. The islands are aligned relatively east to west, but continue to the northeast in a series of undersea mountains which are part of the same volcanic region as the Canary Islands. Dating indicates that the age of these islands changes from east to west, with the older islands and undersea mountains (seamounts) to the east and more recent ones to the west. This makes Fuerteventura and Lanzarote the oldest islands, from 20.2 Mya, and El Hierro the youngest, from 1.1 Mya. Counting the undersea mountains, Lars (a seamount) is the oldest, from 68 Mya. The Madeira islands, located not far to the north of the Canary islands and also volcanic, have many islands and undersea mountains aligned in the same general direction and with similar dates. This pattern is consistent with archipelagoes which have formed over a hotspot such as the Hawaiian Islands. However, there are many differences with Hawaii. First, the Hawaiian Islands are sinking rapidly (in geological time) into the ocean, forming atolls, yet the rate of subsidence is insignificant in the Canary Islands. If the Canary islands were sinking at the same rate as the Hawaiian islands, Teide would be actually below sea-level. But one of the most fundamental differences, and which lends doubt to the theory of a hotspot, is the fact that the volcanic activity is not constrained to the most recent island, but continues through all the islands in the chain. This has aroused an intense debate in the scientific community, which continues to a certain extent today. One hypothesis which allows reconciliation of these observations is the presence in the Earth's mantle of a convection cell which enters one part of the magma more towards the east, thus activating the old islands. According to this hypothesis, the magma would be also responsible for scattered volcanic activity to the northwest of the African continent to the south of Spain. ===Formation of Tenerife=== The formation of Tenerife began a little less than 12 Mya. It started with the formation of a shield volcano centered not far from Teide itself, with volcanic activity which endured to around 8.9 Mya. The volcanic activity then stopped, and the volcano underwent some collapses in the process of erosion. One new shield volcano formed between 6 and 5 Mya, more to the west, in Teno then another in Anaga, to the east, between 4.9 and 3.9 Mya. Together, these three shield volcanoes represent 90% of the volume of Tenerife. The lavas are basalts, basic rocks (i.e. having a low content of silica) and therefore very fluid, this explains the characteristic form of shield volcanoes. Around 3.5 Mya, after a pause of 5.5 million years, volcanic activity resumed to the level of the first shield volcano. This is the start of the rejuvenation phase, forming the volcano Las Cañadas. It was also in this period that the volcanic activity began in the rifts of the island, formed by radial fractures due to the thrust of magma in the central volcano. The eruptions of Las Cañadas were initially basic and fluid lavas, but they differentiated over time (trachybasalts and phonolites), which gave place to more explosive eruptions. Around 200,000 years ago, the peak of the volcano was swept away in a giant land slide to the north, forming the caldera of Las Cañadas. These massive landslides were quite frequent and were in part cased by the fractures of the rifts. Besides the caldera, the landslides were also responsible for the valley of (around 600,000 years ago) and Güímar (around 850,000 years ago). ==Future eruptions== Future eruptions may include pyroclastic flows and surges similar to those that occurred at Mount Pelée, Merapi, Vesuvius, Etna, the Soufrière Hills, Mount Unzen and elsewhere. During 2003, there was an increase in seismic activity at the volcano and a rift opened on the north-east flank. No eruptive activity occurred but a quantity of material, possibly liquid, was emplaced into the edifice and is estimated to have a volume of ~10 11 m 3 . Such activity can indicate that magma is rising into the edifice, but is not always a precursor to an eruption. Teide additionally is considered structurally unstable and its northern flank has a distinctive bulge. The summit of the volcano has a number of small active fumaroles emitting sulfur dioxide and other gases, including low levels of hydrogen sulfide. A scientific assessment in 2006, published in the journal Eos, observed that "in the past 30,000 years, eruptions have occurred at a rate of only four to six per millennium, with a predominance (70%) of very low hazard, basaltic eruptions". The authors further commented that "the recent eruptive record, combined with the available petrological and radiometric data, provides a rather optimistic outlook on major volcanic hazards related to Teide and its rift zones, posing only very localized threats to the one million inhabitants of Tenerife and the 4.5 million annual visitors to Teide National Park." However, another study in 2009 concluded that Teide will probably erupt violently in the future, and that its structure is similar to that of Vesuvius and Etna. Thus the magnitude of the risk posed by Teide to the public remains a source of debate. File:Coat of Arms of Tenerife.svg|Coat of arms of Tenerife File:Flag of Tenerife.svg|Flag of Tenerife File:Logotipo del Cabildo de Tenerife.svg|Logo of the Cabildo de Tenerife. File:Billet 1000 Pesetas Verso Galdos.jpg|Spanish 1,000 peseta banknote (1979) ==See also== Roque Cinchado Mount Guajara List of tallest mountains in the Solar System Pico do Fogo, a stratovolcano that has formed in a caldera of an oceanic island shield volcano Teide Trophy ==References== ==External links== UNESCO World Heritage Site datasheet Teide National Park—Official Website Teide Webcam Cable car Description of the ascent of Teide

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