Lanzarote is the easternmost island of the Canaries, lower than one hundred miles (about 150km) off the coast of Morocco. It is a part of Spain, however not formally within the European Union and Pico Partido is a pointy, outstanding peak close to the centre of the island, between the small city of Mancha Blanca and the volcano of Timanfaya. The identify means “divided mountain”, so referred to as as a result of the excessive peak is cut up by a deep fissure that appears to cut it in two. And it’s enthralling. It is a basket of volcanic jewels to be treasured, notably after the frustration of the shortage of entry to Timanfaya itself (of which, extra later). And Pico Partido is accessible, in contrast to a lot of the island the place too many roads haven’t any lay-bys or perhaps a patch of cinder the place you possibly can pull in and discover.

The geology of Lanzarote

Lanzarote, with its volcanoes, is sitting on the tectonic plate that varieties most of Africa. It shouldn’t be close to the sting, so it isn’t shaped by one plate sinking underneath the opposite. Nor is it above a rising mass of magma, a scorching spot. A little surprisingly, it’s on a line of fractured rocks that stretches to the Atlas Mountains in North Africa, and additional over to the European Alps.

The fractures shaped, and are nonetheless shifting, because of the stresses created because the African plate collides with the European plate. The volcanoes rose via the previous sea mattress about P,600m under. For round 30myrs, the undersea eruptions constructed up till they broke the floor about 14mya, in the midst of the Miocene. Eruptions have been sporadic ever since, typically pouring huge quantities of lava from a collection of fissures for a number of years. At different occasions, there have been big explosive eruptions. Landscapes have been shaped, eroded and buried repeatedly. The entire image is extraordinarily complicated, particularly because the chemical make-up of magma chamber appears to be unusually diversified, giving rise to many various sorts and compositions of lava.

The historical past of volcanism on the island

There had been no eruptions in historic occasions and, the truth is, a interval of calm had lasted for a number of hundred thousand years. Therefore, one night time in 1730, the sudden mass of eruptions down the centre of the island got here as an enormous shock to the unlucky islanders. Over the subsequent six years, a minimum of 50 volcanoes erupted, some explosively, others with quick-operating lava that swept over 26 villages and fertile farmlands. A quarter of the island was destroyed because the volcanoes competed to bury and overflow one another with lava and ash. Timanfaya started on B September 1730 and ended on sixteen April 1736, one of many longest-erupting vents on the island.

Pico Partido had a a lot briefer life, starting on 10 October 1730, and ending lower than 4 months later, on B January 1731. So, should you’re up there on the ten October, you possibly can sing “Happy Birthday” to a mountain. How do we all know? The priest of Yaiza village wrote prolonged eyewitness descriptions of the entire thing and his informative writings are supported by the official accounts of the native municipal authority.

Pico Partido created three linked cones, every having durations of explosive exercise with ash and cinders, pouring lava from tight vents, or filling their craters with lava lakes that overflowed their lips into the encompassing countryside. Cracks within the partitions of the volcano full of lava and erupted as small aspect vents. As the lava rose by way of the cracks, the fuel inside it expanded and blew out the highest-most lava, spitting it out onto the floor. This constructed up across the vent, forming tall, steep-sided mini-volcanoes recognized regionally as “hornitos” (Spanish for “little ovens”). They are additionally referred to as “spatter cones”, due to the best way the fuel spat out the lava. Several are seen on the flanks of Pico Partido, and extra round Timanfaya. Further afield, some actually good ones could be seen at Los Muchachos on one other Canarian Island, La Palma, and at Fleener Chimneys in Lava Beds National Park, within the western USA. Here, on Lanzarote, the primary lava flows are sometimes crusted over, with the lava persevering with to stream under the floor. The surfaces would typically collapse, leaving channels and caves, or “lava tubes”. Several such tubes and channels are discovered round Pico Partido.

Current Status

The panorama round Pico Partido nonetheless seems to be virtually as recent and newly-shaped because it did within the eighteenth century, as a result of there’s so little rain to trigger erosion or help the expansion of vegetation. But this mountain has been quiet since 1731. There has not been any volcanic exercise anyplace on Lanzarote since 1824, when there was slightly collection of eruptions. The final one, Tinguatón, erupted for less than eight days in October 1824. Now, the one indicators of life are the thermal scorching-spots buried inside a number of mountains, together with in fact, Timanfaya. In the restaurant on the prime of Timanfaya, they use the warmth from the lava to grill chickens, set hearth to brushwood and make pretend steam spouts for vacationer leisure, simply to show it truly is scorching slightly below the floor.

So, they’re not anticipating an eruption quickly? Maybe not, however neither have been they anticipating something to occur in 1730, the day earlier than the beginning of the second-longest eruption in recorded historical past (after Pu’u S’o in Hawaii). Incidentally, the Lanzarote volcanoes have been spewing lava from a 14km-lengthy fissure, the third-longest recognized (after these at Laki in 1783 and Eldgja in 934, each in Iceland).

Getting to Lanzarote

Arrecife airport is a 4-hour flight from England. Charter flights function from Birmingham on Thursdays and function from different European cities on different days. We (my spouse, Chris, and I) flew on a package deal with Cosmos for about £four hundred per individual, together with self-catering lodging on the Sun Park Aparthotel at Playa Blanca, on the south coast. Car rental for six days prices about £one hundred thirty plus a tank of gasoline and there are a number of native and worldwide rental corporations working all through the island, providing good charges for in the future or longer. They additionally all appear to have loads of automobiles, so it is probably not essential to ebook prematurely.

A tour of Pico Partido

Driving north from Yaiza alongside the LZ67, you cross the massive pull-in for the camel rides and museum on the left. Going by means of the National Park, you move the left flip alongside the aspect street to Timanfaya. About 2km additional on in the direction of Mancha Blanca, Pico Partido could be very clearly seen to the fitting. It is definitely recognised by its distinctive pale lava stream, which is minimize down the center by the darkish, slender cut up of a drained-out lava channel. On the left, there is likely one of the “satan” indicators on the foot of the Montana Tingafa cinder cone. (As you possibly can see from the image, these are minimize-out indicators in conjunction with the street. They are within the type of
a dancing imp or little satan, they usually personify the volcano of Timanfaya,
and designate the boundaries of Timanfaya National Park). This is the northern boundary of the National Park. Right subsequent to the signal, there’s a flattened space of ash that serves as a carpark for one or two automobiles.

There is one other, barely bigger, area for parking about 50m additional on. Be cautious as you drop off the street onto the cindery floor. This just isn’t a great place to tear off your sump guard or exhaust. A automotive that pulled in subsequent to us reversed with out checking the bottom very rigorously, and the driving force discovered his again finish perched on a boulder.

As an aperitif, an easy monitor goes spherical Tingafa’s cinder cone and into the large open crater on the far aspect. It takes about half an hour to stroll it, plus photograph stops. However, for the primary course, it’s worthwhile to look throughout the street, and see Pico Partido with its pointed peak and sand-colored lava move. That is the place we have been heading.

Cross the street and stroll about 20m south, in the direction of Timanfaya. Look into the lava area for the beginning of the path. It is sort of faint at first, however then clear and a metre or so extensive. Walking alongside it, you cross by way of the sector of tough and jumbled a’a lava that got here from the close by Montańas del Senalo. (A’a lava is a solidified lava move with a really tough or clinker floor.) The lava provides method to a unfastened cinder space in lower than a kilometre. To your left, there’s some clean, poorly shaped pahoehoe lava. (In distinction to a’a lava, pahoehoe lava is a lava movement with a thick, clean, wavy floor, shaped by low-viscosity lava.) A broad, shallow channel runs by means of it like a wadi. It is flat-bottomed and virtually crammed with nice ash and cinder, so it’s straightforward to comply with it up the mountain. Gradually, it narrows and the edges overhang significantly in some locations, the place an entire tube had virtually been shaped. It is usually a little bit of a squeeze to get via in some locations, however the partitions present some pretty patches of lava dribbles that shaped as the extent fell when the channel lastly drained out.

At the highest, the channel turns into utterly enclosed, forming a tube. In locations, there are two or three tubes on prime of one another, from totally different phases of eruption. There are drops of 10m or 15m from the higher and center ranges into the decrease tubes, so it is advisable to watch out. This is particularly so when making an attempt to get out of the bottom sections of the tubes, the place there’s critical danger of scraped and punctured shins, knees and palms.

From the very prime of the channel, you should again-monitor a couple of metres to climb out of this conduit. From right here, you climb upwards to the left, and are shortly overlooking the previous lava lake in the primary crater. It is straightforward to stroll onto the previous lake floor and discover among the many metre-thick sheets that stay now like black ice floes contorted over one another. They have been twisted out of place because the lava under drained away and the floor collapsed. The previous floor is now “perched”, creating flat-roofed caverns to discover, adorned with acres of dripping roof panels, like closely-Artexed ceilings.

The stroll up the left rim of the crater can also be straightforward, over agency ash alongside a transparent monitor. All alongside, you could have excellent views right down to the shattered floor of the lava lake in your proper.

Once you could have reached the shoulder of the rim, it’s attainable to stroll to the suitable and, additional upwards, to a tall, ragged hornito. This is a spatter cone the place lava was spat out after which dribbled down the slope in the direction of the lake. From right here, I walked alongside the ridge as much as the rim of the far crater. However, this half is fairly dangerous, as there isn’t any monitor, and a number of other elements are very uncovered, with lengthy steep drops right down to the lava lake floor. The footing could be very unsafe, particularly when climbing up the ultimate fissure to the excessive rim. However, the view from the rim is outstanding in all instructions.

From this excessive level, it’s attainable to proceed all the best way around the lake, and return to your car down the other curve of the rim. This additionally shouldn’t be a simple or danger-free route, as a result of it crosses one other very uncovered slope with unfastened rocks and a steep drop right down to the lava lake. I watched a gaggle of French and Dutch college students taking this route very gingerly, however, thankfully, all of them appeared to be intact once they reached the underside.

Instead of doing this spherical journey, we retraced our steps and spent a short while exploring alongside the stays of an enormous collapsed lava tube that should have been 30m throughout. It resembles a really rocky canyon, stretching to the east, going tons of of metres down the far aspect of the volcano. This was a superb place for our lunchtime picnic, we determined, sheltered from a robust and dusty wind among the many giant boulders which are scattered round.

Going again right down to the shoulder, we climbed the graceful ash slope in entrance of us. This introduced us to the rim of the third crater, with a terrific view into its depths. It is deep, with sheer faces. At the underside, we might see the very small level the place the lava erupted from the bottom and flowed quickly away to the north, burying nice swathes of the encompassing space, virtually right down to the coast.

We walked alongside the left (western) rim of this elongated crater for a number of hundred metres. Part-method alongside, there’s one other hornito perched like a watchtower with vertical sides on the very fringe of the crater’s rim. It is a very good instance of a recent-wanting spatter cone product of sticky lava that didn’t transfer far when it landed.

A few metres under the crest, there’s a metre-excessive cairn of pale inexperienced crystalline rocks. These are balls, or “xenoliths”, of a mineral referred to as olivine that was embedded within the upwelling lava. These illustrate the very combined vary of lavas within the space. Exceptionally, they’re as much as 15cm throughout.

Eventually, it was time to go away this excessive space of interlocking crater rims. So we dropped again down the steep ash slope within the common path of the distant automotive park. Just the place the slope turns into much less steep, there’s a flip to the suitable alongside a degree, clear path. This skirts the decrease slopes of the third crater. Gradually, it begins to rise, curves around the northern face of the cone and drops into the crater, simply above the eruptive vent. Getting a bit in need of time, we retraced our steps a part of the best way again alongside the path, then minimize off throughout the lava and cinders straight in the direction of the automotive park – you actually can’t get misplaced – the automotive park is seen from the entire of the stroll.

On the best way, there have been two extra hornitos, greater than the others we had encountered. Each of them was product of a mix of spatter blobs and coiling twists of pahoehoe-sort lava. They appear to have oozed lava of their ultimate days, slightly than spitting it out energetically.

The entire space under these hornitos is roofed in twisted pahoehoe lava that appears as recent because the day it was created. Keeping the distant automotive in sight, we wandered over the lava, discovering some lovely tongues of pahoehoe lava during which every coil was 20cm throughout. Others have been far more delicate and, when standing on them, you needed to be cautious to not break a number of the fragile formations. There are additionally areas the place the lava swept down the slope in extensive sheets, and solidified in clean blankets of rock that enveloped every little thing beneath. Some elements are hole, the place the underlying lava drained away to go away a skinny crust, typically creating miniature lava tubes, maybe a foot extensive, with damaged sections like home windows to see inside. Towards the bottom a part of the slope, there’s one other giant collapsed tube. It is feasible to clamber down into it and discover uphill into three stacked and overlapping tubes, however the floor is extraordinarily unstable with innumerable and really sharp factors. Lower down, the lava dived underground virtually vertically, leaving an entrance about 2m throughout. It is surrounded by multicoloured lichens, and it plunges right into a deep cavern. This one actually appeared too harmful to discover with none gear, so we contented ourselves with pictures into the depths.

Just previous this deep tube, there’s a main change within the topography. To the left, the graceful, ropey lava provides option to a broad slope of ash. Strictly talking it’s “lapilli” – unfastened pea-sized cinders, thrown out throughout one of many volcano’s little temper swings.  Both the pahoehoe lava and the ash subject finish in a 5m excessive face of rocky, blocky a’a lava. This is the sting of the move that we walked throughout once we left the automotive park. Walking again instantly throughout this appeared pointless – or too pointed, relying on the way you take a look at it. Besides, it appeared to be the province of a really giant black hen that had no worry of us – a raven, we thought. So we walked under the face of the movement till we got here to the unique path that we had first used. From there, it is just a ten or fifteen minute stroll again to the tiny automotive park on the base of Montana Tingafa and a really welcome chilly drink from the coolbox within the boot.

Other volcanic highlights

There are so many! If you can also make sense of the terrible maps and non-existent street indicators, you may attempt:

M.         Hervideros on the south-west coast: for turquoise seas that erode caverns in basalt-column cliffs; for probably the most lovely line-up of lava bombs that ever shaped the sting of a pathway; for partitions of naturally colored lavas constructed with love by native craftsmen; for divine pahoehoe lava twists; and for busloads of extremely loud guests.

P.         The big deserted quarry at El Mojon: for layers of wondrous, fascinating exposures of pyroclastic deposits, carved by probability into very photogenic shapes by miners and the climate. You can wander round freely all day and never meet one other soul.

A.         El Golfo: for a stunning sea-flooded crater and fantastic layers of pyroclastic and wind-blown ash deposits which were exquisitely etched out by the winds.

A.         The Mirador del Rio, on the north-west coast: for fantastic views of the island of La Graciosa, with its cones and lava flows eroded into lovely striped patterns.

H.         The National Park and Timanfaya itself is spectacular, however we discovered it disappointing. You need to go spherical in a bus. Ours stopped very briefly a number of occasions to permit pictures to be taken by way of the filthy stained home windows, earlier than lurching off with out warning. Just don’t anticipate an excessive amount of.

S.         We additionally went on a helicopter flight. It went straight throughout the National Park and alongside elements of the coast. We hurtled over the panorama at some velocity, with no diversions, and little alternative to admire the excellent surroundings as a result of the pilot didn’t financial institution the helicopter round. Therefore, in case you are on the again row within the center, you see virtually nothing – definitely not sufficient to justify the excessive value of the flight. You will discover that I nonetheless really feel a bit bitter about this!

Further studying

Lanzarote by Raimondo Rodriguez, revealed 2003 in English. An wonderful e-book that covers the Geological Origins and different elements of the island.

Lanzarote, Canary Islands by Trevor Greensmith. Geologists’ Association
Guide No. sixty two, revealed in 2000 with monochrome pictures.

National Park – Timanfaya – Visitor’s Guide, revealed in English by the
National Park in 1997.

Lanzarote Tourist Guide by RL Varela is likely one of the Recuerda Series. It is
undated however available in English.

Los Volcanes De Las Islas Canarias by S Arana and JC Carracedo, revealed in
1978 in Spanish.

Volcanes de Lanzarote by Reiner Loos revealed in 2000. This focuses on the
Parque Nacional de Timanfaya. It is usually color pictures with some textual content in a number of languages.

Volcanoes of Europe by Alwyn Scarth and Jean-Claude Tanguy, revealed in
2001 with very informative textual content, diagrams and pictures.

Map – Lanzarote on a scale of B : sixty two,500 by Guias y mappas Raimundo. This map is a sepia-type satellite tv for pc picture of the island that exhibits all of the volcanoes in shaded aid. Worth shopping for to admire as a lot as to make use of.

By Dr Trevor Watts

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Filed underneath: geology, volcanoes Tagged: Evolution, geology, Mancha Blanca, Pico Partido, Timanfaya, volcanic
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