Taburiente Caldera, La Palma, Santa Cruz de Tenerife Province, Canary Islands, Spaini

Regional Level Types
Taburiente Caldera	Caldera
La Palma	Island
Santa Cruz de Tenerife Province	Province
Canary Islands	Group of Autonomous Communities
Spain	Country

The Taburiente caldera is located in the northern part of La Palma. It consists of 3 major build-ups: 1. Basis is a uplifted submarine volcano; 2. Perched on top is the Garafia shield volcano in the north and north-west part about 1.8 - 1.2 ma ago; 3. Taburiente, the youngest conical volcano - once 25 km in diameter and about 3.000 m of height - extinct about 400.000 years ago. Taburiente was built from basaltic lava which tended to evolve more silicic compositions during the final stages of activity.

La Palma can be divided into two morphostructurally distinct regions. The northern part of the island has a well-defined hexagonal perimeter and a roughly conical morphology, with the impressive Caldera de Taburiente located near its center. This prominent feature drains southwestward via the Barranco de Las Angustias, whereas along its perimeter, it displays numerous deep ravines, radiating outwards toward the sea. In contrast, the southern region of La Palma is defined by a “gabled roof”-shaped topography with relatively few ravines. This zone trends N–S and forms the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge. The northern part represents the oldest part of the island, composed of a denser, more rigid insular core — referred to as the North Shield — which is inferred to root into the upper mantle. The oldest exposed rocks of this shield occur within the Caldera de Taburiente and in the Barranco de las Angustias. These include uplifted submarine units, such as trachytic breccias and lava flows, along with the trachybasaltic and basaltic breccias and the pillow lavas of the Barranco de Las Angustias. These submarine units, representing part of the submarine growth stage of the North Shield, are uplifted and tilted, with bedding dipping up to 70° to the SW, and exhibit a low-grade (greenschist facies) hydrothermal metamorphism. This has led to the recrystallization of the primary minerals of the gabbros into green-colored species, such as albite, chlorite, epidote, actinolite, prehnite, andradite, and others. These mineral assemblages suggest peak metamorphic conditions of 450–490 °C and 1–1.5 kbar. Therefore, it is estimated that ~3000 m of overburden once covered these submarine rocks, whose top is now exposed at ~1300 m a.s.l. inside the Caldera de Taburiente. These submarine rocks contain microfossil assemblages of the Lower Pliocene age and are intruded by pyroxenites, gabbros, olivine gabbros, amphibolic, alkaline gabbros, and syenites, and a dense network of basaltic sheeted dykes. The subaerial growth stage of the North Shield commenced with the formation of the Garafía Volcano (1.72–1.2 Ma), now only partially exposed through erosional windows at the headwaters or in the middle course of the deepest ravines in the north, such as the Barranco del Agua, Gallegos, Franceses, de los Hombres, and Jieque ravines, amongst others. This edifice consists predominantly of pyroclastic and basaltic flows.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

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