The Canary hotspot, also called the Canarian hotspot, is a
hotspot and volcanically active region centred on the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, :es:Canarias, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to ...
located off the north-western coast of
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. Hypotheses for this volcanic activity include
lithosphere
A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of up to thousands of years ...
extension permitting
melt to rise from the
mantle
A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that.
Mantle may refer to:
*Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear
**Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...
beneath (the
plate hypothesis), and a deep
mantle plume
A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic hot ...
. Volcanism is believed to have first started about 70 million years ago.
Recent activity
From July to September 2011, the Canarian
island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An isla ...
of
El Hierro
El Hierro, nicknamed ''Isla del Meridiano'' (the "Meridian Island"), is the second-smallest and farthest-south and -west of the Canary Islands (an autonomous community of Spain), in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, with a populatio ...
experienced thousands of small
tremors, believed to be the result of
magma
Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natura ...
movements beneath the island. This resulted in fears of an imminent
volcanic eruption
Several types of volcanic eruptions—during which lava, tephra (ash, lapilli, volcanic bombs and volcanic blocks), and assorted gases are expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure—have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are oft ...
, which began October 10, 2011, approximately 1 km south of the island in a
fissure
A fissure is a long, narrow crack opening along the surface of Earth. The term is derived from the Latin word , which means 'cleft' or 'crack'. Fissures emerge in Earth's crust, on ice sheets and glaciers, and on volcanoes.
Ground fissure ...
on the floor of the ocean. Eruptions continued until March 2012.
[Carracedo, J.C.; Troll, V.R.; Zaczek, K.; Rodríguez-González, A.; Soler, V.; Deegan, F.M. (2015) ''The 2011–2012 submarine eruption off El Hierro, Canary Islands: New lessons in oceanic island growth and volcanic crisis management'', Earth-Science Reviews, volume 150, pages 168–200, ]
See also
*
2021 Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption
An eruption at the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge, comprising the southern half of the Spanish island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, lasted from 19 September to 13 December 2021. It was the first volcanic eruption on the island since the eru ...
*
2011–12 El Hierro eruption
The 2011–2012 El Hierro eruption occurred just off the island of El Hierro, the smallest and farthest south and west of the Canary Islands (an autonomous community of Spain), in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. The island is also ...
*
Geology of the Canary Islands
The geology of the Canary Islands is dominated by volcanic rock. The Canary Islands and some seamounts to the north-east form the Canary Volcanic Province whose volcanic history started about 70 million years ago. The Canary Islands region i ...
References
Hotspots of the Atlantic Ocean
Volcanism of the Canary Islands
{{volcanology-stub