Tuesday, 5 January 2016

Igneous intrusion on La Palma



I was able to catch up with much more recent volcanic features on the Canary Islands. Most striking was the fact that it has never been smoothed and widened by glaciation like the features in northern Britain. Today I've picked out a volcanic dyke in the Caldera de Taburiente on La Palma. I don't speak Spanish but the display board shows molten magma welling up through cracks in pre-existing rocks, It shows the temperature gradient from the middle of the feature and cooling as it moves out. The molten rock bakes the country rock, resulting in a zone of metamorphism. The bottom photograph is a detail of this. But look how much harder the dyke is than the surrounding rock, which has worn away leaving the dyke standing out like the ones I saw on Arran.