Hello again. I’ve been away from blogging for some time. This time was very busy and interesting for me. I spent two wonderful weeks on two beautiful volcanic islands — La Palma and Gran Canaria. I took more than 1000 photos and saw a wide variety of nice geology. I am eager to share it with you but it will take some time and many posts.
I said before taking the trip that hopefully I can write some field reports but it did not work that way. Internet is unfortunately not widely available there yet and my life mostly in the wilderness also made blogging very difficult if not impossible.
What did I see there? It’s a long list but here are some guidelines: lots of lava flows (aa, pahoehoe), alkaline volcanic rocks (phonolite, basanite, etc.), beautiful ignimbrites, various volcanic edifices (mostly cones made of lapilli), porphyritic rocks, many brecciated rocks, pyroxenite xenoliths, dikes, etc.
I spent most of the time on La Palma. Mainly because it is younger than Gran Canaria and volcanically very active with many nice examples of recent volcanism. I have now visited three islands of the Canary archipelago and I really have to say that they are all quite distinct. Each of them has something interesting which is missing on other islands of the archipelago. I am sure that in the future I will go to see the remaining ones which I have not visited yet.
http://picasaweb.google.com/107509377372007544953/Tenerife#5820052691065584594
I am near the Roque Nublo on Gran Canaria about 1700 meters above sea level.
Zac, trip was great and I have material for many posts.