El origen de las Islas Canariasun modelo de síntesis
- Hernán Reguera, Francisco
- Anguita Virella, Francisco
ISSN: 1132-9157
Year of publication: 1999
Issue Title: Los volcanes
Volume: 7
Issue: 3
Pages: 254-261
Type: Article
More publications in: Enseñanza de las ciencias de la tierra: Revista de la Asociación Española para la Enseñanza de las Ciencias de la Tierra
Abstract
After a general overhauling of the ideas on the origin of the Canaries, we propose, mainly on the basis of geophysics and regional geology, a unifying model which borrows elements from the previous hypotheses but is able to solve most of their pending questions. The Canary Islands were built on an old triple junction dating from the times of the opening of the Atlantic, when the upper mantle of the area was filled with hot material from a plume, later melted and plumbed through the activity of Alpine transtensive fractures of the Atlas system. The islands blocks were uplifted when the same faults worked as transpressive shears.