Volcanoes & Vulcanism

I'd always wanted to see a volcano up close and Teneguia at the South of La Palma offered a unique opportunity to explore close up a very tame and sleepy one. The whole of the Archipelago is a series of Volcanic Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and although Spanish territory, they are situated off the North African Coast and are popular as an all year round holiday destination for beach goers, nature lover, hiker, ramblers and of course the world's Astronomy community.

source wikik - Teneguía below is a monogenetic cinder cone – a vent which has been active once and is considered as being unlikely to become active in the future. It is situated on the island of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands and is located at the southern end of the sub-aerial section of the Cumbre Vieja volcano of which Teneguía is just one of several vents.

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La Palma has some of the world's best viewing conditions and a mountain top assembly of Giant Telescopes. That will have to wait for another post because the day I went up the mountain a flash flood storm broke out and the car swam back down the mountain among rocks and pouring torrents laden with killer rocks.

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Teneguia

This Volcano has an active history and is constantly monitored although Teneguia is considered a dead volcano now. The first thing that strikes you when you visit is that you are standing on top of another giant cone, San Antonio, (pictured below) looking down at a series of cones or vents leading all the way to the sea.

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When you get to the other side, there are literally miles of nothing but spiky volcanic rocks. One of the most inhospitable places I've ever ventured to and it feels like you could be on Mars or one of Saturn's Moons.

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Where there's Life

There is life here. After walking down the steep side of the first cone (San Antonio) you come to a cinder field. It's a long hard walk across an alien landscape of multi-coloured cinder until you reach a cluster of small vents / cones, each one with it's own distinctive shape, colour and wildlife. Dare I say it also, personality !

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Lichen has established itself here and along the inner side of the large San Antonio cone (pictured below), trees have begun to grow and exotic plants have managed to dip their tenacious roots into some nutritious soil. Volcanic sites are often rich with ash making fertile plains. If it's just piles of rock then not much will grow except the lichens and there are huge fields like this here and in neighbouring Islands like Fuerteventura, which is almost all volcanic plains, desert sand dunes and bare rock.

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Frozen in Time

The rocks fell and oozed and liquid turned to stone in the blink of an eye in the last eruption. It's like nature was caught in the act of creation and here a pink ice cream lava lies as if it's still in a liquid state.

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This huge rock must have been launched here from the bowels of the earth and one can almost imagine the feeling of being there as it came crashing down roiling hot and landing with one almighty thump. It now sits gracefully with it's sulphur rich yellowish streaks giving it a life like appearance.

*1/160th @f6.1 ISO 100 /29mm

This sleeping Cinder cone looks peaceful but can you imagine the hubbub if it were to start smoking and quaking. Not something you'd want to be anywhere near. You think of Volcanoes as classic cone shape like the one in the photo above but this is like a whole family of Volcanoes. It's more like a colony of cones belonging to one volcano. Well two actually as the big one at the top is a separate entity. If one goes off, you know the other one is not far behind.

Technical

A Lumix day with a 14-42mm standard kit lens, no tripod. Hot dry & bright conditions made it really simple. A combination of close ups with a short depth of field to capture texture and detail on the rock / lichens and a series of landscape shots with panoramic views was made made simple by using a travel zoom kit lens. In this case it performs equally well at both extensions. Minimal processing to bring out the fantastic palette which is multi-colour up close. Yellows, reds & green against harsh dark greys make for a very rich colour scheme and not what I was expecting at all.