A Common Trigger For Earth's Largest Volcanic Eruptions
The Las Cañadas volcanic caldera on Tenerife in the Canary Islands has generated at eight major eruptions during the last 700,000 years, catastrophic events which resulted in eruption columns of over 10 miles high and expelled widespread pyroclastic material over 60 miles. For comparative purposes, even the smallest of those Tenerife eruptions expelled over 25 times more material than the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland. The Las Cañadas volcano is an IAVCEI (International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior) Decade Volcano – identified by the international community as being worthy of particular study in light of their history of large, destructive eruptions and proximity to populated area. read more