The Midwatch Log: Canary Islands Geology

By Anna

Yesterday (Dec. 16) we went to the mountains in a car. First I looked up some geology things on the computer. Then we got in the car and started up and up. We heard that on hot days, the people go in caves to stay cool. We saw many, many caves. The caves were made by bubbles in the magma, some were made by rocks falling out. The caves are all different sizes.

Tenerife is the largest island in the Canary Archipelago. The oldest island started 15 million years ago and island building stopped nine million years ago. There was a time of volcano activity 4 ½ to 3 ½ million years ago. The last eruption on Gran Canaria (where we are), was 2,000 years ago, at a place called Bandama . The Teide Volcano on Tennerife is the highest mountain in Spain, and the third tallest volcano on Earth, measured from the bottom of the ocean.

We were going by a town called Puerto de Mogan, and we stopped and walked around for a little

while and I got a new schoolbag for next year. On the way up we stopped to have lunch. There were lots of sheep running around. They all looked really funny all running going, “BAAAAAA, BAAAAAA .” We were going up, up, up until Finn and I fell asleep then we went in a cloud and dad fell asleep too. We could only see a little ways away. When we got out of the cloud, we were at the bottom of the mountain. We stopped at a coffee shop and I had Sprite and chocolate cake. Mmmmm. I asked in Spanish for a napkin and the waiter gave me 10 napkins. The coffee place is at a famous place to wind surf because of the famous Canary wind acceleration zone.

The sand dunes

Then we drove to a GIGANTIC sandy beach with giant sand dunes. Finn and I liked to slide down and climb up them. The sand dunes were made by wind, lots of wind; and sand blown from the Sahara Desert!

We saw people kite surfing on the beach and we were going up, down, up, down. It was a lot of fun.

A guy named George took us on this trip. His boat is across the dock from us. He is very nice!