Roque Cinchado is a volcanic rock formation regarded as emblematic of the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). It lies within the Teide National Park (a World Heritage Site) in the municipality of La Orotava, near Teide volcano, in the heart of the island. Alternatively named 'gods finger', Roque Cinchado is located about 1700 meters below the summit of Teide volcano. It belongs to a group of rock formations, remnants of the former summit of the island, known as "Roques García."
Roque Cinchado is a 27-metre high rock pillar, composed mostly of volcaniclastic sedimentary rock layers [1] Its upper sedimentary layers have been intruded by two sills of lava, which have made the upper part of the pillar more resistant to erosion. [2]
The rock appeared on one thousand peseta bank notes, with Teide in the background.
The Canary Islands, also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish region, autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are 100 kilometres west of Morocco. They are the southernmost of the autonomous communities of Spain. The islands have a population of 2.2 million people and are the most populous special territory of the European Union.
Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, also Province of Santa Cruz, is a province of Spain, consisting of the western part of the autonomous community of the Canary Islands. It consists of about half of the Atlantic archipelago: the islands of Tenerife, La Gomera, El Hierro, and La Palma. It occupies an area of 3,381 km2 (1,305 sq mi). It also includes a series of adjacent roques.
Phonolite is an uncommon shallow intrusive or extrusive rock, of intermediate chemical composition between felsic and mafic, with texture ranging from aphanitic (fine-grained) to porphyritic (mixed fine- and coarse-grained). Phonolite is a variation of the igneous rock trachyte that contains nepheline or leucite rather than quartz. It has an unusually high (12% or more) Na2O + K2O content, defining its position in the TAS classification of igneous rocks. Its coarse grained (phaneritic) intrusive equivalent is nepheline syenite. Phonolite is typically fine grained and compact. The name phonolite comes from the Ancient Greek meaning "sounding stone" due to the metallic sound it produces if an unfractured plate is hit; hence, the English name clinkstone is given as a synonym.
La Palma, also known as La isla bonita and historically San Miguel de La Palma, is the most northwesterly island of the Canary Islands, Spain, which is a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in Macaronesia in the North Atlantic Ocean. La Palma has an area of 708.32 square kilometres (273.48 sq mi) making it the fifth largest of the eight main Canary Islands. The total population at the start of 2023 was 84,338, of whom 15,522 lived in the capital, Santa Cruz de La Palma and 20,375 in Los Llanos de Aridane. Its highest mountain is the Roque de los Muchachos, at 2,426 metres (7,959 ft), being second among the peaks of the Canaries after the Teide massif on Tenerife.
An unconformity is a buried erosional or non-depositional surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger layer, but the term is used to describe any break in the sedimentary geologic record. The significance of angular unconformity was shown by James Hutton, who found examples of Hutton's Unconformity at Jedburgh in 1787 and at Siccar Point in Berwickshire in 1788, both in Scotland.
A xenolith is a rock fragment that becomes enveloped in a larger rock during the latter's development and solidification. In geology, the term xenolith is almost exclusively used to describe inclusions in igneous rock entrained during magma ascent, emplacement and eruption. Xenoliths may be engulfed along the margins of a magma chamber, torn loose from the walls of an erupting lava conduit or explosive diatreme or picked up along the base of a flowing body of lava on the Earth's surface. A xenocryst is an individual foreign crystal included within an igneous body. Examples of xenocrysts are quartz crystals in a silica-deficient lava and diamonds within kimberlite diatremes. Xenoliths can be non-uniform within individual locations, even in areas which are spatially limited, e.g. rhyolite-dominated lava of Niijima volcano (Japan) contains two types of gabbroic xenoliths which are of different origin - they were formed in different temperature and pressure conditions.
Teide, or Mount Teide, is a volcano on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Spain. Its summit is the highest point in Spain and the highest point above sea level in the islands of the Atlantic. If measured from the ocean floor, its height of 7,500 m (24,600 ft) makes Teide the third-highest volcano in the world, UNESCO and NASA rank it as Earth's third-tallest volcanic structure. Teide's elevation above sea level makes Tenerife the tenth highest island in the world.
Caldera de Taburiente National Park is a national park on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. It contains the Caldera de Taburiente, which dominates the northern part of the island, and was designated as a national park in 1954. The telescopes of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory are situated very close to the summit.
In geology, a dike or dyke is a sheet of rock that is formed in a fracture of a pre-existing rock body. Dikes can be either magmatic or sedimentary in origin. Magmatic dikes form when magma flows into a crack then solidifies as a sheet intrusion, either cutting across layers of rock or through a contiguous mass of rock. Clastic dikes are formed when sediment fills a pre-existing crack.
Tejeda is a village and a municipality in the mountainous central part of the island of Gran Canaria in the province of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.
Garajonay National Park is located in the center and north of the island of La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands (Spain). It was declared a national park in 1981 and a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986. It occupies 40 km2 and it extends into each of the six municipalities on the island.
A complex volcano, also called a compound volcano or a volcanic complex, is a mixed landform consisting of related volcanic centers and their associated lava flows and pyroclastic rock. They may form due to changes in eruptive habit or in the location of the principal vent area on a particular volcano. Stratovolcanoes can also form a large caldera that gets filled in by a lava dome, or else multiple small cinder cones, lava domes and craters may develop on the caldera's rim.
Teide National Park is a national park located in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.
The geology of Hong Kong is dominated by igneous rocks formed during a major volcanic eruption period in the Mesozoic era. It made up 85% of Hong Kong's land surface and the remaining 15% are mostly sedimentary rocks located in the northeast New Territories. There are also a very small percentage of metamorphic rocks in the New Territories, formed by deformation of pre-existing sedimentary rocks (metamorphism).
Valle de la Orotava is a Spanish Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP) for wines located on the north-western coastline of Tenerife,, and acquired its DO in 1995.
Ycoden-Daute-Isora is a Spanish Denominación de Origen Protegida (DOP) for wines located in the western part of the island of Tenerife. It acquired its DO status in 1994.
Mount Guajara is a 2,718 m (8,917 ft) high mountain on Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. It is the third highest peak of the island and of the Canary archipelago, after Teide and Pico Viejo.
Pico Viejo is a volcano located on the island of Tenerife in Canary Islands, Spain. It is the second highest peak of Tenerife and the Canary Islands, with a height of 3,135 m above sea level, and a huge crater approximately 720 metres in diameter.
The geology of the Canary Islands is dominated by volcanoes and volcanic rock. The Canary Islands are a group of volcanic islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, near the coast of Northwest Africa. The main islands are Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma, and El Hierro. There are also some minor islands and islets. The Canary Islands are on the African tectonic plate but they are far from the plate's edges; this controls the type of volcanic activity, known as intraplate volcanism, that has formed the islands.