The petrology of the Las Canadas volcanoes, Tenerife, Canary islands

Abstract

Tenerife is the largest of the seven Tertiary to Recent volcanic islands that make up the Canary Archipelago. The island is composed of volcanics belonging to the basanitetrachyte-phonolite assemblage that characterises many Atlantic islands. The most voluminous development of intermediate and salic volcanics has been in the centre of the island where the Las Canadas volcanoes arose upon a basement shield composed mainly of basanite and ankaramite flows, tuffs and agglomerates. The initial post-shield activity built the Vilaflor volcanic complex (Lower and Upper Canadas Series) that originally covered much of the underlying shield volcanics. A vast collapse of the complex, probably during post-Pleistocene times, in the centre of the island has left a large semi-circular wall, and provides an excellent vertical section through the complex. Quaternary volcanism within the collapsed area has built the twin, central-type volcanoes, Viejo and Teide, both of which have attendant satellite vents. That part of the Vilaflor Complex exposed in Las Canadas, together with the Viejo and Teide volcanoes, comprise the Las Canadas volcanoes.

Four distinct rock types can be recognised in these volcanoes, basanite, trachybasanite, plagioclase phonolite, and phonolite. Each rock type can be recognised chemically and mineralogically, but there is essentially a gradational series from basanite to phonolite that includes both aphyric and glomerophyric rocks. The volcanics are strongly undersaturated and sodic, and some of the phonolites are mildly peralkaline. Variations in degree of undersaturation, and trace element abundances indicate a number of cycles of activity which would be consistent with the known field relations.

Forsteritic olivine occurs in the basanites and trachybasanites but is not a stable phase in the more salic volcanics. Clinopyroxene is ubiquitous, varying in composition from titanaugite in the basanites to slightly sodic augite in the phonolites. Strongly sodic pyroxene is restricted to the groundmass of the microcrystalline phonolites along with aenigmatite and a kataphoritic amphibole. Plagioclase is found only in the groundmass of the basanites, but andesine and potash-oligoclase are common phenocryst minerals in the trachybasanites and plagioclase phonolites respectively, whereas the characteristic feldspar of the phonolites is anorthoclase.

The relatively smooth curves of major and trace element variation, the presence of accumulative volcanics at all stages of differentiation, zoning of the mineral phases, and the clustering of the phonolites around the low temperature trough in Petrogeny's Residua System, all indicate that the descent from basanite to phonolite has resulted from fractional crystallisation of a basanite parent magma. The trend of pyroxene crystallisation, and the fairly constant FeO/Fe₂O₃ ratio during fractionation indicate crystallisation under low PO₂ conditions.