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Explosive felsic volcanism on El Hierro (Canary Islands)

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Abstract

The Canary Islands consist of seven basaltic shield volcanoes whose submerged portion is much more voluminous than the subaerial part of each island. Like so many other volcanic oceanic islands, the indicative deposits of explosive felsic volcanism are not a common feature on the Canary archipelago. Hitherto, they have only been documented from the central islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife, which are the largest volcanic complexes of the islands. On the other Canary Islands, the presence of felsic rocks is mostly restricted to intrusions and a few lava flows, generally within the succession in the oldest parts of individual islands. In this paper, we present a detailed stratigraphic, lithological and sedimentological study of a significant felsic pumice deposit on the island of El Hierro, referred here as the Malpaso Member, which represents the only explosive episode of felsic volcanism found on the Canary Islands (outside of Gran Canaria and Tenerife). The products of the eruption indicate a single eruptive event and cover an area of about 15 km2. This work provides a detailed stratigraphic and chronological framework for El Hierro, and four subunits are identified within the member on the basis of lithological and granulometric characteristics. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of an explosive eruption in a setting where the activity is typified by effusive basaltic events. Given the style and the spatial distribution of the Malpaso eruption and its products, a future event with similar characteristics could have a serious impact on the population, infrastructure and economy of the island of El Hierro.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially funded by the MINECO grant CGL2011-16144-E and the European Commission (FT7 Theme: ENV.2011.1.3.3-1; grant 282759: ‘VUELCO’). The authors are grateful to the Cabildo of El Hierro for permission to undertake this research and, above all, to the Consejo Insular de Aguas de El Hierro for its support and to Orlando Hernandez, Xavier Bolós, Daniele Giordano, Jose Morales de Francisco and Llorenç Planagumà for their assistance in the field, as well as Olaya García, Pedro Agustín Padrón and Quico Burjachs for their suggestions during this research. We are also grateful to the Editor James White, the Associated Editor Thorvaldur Thordarson, to the reviewer Roberto Sulpizio and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive reviews of this manuscript. The English text was corrected by Michael Lockwood.

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  1. Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera, ICTJA-CSIC, Group of Volcanology, SIMGEO (UB-CSIC) Lluis Sole i Sabaris s/n, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Dario Pedrazzi, Laura Becerril & Joan Martí

  2. Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME) c/ Alonso Alvarado, 43-2A 35003, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    Laura Becerril & Inés Galindo

  3. Centro Geofísico de Canarias, IGN, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

    Stavros Meletlidis

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  1. Dario Pedrazzi
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Correspondence to Dario Pedrazzi.

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Geographical coordinates of relevant locations, as well as stratigraphic sections and sampling points (DOCX 28 kb)

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Pedrazzi, D., Becerril, L., Martí, J. et al. Explosive felsic volcanism on El Hierro (Canary Islands). Bull Volcanol 76, 863 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00445-014-0863-1

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