La Palma
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This article discusses one of the Canary Islands. For other similar names, see Palma.
La_palma_volcano.jpg
La Palma, a Spanish island, is one of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off Africa. It is located at Template:Coor dm.
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Description
La Palma is one of the Canary Islands, with an area of 706 km². Total population is about 85,000, of which 18,000 (2003 data) live in the capital, Santa Cruz de la Palma.
Its geography is a result of the volcanic building of the island. The highest peaks reach about 2.4 km from the sea level and additional more than 3 km below sea level. The northern part of La Palma is dominated by the Caldera de Taburiente, which, with a width of 9 km and a depth of 1.5 m, is surrounded by the Cumbre Vieja, a ring of mountains from 1.6 km to 2.4 km in height. Only the deep canyon Barranco de las Angustias leads into inner area of the caldera which is a national park. It can be reached only by hiking. The outer slopes are cut by numerous gorges which run from 2 km down to the sea. Today only few of this carry water due to the water tunnels.
Through the southern part of La Palma leads the ridge Cumbre Nueva formed by numerous volcanic cones build of ashes, a rather bizarre landscape. The southern cape Punta de Fuencaliente where the most recent volcanic activities took place consists of lava and ashes.
La Palma is dominated by the colors blue, green and black. Blue is the surrounding ubiquitous sea. Green comes from the abundant plant life, the most variegate one can find in the Canary Islands. Black from the volcanics rocks that still fill the landscape, and from the numerous small beaches made of black sand.
Government
The island is part of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The island capital is Santa Cruz de la Palma. The other major city on the island is Los Llanos.
The island is divided into 14 municipalities:
Volcano
Caldera_de_Taburiente.jpg
The island was formed as a seamount by the volcanic activities like all of the Canary Islands. La Palma is the most active volcano of the Canary Islands and was formed 3 million years ago. It rises 3.5 km from the seafloor to the sea surface and reaches a height of 2.426 km above sea level. 500,000 years ago the primary volcano Taburiente collapsed with a giant landslide which formed the Caldera de Taburiente. The known historic eruptions are:
- 1470-1492 Montana Quemada
- 1585 Tajuya near El Paso
- 1646 Volcán San Martin
- 1677 Volcán San Antonio
- 1712 El Charco
- 1949 Volcán San Juan, Duraznero, Hoyo Negro
- 1971 Volcán Teneguía
During the 1949 eruption the western half of the Cumbre Vieja ridge slipped several metres downwards into the Atlantic Ocean. It is believed that this process was driven by the pressure caused by the rising magma heating and vaporizing water trapped within the structure of the island. During a future eruption, the western half of the island, weighing perhaps 500 billion tonnes, could slide into the ocean. This could generate a giant wave known as a megatsunami around 1 km high in the region of the islands. The wave would fan out across the Atlantic and strike the Caribbean and the eastern American seaboard several hours later with a wave possibly 90 m high causing massive devastation along the coastlines. However, some scientists think the flank of the island would crumble away, instead of falling into the ocean in a large mass, sparing the coasts.
Megatsunami are only generated by certain specialized conditions, such as those existing on southwestern La Palma, and so are fortunately quite rare. It may be possible to avert the landslide simply by setting up a large strip mine and relocating the perched material to sea level. Such an operation would be massively expensive (although less expensive than a tsunami) and would have to be carried out over an extended time.
History
The Canary Islands had been settled by the native Canarians called Guanches whose origin is still controversial. They had a neolithic culture without agriculture and split up in several clans led by a chief. Their name for La Palma was Benahoare. The main relics of this culture are the caves they lived in, petroglyphs which are mysterious stone engravings of cultic meaning (perhaps) and the stone paved paths through the mountains. After the Spanish occupation of La Palma the native Canarians vanished completely by assimilation into the Hispanic population.
Though some historians think that the Canary Islands were known to the Phoenicians and the Greeks, there is proven knowledge that the Genoese Lancelotto Malocello reached the archipelago in 1312. In 1404 the Spaniards began the conquest of the islands. Though the first landing on La Palma was in 1405 it took until 1493 and several bloody battles until the last resistance of the natives was broken. The conqueror of La Palma was Alonso Fernandéz de Lugo who defeated Tanausu, the last king of Benahoare. Tanausu was captured by the Spaniards by betrayal. For the next two centuries La Palma became rich as a trading post on the way to the new world.
Water Tunnels
The most famous buildings of La Palma are the water tunnels which carry the water from sources in the mountains to cities, villages and farms (mainly banana plantations and vineyards). La Palma is blessed with a plenty of water due to the clouds brought by the Trade Winds. The tunnels were carved into the rocks over centuries. One can follow some of the tunnels by hiking which is a great but wet adventure. The tour to the springs of Marcos y Corderos is well known.
Observatories
Sea_of_clouds_around_La_Palma.jpg
Due to the location of the island and the height of its mountains, some 2.4 km above sea level, a number of international observatories have been built on the Roque de los Muchachos. The particular geographical position and climate cause clouds to form between 1 km and 2 km, usually leaving the observatories with a clear sky. Often, the view from the top of the volcano is a sea of clouds covering the eastern part of the island.
- The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) operates three telescopes: the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope, the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope and the 1 m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope.
- The 2.5 m Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT).
- The 1 m Swedish Solar Telescope (SST) operated by the Institute for Solar Physics.
- The 0.45 m Dutch Open Telescope (DOT).
- A 0.6 m optical telescope.
- The Carlsberg Meridian Telescope (CMT).
- The 1.2 m Mercator Telescope.
- The 2 m Liverpool Telescope.
- The 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias (in building phase).
- The 3.6 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG).
- The 17 m MAGIC Telescope, an air shower Cherenkov telescope for observing high energy gamma rays
The DOT and the SVST have been specifically built to study the Sun.
External links
The Island of La Palma
- La Palma -picture wikimedia commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:La_Palma)
- La Palma, Canary Islands - data and lots of pictures (http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/africa/lapalma.html)
- The Island of La Palma (http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/lapalma/lapalma.html)
Tourism
- La Palma Tourism (http://www.la-palma-tur.org/)
- La Palma Tourism (http://www.la-palma24.net/)
Massive Wave
- Scientists warn of massive wave (http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/08/29/tidal.wave/)
- Tidal wave threat 'over-hyped' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3963563.stm)
Telescopes
- Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (http://www.iac.es/gabinete/orm/index.html)
- Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (http://www.ing.iac.es/)
- Nordic Optical Telescope (http://www.not.iac.es/)
- Dutch Open Telescope (http://dot.astro.uu.nl/)
- Carlsberg Meridian Telescope (http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~dwe/SRF/camc.html)
- The MAGIC Telescope Home Page (http://wwwmagic.mppmu.mpg.de/)be:Пальма (выспа)
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