San Antonio Volcano

A team of experts including the director of Volcanology of the Institute of Natural and Agrobiological Resources of the Canary Islands, Juan Carlos Carracedo, discovered, during a scientific study carried out between 1993 and 1996 on the ridge of the Cumbre Vieja, that the extraordinary volcanic cone de San Antonio does not correspond to the eruption of 1677, as had been successively collected in the historical bibliography, but rather it is a volcano that is more than three thousand years old.

The volcanic eruption of 1677 opened a small crater above the San Antonio volcano, which threw materials and ashes, while the lava came out through a fissure that broke at the base of the San Antonio volcanic building, frequent circumstances in La Palma. “which could create popular confusion.”

This eruption produced a platform on the Fuencaliente coast, currently covered by banana plantations and raised a mountain of lesser magnitude, supported on the base of the San Antonio volcano by its upper part.

According to Mr. Carracedo, the 1677 volcano was of low magnitude and caused little damage, although it did cause the church steeple to collapse due to tremors, while the eruption that produced the extraordinary volcanic building of San Antonio corresponds to a phreatomagmatic volcano, in which the sea water enters and throws huge stones in an area of kilometers around.
For more information about the San Antonio Volcano, we advise you to visit the San Antonio Volcano Visitor Center.