Roques de García

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Roque Cinchado and Teide
Roques de García

The Roques de García are a rock formation on the Spanish Canary Island of Tenerife below the Teide volcano . The most famous of the bizarrely shaped towers made of volcanic rock is the Roque Cinchado , which is also called the Stone Tree or Finger of God and is the symbol of the island.

Location and surroundings

The rock formation is located about five kilometers south of the summit of Teide at an altitude of about 2200  m on the edge of the extensive caldera Las Cañadas . The area is part of the Teide National Park ( Parque Nacional del Teide ). The rock towers extend about 2 km in a northwest-southeast direction and are considered to be the boundary between the western and eastern parts of the caldera. They reach relative heights of up to 200 meters (La Catedral). Some named rocks are (from northwest to southeast) the Roques Blancos , El Callejón , El Queso , Rincón Amarillo , Placas de Guillermo , Roque El Tripi , Macumba , Roque del Burro , Roque Méndez , Roque América , Roque Cinchado and Torrotito . The rocks La Catedral and Roque Las Cuevos lie in front of the main chain a little to the southwest.

geology

La Catedral rock is formed by a former volcanic vent

The geological structure of the rocks is extremely complex and essentially comprises (from bottom to top) rocks of the Roques de García Formation , the Los Azulejos Formation and the Ucanca Formation . The Roques de García are mainly formed by pyroclastic sediments and lavas, as well as clastic sediments such as breccias , sandstone and conglomerates . Striking forms of weathering such as Tafoni can be observed on the surface . The Roques Blanques ("white rocks") consist of lighter colored tuffs . The layers are penetrated by phonolithic dykes and vents . For example, the La Catedral rock is formed by such a vent.

The rocks of the Roques de García reach far below the surface of today's crater floor, which is about 500 meters above the former caldera floor and has grown to today's height through deposits (mainly lava). The chain of the Roques formed a barrier for these deposits, so that the plain east of the rocks is today about 150 meters higher than west.

The origin of the Caldera Las Cañadas is controversial. According to a common interpretation, the plains to the west and east of the Roques were created by collapse, with the Roques de García being formed at the overlap of the two craters. According to another theory, it is the result of a large landslide whose debris cone formed the Roques de García. The relatively uniform layer sequence, however, speaks against this theory. The age of the rock has so far been estimated at around 1.4 to 0.4 Ma , but more recent findings speak for 1.7 to 1.4 Ma, long before today's caldera was formed. According to more recent theories, the rocks of the Roques were then deposited within a relatively short period of time in what was then a depression and later penetrated by lava chimneys and subjected to hydrothermal processes of change.

tourism

Tourists at the Roques de García

The rocks are easily accessible via a road from La Orotava in the north, Guía de Isora in the southwest or Vilaflor in the south. The road leads to the southeast end of the rock chain, where a parking lot at the Parador Nacional de las Cañadas is the starting point for the visit. From there, the Roques de García can be hiked around four kilometers.

The Roques de García are a popular climbing area with around 90 routes . The La Catedral rock is the most important climbing destination. Routes up to difficulty VII A1 lead to its summit .

The image of the Roque Cinchado adorned the reverse of the 1000 peseta banknote from Spain (old series 1982–1987).

Web links

Roque Cinchado and Teide on the 1000 peseta note
Commons : Roque Cinchado  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Joan Martí, Carlos Soriano, Inés Galindo, Raymond AF Cas: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice -building succession? In: Geological Society of America (Ed.): Special Paper: Stratigraphy and Geology of Volcanic Areas . tape 464 . Boulder 2010, ISBN 978-0-8137-2464-5 , pp. 113–154 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martí et al .: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice-building succession? P. 116.
  2. ^ A b Roques de Garcia on Summitpost.org, accessed October 10, 2010
  3. ↑ a b Martí et al .: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice-building succession? P. 119.
  4. ↑ a b Michael Szönyi: Geoland Tenerife . vdf Hochschulverlag, Zurich 2009, ISBN 3-7281-3242-X , p. 24–27 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ Martí et al .: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice-building succession? P. 113.
  6. ↑ Martí et al .: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice-building succession? P. 115.
  7. ↑ Martí et al .: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice-building succession? P. 114.
  8. ↑ Martí et al .: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice-building succession? P. 127.
  9. ↑ Martí et al .: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice-building succession? P. 128.
  10. ↑ Martí et al .: Resolving Problems with the Origin of the Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands): Los Roques de García Formation - Part of a Major Debris Avalanche or an in situ, stratified, edifice-building succession? P. 129.
  11. ↑ Fig. 1000 Pesetas at the ECB

Coordinates: 28 ° 13 ′ 28.8 "  N , 16 ° 37 ′ 54.3"  W.