Sete Cidades (Caldeira)

Sete Cidades

Sete Cidades (German: Seven Cities ) is a caldera of volcanic origin with a lake of the same name measuring 4.35 km² in the west of the Portuguese Azores island of São Miguel . The lake is divided into two parts, which are connected by a narrow channel. The lake measures about five kilometers in length from northwest to southeast and is one to two kilometers wide. The village of Sete Cidades is on the west bank . The volcano has been one of the most active in the Azores for the past 5000 years.

The crater lakes

If you look down from the crater rim about 500 m (highest elevation 856 m), one lake appears blue ( Lagoa Azul ) due to the reflection of the sky , the other green ( Lagoa Verde ) due to the vegetation behind it . According to a legend, the different colors came about when a princess and her lover, a shepherd, had to part ways. Her tears formed the lakes in the colors of her eyes. In the 1930s, a tunnel was built from the lakeshore to Mosteiros in the northwest to better regulate the water level in the lakes. Before that, the lakes had no natural runoff, so the water level fluctuated greatly and the neighboring town was flooded regularly. The two crater lakes are one of the main attractions of the Azores.

Volcanism

The whole volcanic complex is 210,000 years old. The caldera was created by a large magnitude 5 eruption on the volcanic explosive index 22,000 years ago, after which there were at least twenty more eruptions. Six pyroclastic cones from the Holocene were located on the bottom of the Caldeira , including the two tuff cones that are now home to the crater lakes Lagoa Rasa and Lagoa de Santiago .

A large group of lava domes from the Pleistocene , lava flows and deposits of pyroclastic material can be found on the western and northern flanks . a. the maar lake Lagoa do Canário . The most recent eruptions date back to the 15th century. These eruptions occurred in the Caldeira and from submarine points off the west coast. There have historically been four Stromboli- type eruptions and three Surtsey- type eruptions a short distance from the coastline.

Panorama of Sete Cidades

Others

Ruin of the Monte Palace

Pasture and, to a small extent, timber and tourism are the livelihoods of the residents of Sete Cidades . A road bridge over the narrow point between Lagoa Azul and Lagoa Verde creates the connection from the village to the Vista do Rei viewpoint on the southern edge of the caldera and further to the southwest of the island. At Vista do Rei is the ruin of the luxury hotel Monte Palace , which closed in 1990 after only two years of operation and which was finally given up in 2010 , which is now a tourist attraction as Lost Place .