Lanzarote Geology

Lanzarote, as all the other Canary Islands, is the effect of geological processes relating to the opening of the Atlantic, which began in the Mesozoic, and most recently exacerbated by the pressure in this area with the turn of Africa in the clockwise direction. At the beginning of the opening of the Atlantic, without lava emissions to surface the islands began to appear about 20 million years ago in nearby Fuerteventura and 11 million years ago on the island of Lanzarote.
The geological history of Lanzarote is divided into three phases:
In a first phase, 11 million years ago during the Miocene period, are the oldest remains in the area of Famara in the north of the island, and the Ajaches south. Currently, erosion processes have dismantled these formations.

Its terrain is weathered buildings that have evolved with a good drainage network characterized by valleys in a “U” shape now dry and barren. Characteristic of these formations is the Famara ridge, where the greatest slope on the island, about 600 m.

The highest point of Lanzarote is here in the rocks of Chache with a height of 671 m.
A second phase is covered by the evolution of the morphology of Lanzarote from the Miocene until the Pleistocene eras, characterized by erosional forces of the two formations, Famara and Ajaches.

Subsequently, there have been significant emissions of magmatic material that led to the union of two ancient formations. This is especially the central sector of the island that is characterized by the existence of alignments of buildings forming the structural axes of the island, which coincide with the areas of training of Fuerteventura with NE-SW direction, some with advanced stage of decommissioning , with a drainage system evolved in rounded forms, wide valleys, plains and moderate peneplain.

We can say that at this stage Lanzarote and Fuerteventura were joined at the close of the Bocaina and the island of Lobos. The last time was during the last glaciation, the Wurm glaciation period.
The third phase, geologically speaking, has nothing distinctive, although the most important from the anthropocentric point of view. These eruptions occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth emission aligned parallel to those of the previous phase and buildings not exceeding 200 m. but excellently preserved by low rainfall that occurs on the island and a very strict conservation policy.