El Complejo Lóbulo-Hialoclastítico Traquítico de la Caldera de Taburiente (La Palma, Islas Canarias)

Abstract

In the submarine volcanic rocks that appear in the Basal Complex of La Palma we can distinguish an older felsic formation, and a more modern basaltic-trachybasaltic sequence,resting on the first according to a conformable contact with stratigraphic continuity. In the felsic formation, coherent facies (in the form of trachytic lobes, consisting of porphyritic, aphanitic or glass trachytes); autoclastic facies (hyaloclastites and autobreccias); and syn-eruptive resedimented facies (mono and polymictic, massive or graded breccias and volcaniclastic sands and gravels), can be found. The architecture and structure that define the different described facies seem to correspond to a trachytic lobehyaloclastite complex, older than the outcropping submarine basaltic-trachybasaltic formation, and, possibly related to the evolution of a former basaltic magma that would have led to the formation of a basaltic submarine shield, which does not currently crop out in the surface of the island. This paper first describes a lobe-hyaloclastite felsic complex on an oceanic island of intraplate environment.