The Bandama Caldera natural crater is one of the Gran Canaria Island’s, The Canary Island Archipelago’s, as well as Spain’s protected natural sights. This volcanic crater soars to a height of 574 meters, and its highest peak is Pico de Bandama. The crater itself is a thousand meters wide and 250 meters-deep, and the geological materials found inside provide the crater with a variety of colors.
How did the crater come to be?
It is thought that the crater’s formation was caused by a violent volcanic eruption. The eruption caused a crack to open, letting the large amounts of lava and ash escape from it and, spreading all over the hill, it created two valleys. The volcanic activity was the most active in the north and south parts of the crack, where two volcanic cones merged. Under the south cone, the contact between the icy, subterranean waters and the hot molten lava caused the volcano to become even more explosive. The continuous outburst of volcanic material caused large amounts of condensed ash to fill the hole on the north slopes of the volcanic cone. After that, the north cone became active, expelling even larger amounts of lava than the former cone. The powerful explosion caused cracks to form, through which volcanic material seeped outside to the surface. The large amount of volcanic material caused the stone surface of the cone to weaken, and this, combined with the fact that the balloon of lava that fed the volcano was now empty, caused the volcanic cone to collapse, creating the Bandama Caldera crater.
The bottom of the crater is riddled with volcanic ash of many colors, and it is home to many indigenous Canary Island plant species.
