A research group coordinated by the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME), of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), has discovered north of the Canary Islands a new seamount, which they have named Los Atlantes, composed of three volcanoes.
As explained this Wednesday by the CSIC in a statement, some of these three volcanoes are located east of Lanzarote, so they could be related to the volcanic eruptions of Timanfaya, while others are believed to have been islands in the Eocene, between 56 and 34 million years ago.
This new seamount has been named Los Atlantes because the research project that discovered it is the 'Atlantis', which is being developed aboard the oceanographic vessel of the institution 'Sarmiento de Gamboa', and is coordinated by researchers Luis Somoza and Javier González, from the Marine Geological Resources and Extreme Environments group of the IGME-CSIC.
Specialists from the Complutense University of Madrid, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Évora and Lisbon are participating, as well as the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan) of Tenerife, the Hydrographic Institute of the Navy and the EMEPC of Portugal.
In this campaign, which began on June 27 and ends on August 6, an unmanned ROV submarine has been used to investigate the state of the seabed around the Canary archipelago between 2,500 and 100 meters deep, the CSIC specified.
The objective of this research "is to detect signs of magmatic and hydrothermal submarine activity in the archipelago, which could pose a future risk to the population", while investigating environmental processes and the formation of submarine minerals in extreme conditions, where microorganisms promote the biomineralization of metals such as manganese, cobalt, phosphates or rare earths.
The research group that made this discovery is the same one that some time ago discovered the so-called 'grandmothers', seamounts south of the Canary Islands that are considered ancestors of the current archipelago, among which is the famous Tropic seamount.
In addition to discovering this new seamount, in the first phase of the campaign, the recent volcanoes, known as the 'daughters' of the Canary Islands, which are the lava deltas of the Tajogaite volcano, which emerged in 2021 in La Palma; the Tagoro submarine volcano, from the 2011-2012 eruption in El Hierro; and the lava deltas of Teneguía (1971) and San Antonio, Fuencaliente (1677) that occurred south of the island of La Palma, have been studied.
In the second part, they have dedicated themselves to the mothers, located to the north, which are those that gave rise to the archipelago and where the mountain that is proposed to be called Los Atlantes has been discovered.
"They were islands in the past and have sunk, they are still sinking, as the legend of Atlantis tells. Some of us have been able to verify that they still maintain their beaches," said the geologist and project coordinator Luis Somoza.
The images obtained during this research project "reflect the enormous life that exists on the seabed after the submarine lava flows formed the lava deltas, also verifying how submarine life is being reborn after the recent eruptions with new gardens of corals and sponges, or areas covered with bacterial tapestries next to hydrothermal vents".
Some of the lava flows reach more than 1,200 meters deep; as their outer layer cools, tubes are formed that allow it to flow hot on the slopes, configuring impressive pipes at great depths.
The research carried out in the present 'Atlantis' project, the CSIC has highlighted, may be useful when facing the risks of a future submarine eruption in the Canary archipelago, such as the one in El Hierro in 2011-2012 -whose area has been proposed to form the first eminently marine National Park- or the irruption of lava deltas in the marine zone, as occurred in La Palma.
