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Fuerteventura and the other Canary Islands lie just off the coast of north-west Africa. The archipelago has volcanic origins, with the islands starting to erupt out of the sea about 20 million years ago, the first of which was Fuerteventura making it the oldest Canary Island. Calculating the age of the Canary Island's submarine life is difficult, with many geologists guessing that it began anywhere between 35 and 80 million years ago. But what is more widely agreed is that Fuerteventura appeared as an island around 20 million years ago, 'closely' followed by the second oldest Canary Island, Lanzarote. There are a couple of theories that explain the island's origin. The first is that the Canary Islands all lie over what has been called the 'Canary Hopspot'. Just like the Caribbean and Yellowstone National Park which are also explained by the existence of a hotspot, this is a theory which geologists believe describes excessively hot mantle plumes being forced upwards to create protrusions creating, in this case, a series of islands. Another theory geologists also combine with the hotspot is that the same folding of the earth's crust which created the Atlas mountains in nearby Morocco also created these islands. The last active volcano fell silent of Fuerteventura around 4 million years ago. Over these millions of years, the originally tall volcanic peaks have been eroded away leaving just a series of volcanic plugs and craters which create the hilly but non-mountainous landscape. In fact, the highest peak on the island stands at just 2,600 feet above sea level, which is, when compared with the Canary Island's tallest peak, Mount Teide on Tenerife at 12,198 feet, rather puny. Although there are no active volcanoes on the island, in geological terms there has been some more 'recent' volcanic activity. To the south of Fuerteventura lie the malpais rock formations which were created from occasional eruptions from lava plains, and the last of this kind of volcanic activity is believed to have occurred 4,000-5,000 years ago. Book cheap holidays to Fuerteventura online.

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