The foundations of La Aldea

The fascinating story of this territory began some 14 million years ago. In that initial period an enormous volume of material rose up from the bottom of the Atlantic in “a very short time” and created the base on which the island now rests. That was to be the first of the three great series of eruptions which sum up the formation of Gran Canaria, and the most significant in the geological history of La Aldea.

Much later, after being subjected to many meteorological phenomena, it is that original material, though vastly altered, that makes up almost the whole municipality. And the story we can read in it through its rich, varied and curious formations is fascinating and worthy of our close attention.

The landscape of La Aldea is characterised by rugged terrain, primeval, beautiful and massive, in the form of ancient, bare ranges of mountains which, when dissected, show us their internal elements to help us understand their evolution. Among the extensive list of geological features scattered over this landscape, for various reasons, there are some that merit special attention.

The area is dotted with numerous varied and spectacular geomorphological formations: the great erosional Caldera which forms the Tejeda-Artenara-La Aldea basin; Barranco Grande, the main artery of that basin; the old massifs of Inagua, Azaenegue and Guguy; the delta plane spreading out at the mouth of the Barranco de La Aldea; the Mesa de Las Tabladas, the sandbanks connecting the terrestrial and underwater worlds all along the coast, the sea cliffs of Guguy and Andén Verde, the lava tube of the Montaña de Aslobas, the caves that pierce the old basalt flows, and many others.

And in every one of them there is a stunning display of dikes, flows, crags, colonnades, berms, hydrothermal alterations, minerals… There is no geological time to lose; get ready to enjoy this immense heritage.