DESCRIPTION:
Cape Verde Volcanoes and Volcanics

The Cape Verde islands were discovered by Portugal in 1456 and settled 6 years later. An eruption beginning in 1500 appears to have continued for about 260 years, with behavior similar to that of Italy's Stromboli. The islands were an important point in the trans-shipment of slaves until the 18th century. Independence from Portugal came in 1975.

Volcanism in the region is largely caused by hotspots in oceanic crust, and the region has the highest proportion of fissure vent volcanoes (as primary features). Several known volcanoes lie along or near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that separates the Eurasian and African plates from the North and South American plates, but the Canaries and Cape Verdes lie just west of the African continental margin.

Fogo
Stratovolcano
2,829 meters high
Historical

Brava
Stratovolcano
900 meters high
Holocene

Santo Antao
Stratovolcano
1,979 meters high
Holocene

San Vicente
Stratovolcano
697 meters high
Holocene

The island of Fogo consists of a single massive stratovolcano that is the most prominent of the Cape Verde Islands. The roughly circular 25-kilometer-wide island is truncated by a large 9-kilometer-wide caldera that is located asymmetrically NE of the center of the island and is breached to the east. A steep-sided central cone, Pico, rises more than 1 kilometer above the caldera floor to about 100-meters above the caldera rim, forming the 2,829-meters-high point of the island. Pico, which is capped by a 500-m-wide, 150-meters-deep summit crater, was apparently in almost continuous activity from the time of Portuguese settlement in 1500 AD until around 1760. Later historical lava flows, some from vents on the caldera floor, reached the eastern coast.

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