Rui Baptista Photography
Contemplating The Creation Of Life?
Back to one of my favourite places… Corvo Island (literally The Island of the Crow) is the smallest and northernmost island in Portugal’s Azores Archipelago. Being rather small (4 km length by 6km width and with less than 500 inhabitants!), the whole island is, in fact, a volcano.
The island formed from a 5 km diameter central volcano (Monte Gorde), whose central cone was approximately 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) in altitude. The crater collapsed 430,000 years ago during a Plinian eruption, forming a subsidence caldera (2,000 metres (7,000 ft) in diameter and 300 metres (1,000 ft) depth), referred to as the "Caldeirão" (Cauldron), being the island's most iconic spot ("Caldeirão do Corvo").
On the way up to Caldeirão do Corvo you pass by pasture land, separated by black basalt walls or hydrangea hedges, where cows and some wild horses graze, offering – weather permitting – splendid views, with the green of the pastures beautifully contrasting with the blue of the sea.
Boasting an impressive 3.5 km circumference, this gigantic crater’s steep walls are covered with greenish-yellowish mosses, the yellowish colour at places being so intensive, as if there were still sulphur vapours emanating. The crater has also two lakes, with a few other tiny islets. Reaching its highest point with 718 m in the south, at the peak Morro dos Homens, the crater flanks slope down precipitously to the sea in the east, north and west where they often drop almost vertically from heights of about 400 m.
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Caldeirão do Corvo, Corvo Island, Azores, Portugal
© All rights reserved Rui Baptista. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.
Contemplating The Creation Of Life?
Back to one of my favourite places… Corvo Island (literally The Island of the Crow) is the smallest and northernmost island in Portugal’s Azores Archipelago. Being rather small (4 km length by 6km width and with less than 500 inhabitants!), the whole island is, in fact, a volcano.
The island formed from a 5 km diameter central volcano (Monte Gorde), whose central cone was approximately 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) in altitude. The crater collapsed 430,000 years ago during a Plinian eruption, forming a subsidence caldera (2,000 metres (7,000 ft) in diameter and 300 metres (1,000 ft) depth), referred to as the "Caldeirão" (Cauldron), being the island's most iconic spot ("Caldeirão do Corvo").
On the way up to Caldeirão do Corvo you pass by pasture land, separated by black basalt walls or hydrangea hedges, where cows and some wild horses graze, offering – weather permitting – splendid views, with the green of the pastures beautifully contrasting with the blue of the sea.
Boasting an impressive 3.5 km circumference, this gigantic crater’s steep walls are covered with greenish-yellowish mosses, the yellowish colour at places being so intensive, as if there were still sulphur vapours emanating. The crater has also two lakes, with a few other tiny islets. Reaching its highest point with 718 m in the south, at the peak Morro dos Homens, the crater flanks slope down precipitously to the sea in the east, north and west where they often drop almost vertically from heights of about 400 m.
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Caldeirão do Corvo, Corvo Island, Azores, Portugal
© All rights reserved Rui Baptista. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.