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Volcanic Neck of Cancarix

Hellín, Campos de Hellín, Albacete

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Volcanic Neck of Cancarix

Nature · Hellín, Campos de Hellín, Albacete

Volcanic Neck of Cancarix

The Cancarix Volcanic Neck is a volcanic dome dated to 7.04 million years ago, revealed by erosion, located in the Sierra de las Cabras, in the hamlet of Cancarix in the municipality of Hellín. It was declared a natural monument in November 1998 and is considered the most important of its kind on the Iberian Peninsula. It is made up of lamproites, ultrapotassic rocks of very deep origin that are very rare in the geological record, whose local variety is called cancalite or cancarixite. Despite its name, it is not a volcanic neck proper, narrow in shape like an obelisk, but instead shows a columnar jointing typical of slow lava cooling, and it has been proposed as a Global Geosite by the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain.

Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Darabuc~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). (Public domain)

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