Picos Volcanic Fissural System

Picos Volcanic Fissural System (Sistema Vulcânico Fissural dos Picos)
Fissure vent (Eurpção fissural)
Official name: Sistema Vulcânico Fissural dos Picos
Name origin: picos, Portuguese for peaks
Country	Portugal
Autonomous Region	Azores
Islands	Eastern Group
Location	Azores Platform, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Atlantic Ocean
Municipalities	Lagoa, Ponta Delgada, Ribeira Grande
Highest point	Pico das Éguas
- location	Serra Gorda, Ponta Delgada, São Miguel
- elevation	874 m (2,867 ft)
- coordinates	37°47′11″N 25°28′23″W / 37.78639°N 25.47306°W / 37.78639; -25.47306
Lowest point	Sea level
- location	Atlantic Ocean
- elevation	0 m (0 ft)
Area	200 km2 (77 sq mi)
Biomes	Temperate, Mediterranean
Geology	Alkali basalt, Tephra, Trachyte, Trachybasalt
Orogeny	Volcanism
Period	Holocene
Location of the highest point of the Picos Fissural Zone on the island of São Miguel

The Picos Volcanic Fissural System (Portuguese: Sistema Vulcânico Fissural dos Picos) is a system of scoria cones that build up the central region of the island of São Miguel (between Sete Cidades and Água de Pau volcanoes). This volcano is very young with most of it only 5000 years old. The only recorded eruption was in 1652, but seven other eruptions have taken place in the cinder cone group in the last 10,000 years.

This volcanic system is the most recently formed on the island of São Miguel, with its eruptive history dominated by Hawaiian, basaltic and Stromboli phases.

In the last 5000 years, there have been approximately 30 eruptions, with the most recent events occurring with recorded human history.

The first, in 1563, succeeded a Phreatoplinian eruption centring on the volcano of Água de Pay. During this 1563 eruption, known as the Pico do Sapateiro or Queimado, basalt lava flows reached as far as Ribeira Seca, in the north coast. The second eruption, which started on 19 October 1652, resulted in the formation of three Trachyte domes and involved explosive phases of Vulcanian eruptions, by the time the eruptions end on 26 October 1652. This, more recent eruption, was a markedly eruptive/explosive event, composed of evolved magma that generally does not characterize the Picos region.

The Picos fissural system is located in the central-western part of the island of São Miguel, delimited in the south-east by the caldera/massif of Sete Cidades and on the east by the Água de Pau Massif, running approximately 23 kilometres (14 mi) and extending to north and southern coasts. The landscape is dominated by the presence of approximately 300 monogenic cones, composed of scoria and lava flows. Similarly, the area is punctuated by maars, pumice cones and lava domes, in particular in the transitional zones between the adjacent central volcanoes.