Capelinhos Volcano – Natural Monuments for three years

March 28, 2022

On 27 March 2019, the recent volcano of the Azores received the natural monument classification.

The Capelinhos Volcano resulted from a submarine eruption at about 1 kilometre from the northwest of Faial island in September 1957 that lasted for 13 months.

Since the eruption, the landscape of this place has never been the same again. However, it has been a place of interest for volcanology and geology specialists, but also astronomy specialists as is the case of NASA, which will use the Capelinhos Volcano to train the exploration of Mars.

In 2008, the Capelinhos Volcano Interpretation Centre was inaugurated. In addition to being a place of interpretation and promotion of the environmental heritage of that protected area, the Centre is a museum of reference that, in its first decade, received more than 250 thousand visitors.