The Canary Islands are approximate 30 million years old, they started off as a submerged mountain but it is unclear what exactly made them surface because the island is not positioned on the crossroads of the tectonic plates where underwater eruptions are common place but are recognized as a fixed area of volcanic activity on the earth’s surface that is not influenced by the movements of the plates above it.

Six researchers from Huelva and La Laguna have done considerable studies into the birth of Fuerteventura and have concluded that the underwater eruptions which created the land masses that we see today happened in three stages. The first period was linked to a rise of large masses of sunken rock from the earth’s crust approximately 23 million years ago, this then stretched and weakened leading to the second phase which was the eruption of light, fluid magma that has accumulated underneath. This upsurge shaped the volcanic ridge that with time emerged out of the Ocean forming Fuerteventura.

Fuerteventura’s first settlers were believed to be the ‘Guanches’, their origins are still to this day unclear however there are a range of suggestions from Celtic immigrants from mainland Spain and Portugal or possibly Norse invaders. Berber immigrants from nearby Africa almost definitely inhabited some of the islands probably explaining the influence on many place names which resemble Berber tribal idiom.