Comment on "The distribution of basaltic volcanism on Tenerife, Canary Islands : Implications on the origin and dynamics of the rift systems" by A. Geyer and J. Marti. Tectonophysics 483 (2010) 310-326

In their article, Geyer and Marti (2010) propose that the evolution and origin of the volcanic islands which constitute the Canarian archipelago are strongly controlled by regional tectonic “Atlantic” and “African” structures. In their Fig. 1a they sketch the geometry of the Iberian and Moroccan microplates and the respective boundary zones with respect to Africa (Nubia) and Eurasia (Mantovani et al., 2007). Dashed lines indicating presumed plate boundaries cross the Canarian archipelago, which will therefore be located along a lithospheric fracture, the boundary between the Moroccan and African (Nubia) microplates. This regional fracture extends from the Atlas to the Atlantis fracture zone, coinciding in parts with the propagating fracture postulated by Anguita and Hernan (1975). In Fig. 1b of Geyer and Marti (2010), dashed lines indicate the orientation of the most evident tectonic structures visible on the ocean floor. As we show in this comment, all of these mapped “faults” are artifacts.