Terceira Island


Terceira is a volcanic island in the Azores archipelago of Portugal, due west of Lisbon. It is one of the larger islands of the archipelago, with a population of 53,311 inhabitants in an area of approximately.
Terceira is the location of the Azores' oldest city, Angra do Heroísmo, the historical capital of the archipelago and a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the seat of the judicial system ; and the main insular Portuguese Air Force base, Base Aérea nº 4 at Lajes, with a United States Air Force detachment.
Terceira island has two main sea ports, one at Angra do Heroísmo and the other at Praia da Vitória, and a commercial airport integrated with the flight operations at Lajes. Portuguese bullfighting is popular on the island, in two versions: the traditional equestrian bullfight and the popular "tourada à corda" that occurs in the streets.

History

There is some uncertainty in the date and the discoverer of the Azores. Nautical charts before the "official" discovery identified islands in the Atlantic Ocean as early as 1325, when a chart by Angelino Dalorto identified "Bracile" west of Ireland, and later one by Angelino Dulcert which identifies the Canaries, and Madeira, along with mysterious islands denominated as "Capraria". Legends also persisted of Atlantis, Sete Cidades, the Terras of São Brandão, the Ilhas Aofortunadas, the Ilha da Brasil, Antília, the Ilhas Azuis, and the Terra dos Bacalhaus, and charts appeared between 1351 and 1439 of several groupings of islands with various names. The first association between the modern island of Terceira and these stories, was that of the island of Brasil; it first appears as Insula de Brasil in the Venetian map of Andrea Bianco, attached to one of the larger islands of a group of islands in the Atlantic
In 1439, the first official discovery document appeared, attributing the discovery of the Formigas to Gonçalo Velho Cabral. There is an indication that Terceira may have been discovered by Vicente de Lagos, Velho Cabral's pilot, on 1 January 1445: the first documents after this period started appearing with a third island in the Azorean archipelago, referred to as the Ilha de Jesus Cristo, and later, Ilha de Jesus Cristo da Terceira. Gaspar Frutuoso, a chronicler and humanist, would later rationalize about the island's first name, noting that:
  • it was discovered on the first day of January, traditionally the feast day of the name of Jesus;
  • it was discovered by a captain in the Order of Christ;
  • it was discovered on a Thursday or Friday, on Corpo de Deus ; or
  • because it was part of the dioceses of Angra, through the invocation of San Salvador.
Regardless, it was only a temporary name, as the colloquial Terceira was used more often to describe the island.
The colonization of the island began by decree of Henry the Navigator, dated 21 March 1450, and placed the island in the administrative hands of the Fleming Jácome de Bruges. Its first settler was Fernão d'Ulmo, a Fleming or Frenchman, who later abandoned his plot for unknown reasons. Bruges, although a Flemish nobleman, continued to bring families and settlers from Flanders, and northern Portuguese adventurers, as well as animals and provisions, disembarking in the area of Porto Judeu or Pesqueiro dos Meninos, near Vila de São Sebastião. Frutuoso also affirmed that:
...that ancient settlers of the island of Terceira, that were the first to settle in a band to the north, where they call Quatro Ribeiras, where now the parish of Santa Beatriz is located, and where the first church existed on the island, but were few settlers remained due to difficult access and bad port.

The first settlement occurred in Quatro Ribeiras, in the locality of Portalegre, where a small chapel was raised for the invocation of Santa Ana. Bruges made return trips to Flanders for new settlers to his colony. On one of his trips to Madeira, he conscripted Diogo de Teive and assigned him as his lieutenant and overseer for the island of Terceira. A few years later, Bruges moved his residence to Praia, began construction on the Matriz Church in 1456, and administered the Captaincy of the island from this location, until he mysteriously disappeared in 1474, on another of his trips between the colony and the continent. Following his disappearance, the Infanta D. Beatriz, in the name of her son the Infante D. Diogo divided the island of Terceira into two captaincies: Angra and Praia. Apart from the Portuguese and Flemish settlers, colonists from Madeira, many slaves from Africa, new Christians and Jews populated the island at this time, developing new commercial ventures including wheat, sugar-cane, woad and woods. This development would continue until the end of the 19th century, with the introduction of new products, including tea, tobacco and pineapple.
During the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580, the Azores was the only portion of the Portuguese overseas empire to resist the Spanish until the summer of 1583. Philip II of Spain had offered an amnesty if the Azores surrender, but his messenger met with a very hostile reception at Angra do Heroísmo. Following the Battle of Ponta Delgada, where Don Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz defeated the Anglo-French supporters of D. António off the coast of São Miguel, the Marquis concentrated his forces at a less defended beach from Angra do Heroísmo. With a fleet of ninety-six ships and 9,500 men the Marquis was able to defeat the forces of D. António after one day's fighting. Although French and English soldiers on the island were allowed to retire unharmed, D. Antonio and a handful of his supporters were lucky to escape with their lives.
One year later, the conquest of the Azores was complete after the island of Terceira was reconciled, followed by the seizure of the island of Faial.
An English expedition fleet under the Earl of Cumberland in 1589, as part of the Azores Voyage of 1589 into Angra Bay, attacked several harbouring Spanish and Portuguese ships and was able to sink or capture five.
File:Angra na terceira.jpg|thumb|right|Print of the Angra op Tercera, showing the city of Angra and portions of the island, Jacob van Meurs, 1671
With the acclamation of John IV of Portugal, the Azores applauded the restoration of independence from the Iberian Union. This was not lost on the Spanish settlers in Angra do Heroísmo, who had become a privileged class during the Union, and which made it difficult for them to remain after 1640, when Portuguese sovereignty was restored.
In 1766, the reorganization of system of Captaincies was undertaken, resulting in one Captain-General, with his seat in Angra do Heroísmo for the Azores.
In 1810, a number of journalists and others considered to favor the French, including the industrialist Jácome Ratton, were exiled to the island for a period.
Political tension rose in the 1820s between constitutionalists or Liberals, and those who supported absolute monarchy. Having embraced the cause of constitutionalism, the local Terceirenses established a Junta Provisória in the name of Queen Maria II of Portugal in 1828. Hostilities broke out at the Battle of Praia da Vitória in 1829. In a decree, issued on 15 March 1830, Angra was named as Portuguese capital by the Terceirenses constitutional forces, who protected and supported exiled Liberals who supported the rights of Queen Maria II of Portugal, whose rights were usurped by the Miguelistas. In 1832, Pedro I arrived in the Azores to form a government-in-opposition to the absolutionist regime in Lisbon, presided by the Marques of Palmela, and supported by Azoreans Mouzinho da Silveira and Almeida Garrett that developed many important reforms.
Toward the end of WWII, Portugal went from becoming a neutral country to, in 1944, a non-belligerent country in favor of the allies. A military agreement was signed with the United States which allowed them to establish Lajes Field on the island. The field had already been operational by the British who used the 1373 Treaty of Windsor to get approval to build an Air Force base and they brought in US equipment, but the US was not allowed to realistically use the base until Portugal agreed in 1944.
On 24 August 2001, Terceira made the news as Air Transat Flight 236 managed to land at Lajes Field after running out of fuel in mid-air.
On 16 March 2003, President of the United States George W. Bush, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and Prime Minister of Portugal José Manuel Barroso met on Terceira to discuss the Invasion of Iraq, which began four days later, on 20 March.
On 15 January 2016, then Tropical Storm Alex made an unprecedented landfall on the island with sustained winds reaching 65 miles per hour. This landfall was unprecedented due to the time of year it occurred, which was mid-January. Alex is one of four known tropical cyclones to make landfall on the Island of Terceira, with the others being an unnamed hurricane in 1889, another unnamed hurricane in 1940, and Hurricane Carrie in 1957.

Geology and Geography

Geology and physical geography

Terceira island is an active volcanic island, that is composed of several older extinct volcanoes. The highest point of Terceira is 1021 m, formed by the summit of the dormant Santa Barbara volcano, known as the Serra de Santa Bárbara.
The island of Terceira consists of four overlapping stratovolcanoes built over a geologic structure called the Terceira Rift: a triple junction between the Eurasian, African and North American tectonic plates. These volcanic structures rise from a depth of over from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Radiocarbon dating of eruptive units, in support of geologic mapping, has improved the known chronology of Middle to Late Pleistocene and Holocene volcanic activity on the island of Terceira, Azores, defining the east-to-west progression in stratovolcano growth. These have commonly resulted in a classification of the eruptive events into the following structures:
  • Cinco Picos Volcanic Complex: the oldest on Terceira, which completed its main sub-aerial activity by about 370–380,000 years ago. Collapse of the upper part of the stratovolcanic edifice formed an enormous caldera about 370,000 years ago. Post-caldera eruptions of basalt from cinder cones on and near the caldera floor and trachytic pyroclastic flow and pumice fall deposits from younger volcanoes west of Cinco Picos have refilled much of the caldera producing an almost-uninterrupted fertile plain.
  • Guilherme Moniz Volcanic Complex: the southern portion, in the central part of the island, began erupting about 100,000 years later and produced trachyte domes, flows, and minor pyroclastic deposits for another 100,000 years. The highest point along the caldera rim reaches. The northern portion of the Caldera is less well exposed, but reflects a similar age range. The northwest portion of the caldera was formed sometime after 44 ka. Several well-studied ignimbrites that blanket much of the island likely erupted from Guilherme Moniz Volcano.
  • Pico Alto Volcanic Complex: a tightly spaced cluster of trachyte domes and short flows, is a younger part of Guilherme Moniz Volcano. Stratigraphic studies and radiocarbon analysis suggest that most of the Pico Alto eruptions occurred during the period from about 9000 to 1000 years BP.
  • Santa Barbara Volcanic Complex: the youngest stratovolcano on Terceira, began erupting prior to 29,000 years ago, and has been active historically, comprises the western end of the island and at its highest point is. This stratovolcano is surrounded by several domes and coulee trachyte formations that occupy the volcano's caldera and along various alignments of the volcano's flanks.
  • Fissural Zone: Connecting the eastern portion of Santa Bárbara, the western frontier of Pico Alto and Guilherme Moniz exist a grouping of fissural volcanoes and basaltic cones, the youngest of which formed about 15,000 years ago. The only historical eruptions occurred in 1761, along a fissure on the eastern face of Santa Bárbara, and in 1867 and between 1998 and 2000 from submarine vents off the western coast. The groupings of volcanic structures on the island are aligned along a northwest–southwest and west-northwest-east-southeast orientation that extends to the submarine vents/volcanoes towards the eastern basin of Graciosa, including geomorphological alignments of smaller volcanic structures.
Island tectonics are highlighted by two great faults in the northeast corner, the Lajes Graben has been responsible for severe seismic events. Historically, both faults have produced earthquakes that are relatively shallow, strong and responsible for the destruction of property in the northeastern corner. During the 1614 event, whose epicenter was located along the Lajes fault offshore, recorded magnitudes for the earthquake were between 5.8 and 6.3 on the Richter scale. A second, less-developed, graben is located on the southeast of the Santa Bárbara stratovolcano. This feature is marked by trachyte domes and crosses from the coast at Ponta do Queimado to the cliffs, faults, basaltic lava and fissural eruptions near the center of the island.
The western part of Terceira Island is more heavily forested than the eastern part, due to the prevailing westerly winds bringing increased precipitation to that side, resulting in forests of Cryptomeria. Other geomorphological points of interest include the plains of Achada, the mounts near Santa Bárbara, the small lakes of Lagoa das Patas and Lagoa da Falca. The northern coast is an area marked by evidence of volcanic activity with several mistérios, the swimming pools of Biscoitos, while the centre of the island is highlighted by the Algar do Carvão and Furnas do Enxofre that are popular with tourists and geologists. Most of the island is ringed by coastal cliffs about 20 m high, except on the south coast near Angra do Heroísmo. Here, an eruption of basaltic lava in shallow water formed the tuff cone of Monte Brasil, which protects and shelters the harbor of the island's capital. The cone is about in diameter and rises above the western side of the harbor.