What La Palma's 'lava tubes' tell us about life on other planets

Transit through most of the lava field is still reserved for scientists and environmental officials. I’m accompanying Octavio Fernández Lorenzo, vice president of the Canary Islands Speleology Federation. Alongside researchers from the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME), Fernández is responsible for exploring and surveying the tunnels that lava left in its wake. Known in most scientific literature as pyroducts or lava tubes, they have a more poetic name here on La Palma: caños de fuego, fire pipes.