Do Volcano Behemoths Tick?

As a tectonic plate slides into the mantle, the heat releases fluids trapped in the plate. Seawater and carbon dioxide, rise into the upper plate and can partially melt the overlying crust, forming magma. And magma most likely means volcanoes are around.

Volcanos are deadly, can form on islands or mainland, and can destroy mountains and cities. Volcanos commonly form from holes in the earth containing magma. When pressure builds up in these magma chambers, they explode resulting in magma and rock catapulting out into the air. As these volcanoes repeatedly explode, they leak magma, which runs down the side of the volcano. Eventually, the lava cools and transforms into solid rock, building up the volcano to mountain size. An example of giant volcanic eruptions is the Pompeii disaster in 79AD, when Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed all of Pompeii. Another example includes, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state, which destroyed the whole mountain. Volcanos

A hazard is a situation that poses a level of threat tolife, health, property or environment. The level of hazard posed by different volcanoes can very greatly, from a weak eruption with minimal impact that causes little damage, to a voilent and life threatening explosion. Most of the sixty-plus volcanoes that erupt each year are low risk, however a combination of factors can cause a volcano to be a serious hazard. The factors causing these variations will be explained in this essay.

Volcanoes can be found throughout the entire world and are formed when there is a rupture in the mantle of the Earth's crust. This effect allows the output of volcanic lava, ash, and various types of gases. These tectonic plate breaks are normal, the planet Earth is divided into 17 tectonic plates and consistently move against each other forming shifts from low to high intensity. It can cause displacement of earth or water.

Volcanoes are one of the most destructive, yet, most beautiful things on Earth. They can make a famous city choke in its own ashes in one day, like Pompeii. Or they can turn a once damaging mountain into a graceful and peaceful home for new life, like Mount St. Helen’s. All volcanoes are unique, and no two are the same. Some erupt differently than others, some look different than others, and all are located in different spots all over the world. I learned this while completing the project and the five volcanoes I researched are examples of my discoveries. The five volcanoes I researched were Mount Hood, Mount Mageik, Long Island, Mount Muria, and Las Pilas.

The location of the volcano is also important. If it is situated on a constructive plate boundary then it is generally less explosive, and therefore poses different threats to volcanoes situated on a destructive plate boundary. The volcano may also be situated on a hotspot like in Hawaii, where the eruptions aren’t very explosive. Volcanos which aren’t explosive can pose other threats to lava flows though, such as dangerous gases being released. Like in Lake Nyos, Cameroon where 1700 people died.

What is a volcano: A volcano is a mountain created by the earth. It also creates a hole where molten rock (lava) erupts. A volcano is filled of magma but when the magma erupts and is out of the volcano it is now called lava. When a volcano erupts it fills the air with lava fragments. A volcano can cause a lot of destruction like tsunamis, flash floods, mudflows, rockfalls, and earthquakes. Most volcanoes are located where the tectonic plates meet. Most

To begin, a volcano is a mountain with an opening in the top or side that sometimes sends out rocks, ash, lava, in a sudden eruption (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). A volcano erupts when pressure builds inside the mountain. Magma, lava while it is inside the volcanoe, pushes through the weakened crust. When this built up pressure is released, Earth’s plates move causing a volcanic eruption. Also, dangerous flows of steaming lava can reach up to 2,000

A Volcano is a mountain or hill that has a crater running through it filled with lava, rocks, gas and hot vapour that will erupt. There are three types of volcanoes, there is the Cinder Cone volcano which is the smallest, the Shield volcano which is in most cases the biggest and the Composite volcano which can be the most deadly.

Many people underestimate the power of volcanoes and the amount of damage they can do to a country, state, city, or town. A volcano is a mountain that extends down to a caldera which is a pool like are of magma in between the mantle and the crust in the Earth. It in a sense is a massive hole in the middle of the crust and mantle of the Earth where magma can erupt from and eventually make its way to the Earth’s surface. Volcanoes are estimated to kill almost 1,000 people per year and caused $99,000,000 worth of economic damages from 1980 to 2008. When an active volcano erupts its “danger zone” is about a 20 mile radius around the volcano itself, which ends up killing people, destroying houses, land, etc.

The different types of eruptions that come from the volcanoes that stretch across Io play a significant role in its volcanology. There are three popular types of eruptions that occur on Io. These are: flow dominated, explosion dominated, and Intra-patera eruptions. Flow dominated eruptions “produce extensive compound lava flow fields… similar to compound inflationary flows commonly observed on Hawaiian eruptions on Earth” (Lopes 2015). These flows make up a major terrain type on Io. Many of the major flows are produced by build ups of small breakouts of lava on top of older flows. They differ from the other popular eruptions because they can last for years, have a low output of energy, and can have flow fields larger than 300 kilometers. The opposite of this style of eruption is explosion dominated eruptions. Where “most of the energy of the eruption is directed into a short-lived, vigorous event that lasts days to weeks… can produce extensive pyroclastic deposits and lava flow fields, and typically a large (>200 km high) plume, thought to originate from the interaction of silicate magma with sulfurous volatiles” (Lopes 2015). These eruptions occur when magma deep within Io’s molten mantle reaches the surface and cause alterations in the near-infrared brightness. They also have the potential to cause colossal short lived changes around them. For example, in 1997 an eruption produced a 400 kilometer wide deposit of silicate and sulfur dioxide. The powerful eruption in recorded history was explosion dominated and observed by astronomers on February 22, 2001. The most common of the three eruption types, Intra-patera eruptions, “occur with or without associated plumes, and are thought to be lava lakes” (Lopes 2015). Generally they have flat floors and steep walls. Unlike features that are similar on Earth they are usually not located at the peak of a shield volcano. Their

Most people are scared of volcanoes, but do you know the real reason why? Well, when Volcanoes that are underground erupt they can start a tsunami which can flood a city and mess it up a lot. Put that’s not the only scary thing volcanoes.

This is only a general overview of the inner workings of volcanoes and their eruptions. For more infomation, visit Volcano World -- The Premier Source of Volcano Info on the Web.

The globalized contemporary society is uniquely vulnerable to volcanoes. A volcano, which is defined as a “vent or chimney which transfers molten rock known as magma from depth to the Earth’s surface” by Geoscience Australia(2015), can be considered to be a cloud with a silver lining for society due to their eruptions. Attributed to factors such as density and pressure, volcanic eruptions occur for several reasons. Grotzinger and Jordan(2014) explains that as magma is less dense than solid rock it will rise buoyantly through the lithosphere finding its way to the Earth’s surface by melting its way up or by fracturing the lithosphere along lines of weaknesses. Alternatively, the magma may accumulate in a magma chamber where either the exsolution of gases from the magma or the loss of pressure above the chamber results in the magma rising to the surface.

The nature of volcanic hazards is often classified by the violence of the explosion and thus is assigned a number from the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), for instance Icelandic and Hawaiian volcanoes which erupt basaltic lava - which has a low silica content and a basic chemical composition; it reaches a maximum temperature of 2000 degrees Celsius and thus has low viscosity. Due to this, gases are easily released and so the eruptions are non-explosive, with a VEI of 0-1 A prime example of this form is the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland which erupted in 2010, where during the fissure phase less vicious basaltic lava effusively erupted onto the surface and flowed west – it was also olivine –rich. However the explosive phase had a VEI of 4, hence classified as a large, violent eruption.