Gly1000 Exam 1 Study Guide Essay

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.

It is minimal realized that lying underneath one of The United States biggest and most beautiful National Parks - Yellowstone Park - is one of the biggest "super volcanoes" on the planet. Every year, a huge number of guests come to respect the hot springs and fountains of Yellowstone, the Nation's first national park. Few are mindful that these miracles are powered by hotness from a vast repository of incompletely liquid rock (magma), simply a couple of miles underneath their feet. As this magma-which drives one of the world's biggest volcanic frameworks climbs, it pushes up the Earth's hull underneath the Yellowstone Plateau.

The theory of plate tectonics states that earth’s crust is broken up into plates. Geologists speculate that a hot spot in the upper mantle of the earth's crust is responsible for the heat that derives the Yellowstone thermal and volcanic activity; the result of three gigantic volcanic eruptions that caused by the underlying hot spot. The volcanic eruptions started with the collapse of the mouth of its volcano and formed large volcanic craters called calderas. Yellowstone’s volcanic past has the first and the largest caldera that blew up about over two million years ago, and it was

Magmatism refers to action and movement of magma. Magma is the molten rock that exists within the earth’s mantle, and that is in a state of constant motion resulting from the enormous amount of pressure exerted on it by the overlying layers. The earth’s crust is divided into many plates which are also in a constant state of slow motion against each other. The edges of these plates form weak points at which volcanic activity often occurs. Rifts also form edges that run down to the earth’s mantle. As such, volcanic activities often take place along these rifts. Multiple volcanic features are found along these faults which are evidence of the magmatism. Furthermore, the movement of the plates and the magma along the faults also causes the regular occurrence of earthquakes in these regions. Also, magmatism also plays an important role in the formation of the rifts. However, not all rifts experience magmatism and in some cases, some fault lines are volcanically dormant. This paper shall compare the Great East African Rift with the Rio Grande Rift to identify similarities and differences between these rift systems.

Some volcanic eruptions are explosive and other are not. The explosiveness of an eruption depends on how runny or sticky the magma is. If magma is thin and runny, gases can escape easily from it. When this type of magma erupts, it flows out of the volcano. Lava flows rarely kill people because they move slowly enough for people to get out of their way. Lava flows can cause considerable destruction to buildings in their path. If magma is thick and sticky, gases cannot escape easily. This causes pressure build up until the gases escape violently and explode. In this type of eruption, the magma blasts into the air and breaks apart into pieces called tephra. Tephra can range in size from tiny particles of ash to house-size boulders.

The only active volcano and the most hazardous volcano, in mainland Europe, is Mount Vesuvius. It’s vicinity to Naples, Italy makes the volcano unsafe. The volcano is a composite stratovolcano which means that the eruptions are regularly risks for the inhabitants. These eruptions include pyroclastic flows, lava flows, mudflows, and drastic climate changes (Bagley, 2016). Mount Vesuvius is part of the Campanian Volcanic arc which lies on top of a subduction zone. At this subduction zone, Africa’s continental plate converges with the Eurasia plate, subducting underneath and creating an arc of volcanoes (Bagley, 2016). A fault is created which pushes magma out of the mantle and causes an eruption. This uprising magma is felsic, which goes with the fact that the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius are explosive. The felsic magma has white, gray or silver color and has a high gas content. These colors are also the ones present in the flow. Furthermore, light-colored pumice is created which usually forms during explosive eruptions. This pumice is an extremely porous rock, which provides an insight into the type of volcano Mount Vesuvius is.

Rock types found at Brothers Volcano were analysed as dacite and rhyolite, both of which erupt from silicic magmas. The graphs of major and minor elements for site 3 showed distinctly different values compared to the other samples, indicating a different magma chemistry at this site. The plot of the minor trace elements showed high barium levels. Barite is the most common sulphate material associated with barium and is also commonly sourced in hydrothermal processes along with lead, zinc and copper. Numerous surveys have discovered active hydrothermal systems and Brothers volcano is considered to have the most active hydrothermal activity in the Kermadec Arc (Embley et al., 2012) (Gns.cri.nz, 2015). As described the

Characterized by towering summits that explode with the scorching innards of the planet, one would think that volcanoes are something from a fantasy novel. But no, they’re found everywhere from Hawaii, to California, to Alaska. They come in many different shapes and sizes, and they all erupt in a certain way, causing different hazards. So, what makes these behemoths tick?

In general, hotspots are thought to occur where mantle plumes – superheated, narrow mantle upwellings – arise within the mantle and penetrate the lithosphere. Magma in these plumes originates from the deep mantle, and thus is not depleted of 87-rubidium, accounting for the enriched 87Sr/86Sr ratio in hotspot rocks relative to MORBs. The rise of the lighter, low viscosity plumes into the heavier, high viscosity lithosphere causes multiple magma conduits to branch from the main plume. As a result, hotspots emit discrete islands in lieu of a continuous

The magma is known to block the vents of the volcano, so that is why the eruption is hazardous. Composite volcanoes usually have andesite lava.There are three main types of lava/magma that volcanoes have: andesite, dacite, and rhyolite. Andesite lava/magma usually is dense and has a thick consistency. It consists of “quartz and feldspar minerals”.The magma flows out through a pipe called the main

Sometimes such rocks end up being moved into the deep parts of the Earth’s crust, where temperatures are high and pressures are extreme. These unusual conditions serve to heat and change the rocks. Marble, slate and gneiss are examples of metamorphic rocks.

Before the volcano erupts the magma has to gather for it to exploud. After it stops exploding lava

A tectonic plate was just sub ducted and the rocks and minerals around the subduction area are about to change. They will change because of how the plates have moved. The plates have moved because of the way magma underground has moved. The magma has a mind of its own when it comes to flowing somewhere underground, because it doesn’t have any way to stop unless it cools and hardens into rock. It will change the rocks and minerals every time hot magma runs over it and melts the rock again. The rock could change shape, color, size, and could potentially change all the minerals inside the rock.

Volcano eruptions bring newborn rocks to the world. Every year, rock families would wait around volcanos for the erupted magma or surface lava to cool down. Each family would adopt the baby igneous rocks of their type, who share the same genes, or minerals, as them. These igneous rocks could have a variety of appearance and crystal sizes. Some rocks composed of surface lava have smaller, less complex crystalline structures. They were cooled much faster when they were in contact with air or water, and larger, more complex crystalline structure would not be formed before they harden. On the adoption day, all kinds of rocks could be spotted; with different lustre, colour, crystalline structure, and mineral composition.

The low viscosity lava flow Cameroon exhibits is not much of a surprise because the volcano is part of a chain of volcanoes, indicating that it is currently sitting over a hot spot. The significance behind a chain of volcanoes is that hot spots, mantle plumes, “... tend to be largely unaffected by plate motions” (howvolcanoeswork). This allows the mantle plume to create a volcano, have the crust shift due to plate tectonics, create another volcano, and so on. The fact that Mt. Cameroon is intraplate also reinforces a hot spot mechanism because there is no subduction present to cause flux melting.