Volcanoes- Week 5

This week we learned about volcanos.

Just like earthquakes, volcanos are related to the location of plate tectonics. Most volcanoes are located along the Ring of Fire, which is in an upside down U shape along the regions of the Pacific Ocean. There are, however other volcanoes around the world. In areas where there is hotspot activity or portions of a mid-ocean ridge such as Iceland.

The main types of volcanoes are the stratovolcanoes (or composite cone) which are shaped like a cone with high sides, eruptions consist of lava flows. There are Lava dome volcanoes which, as their name says it, they are shape like a dome and are also steep. These volcanoes mostly erupt lava piling up near the vents, although at times they can explosive. There are shield volcanoes which look more flat on the surface. These have gentle arches and very low slopes. The lava flows of these volcanoes flows on the outer ridges of their surface which travels far. The cinder cone volcanoes are tall with the top on a cinder shape, which erupts lava flows. The last main shape of volcanoes is the continental calderas. These volcanoes are wide, tall and very deep. These types of volcano erupt tephra which is solid matter such as ashes.

In England there are no volcanoes. The closest volcano is outside of the UK in Germany. The Laacher See volcano, which is a caldera type volcano. At the moment it is a dormant volcano, meaning it’s active but not currently having eruptions. This is the only caldera in central Europe, and it also forms part of the “east Eifel volcanic field”.  This was formed after the Laacher volcano erupted about 12,000 years ago. The remains of this eruption are all over Europe. Even though this volcano hasn’t had eruptions recently it is considered an active volcano due to seismic activity under the lake and because of that scientists expect this volcano to erupt any time now, which would result devastating for the region.

References:

https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/laacher_see.html