#217 #48in48 #EarthScience #Volcano

Picture link: http://globe-views.com/dcim/dreams/volcano/volcano-01.jpg

I would love to see a volcano (up close from a distance). The photography is amazing. But I believe my experience would probably be more like Walter Mitty, unlucky luck sort of stuff that could get me killed, but barely missing.

Here are some interesting facts about volcanoes:

Magma is the name given to hot liquid rock inside a volcano. Once it leaves the volcano, it’s known as lava.
A volcano is a mountain that opens downward to a pool of molten rock below the surface of the earth. When pressure builds up, eruptions occur.
In an eruption, gases and rock shoot up through the opening and spill over or fill the air with lava fragments. Eruptions can cause lava flows, hot ash flows, mudslides, avalanches, falling ash and floods.
The danger area around a volcano covers about a 20-mile radius.
Fresh volcanic ash, made of pulverized rock, can be harsh, acidic, gritty, glassy and smelly. The ash can cause damage to the lungs of older people, babies and people with respiratory problems.
Volcanic lightning occurs mostly within the cloud of ash during an eruption, and is created by the friction of the ash rushing to the surface. Roughly 200 accounts of this lightning have been witnessed live.
The word “volcano” comes from the Roman name ‘Vulcan’ – the Roman god of fire.
Volcanoes are often found at meeting points of what are called “tectonic plates”. These plates are pieces of the Earth’s surface that fit together just like a jigsaw puzzle.
Volcanoes aren’t only found on the boundaries of tectonic plates, though. They can also occur over “mantle plumes”
Volcanoes are classified as active, dormant or extinct depending on the amount of volcanic activity happening. ‘Active’ means there’s regular activity, ‘dormant’ means there’s been recent activity but that it’s currently quiet and ‘extinct’, meaning it’s been so long since the last eruption that it’s unlikely to ever erupt again.
When you imagine a volcano, you might picture it as a large, slope-sided mountain, but volcanoes can actually be a variety of shapes. Shield (flat), composite (tall and thin), cinder cones (circular or oval cones), and lava domes (where dome-shaped deposits of hardened lava have built up around the vent, as the lava is too thick to flow very far).