Why do you think a volcano grows before it erupts?

The reason is that the magma chamber fills with

magma. The magma chamber acts like a balloon filling with air. As more magma comes into the magma
chamber from the center of the Earth, it expands and builds up pressure. The expanding magma chamber
pushes up the rock and earth above the chamber, causing the volcano to grow. Eventually, the pressure is
too great and the magma escapes to the surface as hot liquid lava. When this happens, the magma
chamber shrinks and the mountain shrinks in turn.

A volcano has many parts. How many parts of a volcano can you name? Under the volcano is a
compartment of molten (melted) rock known as the magma chamber. This molten rock
or magma travels from the magma chamber up through the crust of the Earth through a crack
known as a vent. Hot magma exits the volcano at the crater, becoming lava. If the eruption is
violent, then ash, rock and lava are launched into the air, collecting on the sides of the volcano.
After many eruptions the layers of ash, rock and solidified lava build up to form the recognizable
cone shape of a volcano. On the top of the cone is the crater, or indentation in the volcano that
marks where past eruptions have occurred.
Volcanoes are natural events in the life of our planet. Can we prevent volcanoes? The answer is
no. They are extremely powerful forces of nature that we have no control over. So, what can we
do about volcanoes? Well, we can try to predict when a volcano will erupt. While we cannot
perfectly predict every eruption, scientists and engineers look for some common signs that
indicate an eruption is coming. These include gas emissions, earthquakes and a growth of the
mountain. That's right; the mountain actually grows prior to an eruption!
Pre-Activity Assessment

Brainstorming: Have students engage in open discussion about volcanoes. Remind students that
no idea or suggestion is "silly." All ideas should be respectfully heard. Ask the students:

 Why does a volcano erupt?

 What happens to cause an eruption?
Activity Embedded Assessment

Discussion Questions: Solicit, integrate and summarize student responses. Ask the students:

 Before the eruption: What are signs that a volcano is active or going to erupt? (Possible
answers: Earthquakes, gases escaping, the mountain growing.)
 After the mountain has risen: Why do you think the mountain grew? (Answer: Magma
is moving into and filling up the magma chamber, pushing the mountain upward.)
 After the eruption: Why did a crater form? (Answer: After the magma escaped from the
magma chamber, the chamber collapsed, forming the crater.)
 After the eruption: How can an engineer help us find out when a volcano will erupt?
(Answer: Engineers design instruments that take measurements of the height of a volcano
and the movement of the ground around the volcano.)
Worksheet: Have students record their observations on the activity worksheet; review their
answers to gauge their mastery of the subject.
Post-Activity Assessment
Explaining the Model: Set up the volcano apparatus again, so students can see what is inside.
Then, have it erupt again. Ask the students to identify what the following parts of the
demonstration volcano represent on an actual volcano:

 Water balloon (represents magma chamber)

 Water (represents hot liquid magma and lava)
 Sand (represents volcano cone)
Student-Generated Definitions: Have students come up with class definitions for the following
terms and write them on the board.

 Cone (Definition: The body of the volcano that is made up of layers of tephra [ash and
rock that was launched into the air] and solidified lava.)
 Crater (Definition: The depression located at the top of the cone that marks where past
eruptions have occurred.)
 Magma (Definition: Molten [melted] rock located under the surface of the Earth.)
 Lava (Definition: Magma, once it has reached the surface. In a hot, liquid form.)
 Vent (Definition: The fissure or crack in the Earth's surface that the magma travels
through to get to the Earth's surface.)
 Magma chamber (Definition: An underground chamber filled with magma.)
https://www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/cub_natdis_lesson04_activity1

How do scientists predict eruptions?

“The bread and butter of prediction is seismic data,” Clarke says.
Volcanologists take seismic stations, which measure vibrations in the earth,
and distribute them all around a volcano to get the best read on what’s
happening underneath.

Another important tool is the tiltmeter, which, as its name suggests, measures
any miniscule changes in the level of the earth. Typically, before a volcano
erupts, the ground around it inflates slightly, which scientists call deformation.

Observatories typically also monitor gas emissions, such as sulfur dioxide and
carbon dioxide, which may indicate changes happening deeper in the volcano.

And finally, cameras — both standard and thermal — help volcanologists

keep an eye on activity. Clarke explains that thermal cameras are especially
helpful for tall volcanoes whose tops may often be obscured by clouds.

“Using these kinds of data together, you can even predict how much magma
there is, and at what depth,” Clarke says.
If you want to know what a volcano is capable of doing in the future, the first
thing you have to do is look at what it did in the past.” — Amanda Clarke
Having an idea of what a particular volcano can do once it’s ready to erupt is
also a critical piece of prediction that allows volcanologists to make safety
recommendations.

“If you want to know what a volcano is capable of doing in the future, the first
thing you have to do is look at what it did in the past,” Clarke says.

Researchers do this by collecting ash deposits from a wide area and dating
them. This gives them an idea of how large a volcano’s eruptions were and
how frequently they occurred. However, the method has its limitations.
Hardened magma is much harder to date than ash, and supervolcanoes have
eruptions so large that the ash travels thousands of miles, making it difficult to
determine their true size.

There’s also the trouble of inconsistent eruptions. Volcanoes tend to fluctuate

in the size of their eruptions; a big one may be followed by several smaller
ones before another large one happens. That’s why it’s crucial, Clarke says,
to look over long timespans for an accurate picture of a volcano’s history.

How far in advance scientists can predict an eruption depends on a host of

factors, one of which is whether the eruption is large or small. Large eruptions
are farther apart, so they might have longer warning times — from weeks
away to even decades — while the magma slowly heats up after the last
eruption. Small eruptions are closer together, so their warning times are
shorter — months to hours. However, an abundance of data means that those
predictions are typically more precise than for large eruptions.
Click to view larger image. Illustration by Shireen Dooling

How can you stay safe in an area with volcanic activity?

Clarke has seen too many volcanic eruptions to count, but she says that her
time on the island of Montserrat while getting her PhD was when she learned
how to be safe around them.

“I think some people take a bit of a macho attitude about trying to get close to
volcanoes,” she says.

Proper precautions, she argues, help people stay alive.

“The main thing is to understand what the local observatories and scientists
are doing. They collect data. They know what’s going on,” she says.

Till has not experienced a volcanic eruption and, despite an academic interest
in seeing one, is largely happy to keep it that way.

“I’ve been to volcanoes that could erupt at any time, but I was fortunate
enough not to be there when they were erupting,” she says. Like Clarke, by
checking in with observatories, she’s managed to keep herself safe in
dangerous environments.

In the U.S., you can find the latest reports on activity at the U.S. Geological
Survey website. Abroad, other nations may have an equivalent database
online, or you can visit the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program website,
which gathers data from around the world.

These resources can help you find out what the alert level is in the area (and
what colored or numbered alert system locals use), and whether there has
been any activity recently. Clarke says it’s not a good idea to assume that
other groups are communicating with the local observatory and recommends
always checking for yourself.

“If you get a permit from the forest service to hike to a crater, that doesn’t
mean it’s safe. That doesn’t mean they’ve checked the data.”

What do classifications like active, dormant and extinct mean?

Not much, it turns out.

Clarke explains that people used to classify a volcano as “active” if it had

erupted in historic time. The problem with this is that historic time varies from
culture to culture, because it refers to the time when written records became
available. Volcanoes in Italy have extensive documentation going back
thousands of years, but volcanoes in the U.S. don’t have as deep of a written
history.
“Having had a historic eruption is a meaningless classification, because
there’s no number that goes along with that,” Clarke says.

A dormant volcano is one that is active but not currently erupting, while an
extinct volcano has not erupted in historic time and is unlikely to erupt in the
future.

A handier — and globally applicable — way to determine if a volcano is active

is whether it has erupted during the Holocene, our present epoch which began
over 11,000 years ago. However, this marker ultimately has its own flaws. A
volcano can have an incredibly long lifespan, sometimes lasting millions of
years. Silence in recent millennia doesn’t mean its erupting days are over.

“Whether it erupted in the Holocene is meaningless when it comes to

someplace like Yellowstone or the Valles Caldera, whose timescales are way
longer than we even have the capacity to document,” Clarke says.

Can a volcanic eruption be stopped?

Ideas for stopping eruptions range from venting gases to relieve volcanic
pressure to plugging the top like a cork in a bottle. However, these concepts
remain untested, and most volcanologists don’t take such efforts seriously.

What has found some success, though, is using barriers to redirect lava and
pyroclastic flows away from towns and important structures. Clarke gives the
example of Heimaey, a harbor town in Iceland that experienced a nearby
eruption in 1973. The resulting lava flow threatened to close off the bay that
was their main economic resource.

“As it started to enter the bay, they got out all the water hoses they had and
sprayed it, and it solidified there. They used the lava itself as a barrier,” Clarke
says.

Do volcanoes affect the climate?

Volcanic eruptions have both positive and negative effects on the climate. For
example, their plumes carry gases like sulfur dioxide, which reach above the
clouds into the stratosphere. There, the gas forms into droplets of sulfuric
acid.

“The sulfur compounds can be circulated around the globe, and they can filter
out the sun’s light and heat to cool global temperatures,” Clarke says.

Researchers speculate that such an event — an 1815 eruption of Mount

Tambora in Indonesia — was behind the 1816 “year without a summer” that
caused low temperatures and heavy rains in Europe and North America,
leading to food shortages.

Whether an eruption can have a worldwide effect may depend on the size and
composition of the ash cloud, as well as the volcano’s position on Earth. The
cooling effect is always temporary. The longest documented cooling period
lasted about three years, though Clarke believes that super eruptions in
Earth’s history may have had longer temperature effects.

If you’re thinking that this sounds like a good way to combat today’s warming
temperatures, you’re not alone. Some scientists are beginning to research the
possibilities of solar engineering — a strategy inspired by volcanoes that
would use planes to spray sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.

Another climate effect of volcanoes is that their ash makes super fertile soil,
creating lush environments in the areas surrounding them. The plants and
trees that grow in this rich soil capture and store carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere.

“What’s in fertilizer? Phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium. Those are

abundant in volcanic products,” Clarke says. “Basically, they act as a fertilizer
just like you might buy at Agway or ACE Hardware.”

Nutrients from falling ash easily leach into the soil, she adds, making it an
excellent delivery system as well.

What are volcanoes like on other planets?

Click to view larger image.
Illustration by Shireen Dooling

Planets, and moons as well, can have volcanoes very different from those on
Earth. Jupiter’s moon Io has more volcanic activity than any other object in our
solar system; its lava fountains can be many miles high. And the dwarf planet
Ceres has ice volcanoes, or cryovolcanoes. They erupt water instead of
magma, which freezes on its surface.

“The compositions of planets are different, so the kinds of magma they have
are different, which then gives them unique eruptive behavior,” Till says.

Her lab works to understand the magma of other celestial bodies by creating it
in a special device called a piston cylinder, which simulates conditions on the
interior of a planet.

“In the same way that you’d mix flour and sugar and eggs to make a cake, we
mix silica and magnesium and iron and other elements in the proportion we
want to study. Then we put them in our equivalent of an oven to make magma
at high pressures and temperatures,” Till says. “When we do this, we can
discover how magmas on other planets are different.”

Her team has begun work on a new project that will study the types of magma
that may exist on planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets.
Knowing more about their magma will give researchers glimpses into those
planets’ volcanic behavior.

“Over 4,000 exoplanets have been confirmed in the last five years or so, and
we’re just starting to investigate them,” Till says. “It’s an exciting time.”

The Experimental Petrology and Igneous processes Center uses ASU’s Core
Research Facilities, including the Metals, Environmental and Terrestrial
Analytical Laboratory and the Eyring Materials Center, for some of its
research. ASU Core Research Facilities is partially supported by Arizona’s
Technology and Research Initiative Fund. TRIF investment has enabled
thousands of scientific discoveries, over 800 patents, 280 new startup
companies and hands-on training for approximately 33,000 students across
Arizona’s universities. Publicly supported through voter approval, TRIF is an
essential resource for growing Arizona’s economy and providing opportunities
for Arizona residents to work, learn and thrive.
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earth and space

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https://research.asu.edu/your-burning-questions-about-volcanoes-answered