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Understanding Volcanoes and Eruptions

A volcano is an opening in a planet's surface that allows magma, ash, and gases to escape, posing various hazards. They are classified as active, dormant, or extinct based on their eruption history, and can take various forms such as shield or strato-volcanoes. Super-volcanoes, like Yellowstone, can cause global devastation and long-term climate effects, with around 1500 active volcanoes worldwide, 50 of which erupt annually.

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8 views2 pages

Understanding Volcanoes and Eruptions

A volcano is an opening in a planet's surface that allows magma, ash, and gases to escape, posing various hazards. They are classified as active, dormant, or extinct based on their eruption history, and can take various forms such as shield or strato-volcanoes. Super-volcanoes, like Yellowstone, can cause global devastation and long-term climate effects, with around 1500 active volcanoes worldwide, 50 of which erupt annually.

Uploaded by

Ariff Yudianto
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© © All Rights Reserved
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V olcanoes

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet’s surface or crust, which allows hot


magma, volcanic ash and gases to escape from below the surface.

Erupting volcanoes can pose many hazards, not only in the immediate vicinity of the eruption.
Large eruptions can affect temperature as ash and droplets of sulfuric acid obscure the sun and
cool the Earth’s lower atmosphere or troposphere; however, they also absorb heat radiated up
from the Earth, thereby warning the stratosphere.

Popular classification of volcanoes


A popular way of classifying magmatic volcanoes is by their frequency of eruption, with those that
erupt regularly called active, those that have erupted in historical times but are now quiet called
dormant or inactive, and those that have not erupted in historical times called extinct.

Volcanic features
The structure and behavior of volcanoes depends on a number of factors. Some volcanoes have
rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a summit crater, whereas others present
landscape features such as massive plateaus.

Fissure vent Lava dome


Flat, linear cracks through which lava Build by slow eruptions of highly viscous
emerges lavas
Can produce violent, explosive eruptions
Shield volcano
Low and broad Strato-volcano
Los-viscosity lava that can flow a great Tall conical mountains composed of lava
distance flows and other ejecta
Don’t generally explode catastrophically Greatest hazard to civilization

Components of a volcanic eruption

Air bone Ear thbound

As h Lava
Gas es and S cor ia
S team T ephr a
Pyr oclas t
S cor ia

Figure 1 Volcanic ejecta type


Deadliest1 volcanic eruptions
Volcanic eruptions can be highly explosive, volatile, or neither. Certain volcanoes have undergone catastrophic eruptions, killing countless numbers of people.

Table 1 Eruptions ranked by death toli

Super-volcano: the great devastator


A super-volcano is a large volcano that usually has a large caldera and can potentially produce devastation on an enormous, sometimes continental, scale. Such
eruptions would be able to cause severe cooling of global temperatures for many years afterwards because of the huge volumes of sulfur and ash erupted. They are the
most dangerous type of volcano. Examples include Yellowstone Caldera in Yellowstone National Park and Valles Caldera in New Mexico (both western United States), Lake
Taupo in New Zealand, Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia and Ngorogor Crater in Tanzania, Krakatoa near Java and Sumatra, Indonesia.

Living with volcanoes


There are about 1500 active volcanoes in the world and around 50 of these erupt each year.

The 1980 eruption of Mt. Saint Helens (pictured at right, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey), was the only significant eruption in the contiguous 48 United States in 65 years.
In addition to killing 57 people and thousands of game animals, the eruption caused over a billion U.S. dollars in damage.

1
Europen Space Agency 2009i

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