Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mauna Loa (left) is the largest volcano on Earth, and is one of the most active
Olympus Mons (right) is the largest volcano, and has an area approximately the
size of France.
Composite volcanoes
http://www.volcano.si.edu/
wapi.isu.edu
Llaima (pictured right), is one of Chile's largest and most active volcanoes
•It contains two main historically active craters, one at the summit and the other to
the SE.
•Frequent moderate explosive eruptions with occasional lava flows have been
recorded since the 17th century.
Common Volcanic Rocks
Vesicular basalt
Welded tuff
www.npolar.no
Common Volcanic Rocks
www.pitt.edu
Common Volcanic Rocks
www.npolar.no
Submarine Volcanism
• Basalt lava is erupted onto the sea floor at
submarine spreading centres
• In these conditions, eruption styles differ
from volcanic eruptions on land
Submarine Volcanism
“Pillow Basalts”
Hypabyssal Rocks
• These are igneous rocks emplaced at a
high level into the crust they may occur as:
Intrusion of a dyke
Plutonic Rocks
• Further down in the magma chamber,
cooling happens at a slower rate and
crystals form larger sizes.
• We can only see plutonic rocks when
erosion has stripped away the covering
rocks, or faulting has brought them up
Plutonic Rocks
www.earth.imagico.de
The Brandberg is an intrusion in the Namib desert in western Namibia with a diameter
of about 15km and with a height of 2573m is the highest point in Namibia. Southwest
of it is the Messum Crater, and behind, the Erongo Mountains
Plutonic Rocks
Typical granite