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Mt. St. Helens last major eruption left the huge crater seen in the center of the
photograph. Courtesy USGS CVO
Volcanoes are a window into the heart of the Earth's dynamic interior. Born of molten rock
from deep within, volcanoes represent the ever recycling nature of the solid Earth. Awesome
displays of fiery fountains of molten rock and massive eruptions of gases and ash impose a
significant danger to human habitation in volcanically active regions. In this chapter we'll
explore where volcanoes occur, how they are formed, and hazards they pose to humans.
Features of Volcanoes
Distribution of Volcanoes
Types of Volcanoes
o Effusive eruptions
Shield volcanoes
o Explosive eruptions
Composite (Strato)
volcanoes
Cinder cones
Volcanic Hazards and Episodes
o Pinatubo, Philippines
o Mt. St. Helens
o Vesuvius
o Mt. Pelee
o Paricutin
o Krakatoa
Review and Resources
Features of Volcanoes
Lateral vents are found on the sides of some volcanoes where lava is extruded. An
extremely large crater is some times found at the summit of a volcano. These massive craters
called calderas, are created when pressure builds inside the volcano until the top is literally
blown off, magma drains back into the central vent and the top of the cone collapses
in. Crater lake formed in the caldera of Mount Mazama.
Outpourings of magma can occur as a fluid-like lava or as fiery clouds of ash and rock
fragments. The ability of lava to flow depends on its viscosity or "stickiness". The viscosity
of magma depends on temperature, silica content, and incorporated gases. Basaltic magma
has approximately 50% SiO2, the smallest amount of incorporated gas and readily flows
across the surface. Andesitic magma contains 60% SiO2 and has a substantial content of
incorporated gas, giving it a moderate viscosity. Rhyolytic magma is 70% SiO2 and contains
the largest amount of gas. Rhyolytic magma produces the highest viscosity lava and is
responsible for violent eruptions.
Volcanic eruptions, especially explosive eruptions, eject fragments of volcanic rocks and lava
collectively called tephra . Ground-huggingpyroclastic flows of fast-moving gas and
fragments of rock having temperatures of 500 oC can rush down the flanks of a volcano at
speeds reaching 100 km/hr, carbonizing all in their path.
Volcanic eruptions are accompanied by the release of noxious and sometimes lethal gases.
Steam makes up the majority of gas that is released by a volcano followed by carbon dioxide,
sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen chloride. When lava spills into the ocean, the intense heating of
salt water produces a noxious steam cloud of hydrochloric acid. Sulfur dioxide combines with
water in the atmosphere to produce acid rain. Naturally produced acid deposition around the
top of Mauna Loa has devastated the local vegetation.
Volcanic activity is widespread over the earth, but tends to be concentrated in specific
locations. Volcanoes are most likely to occur along the margins of tectonic plates, especially
in subduction zones where oceanic plates dive under continental plates. As the oceanic plate
subducts beneath the surface, intense heat and pressure melts the rock. Molten rock material,
magma, can then ooze its way toward the surface where it accumulates at the surface to
create a volcano. Volcanic activity can be found along the Mid-ocean ridge system as well.
Here, oceanic plates are diverging and magma spreads across the ocean floor, ultimately
being exposed at the surface. Crustal spreading long the ridge is partly responsible for the
volcanic activity of Iceland. It is also thought that a "hot spot" lies beneath the island that
contributes to volcanism.
Note the close correlation between the site of volcanic activity (in red) and lithospheric plate
boundaries.
Hot spots" are places where a chamber of magma has accumulated at depth beneath the
surface. The volcanic islands of Hawaii are a notable example of this. The Hawaiian Islands
ride atop the Pacific plate as it moves in a northwesterly direction over the hot spot that
creates the volcanoes. Therefore, the oldest volcanic island is found at the northwest end of
the chain and the youngest to the southeast. Volcanic activity ceases as the older islands
move off the hot spot.
Source: USGS
Used with permission
Source: USGS
Used with permission
Rather than forming a mountain like the volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands, some places have
been covered by massive flows of basaltic lava due to volcanic activity. One of the best
known sites in North America is the Columbia Plateau. The Columbia Plateau is located in
the eastern Washington, south through eastern Oregon and most of southern Idaho.
Types of Volcanoes
Volcanoes are classified by the types of eruption they experience. Broadly speaking,
eruptions can be either effusive or explosive. Effusive eruptions are sometimes called
"quiet" eruptions (if eruptions can be quiet!). Effusive eruptions are noted for their vast
outpourings of very fluid type lava that easily runs across the surface. Explosive
eruptions occur as violent explosions of lava and rock fragments that gets stuck in the vent
of the volcano. Gases released from the hot magma build to incredible pressure and are
released, along with lava, ash and other pyroclastic material, during an explosive eruption.
Effusive Eruptions
Effusive eruptions are those that create vast lava flows of low viscosity, fluid lava.
Magma associated with effusive-type eruptions is relatively low in silica and thus "easily"
flows up the vent and spreads across the surface. Moving across the land, these lava flows
can take on two different forms. Pahoehoe (a Hawaiian term) lava has a glistening, ropy
like appearance as it moves and cools. AA lava is more pasty than pahoehoe and forms a
sharp, clinkery, rough surface. As the core of the flow moves across the surface, the rough
"clinkers" are carried along the top of the flow. At the leading edge of the flow, the clinkers
tumble forward into a heap.
Shield volcanoes are a product of effusive eruptions . As the fluid lava flows out onto the
surface, it spreads out and cools into a broad, low-angled slope. The final shape looks much
like a warrior's shield with the convex side pointing towards the sky. The Hawaiian Islands
are an example of shield volcanoes. Though much lava pours from the summit caldera, flank
eruptions from lateral vents spreads molten lava along the sides of the volcano. As the lava
flow cools, tubes may form in the flow . These are conduits through which lava flows
beneath a skin of solidified lava. Occasionally lava will accumulate as a lava pond too.
Explosive Eruptions
Vast amount of ash and pyroclastic material can be ejected from these kinds of volcanoes.
Accompanying many of these eruptions are
vast outpourings of noxious gases and fine
particulate matter called "Nuees Ardentees"
or "glowing clouds or avalanches". These
clouds can rush down the flanks of a volcano
at speeds reaching 60 mph. Escape from such
clouds is virtually impossible (See Volcanic
Hazards and Episodes: Mt Pelee.)
Two types of volcanoes characteristically produce explosive eruptions, cinder cones and
composite volcanoes. Cinder cones are primarily composed of layers of pyroclastic material
built from rock fragments once lodged in the central vent of the volcano . Mt. Paricutin is
one of the most famous cinder cones erupting from a Mexican farmer's field in 1943.
Kilimanjaro being examples. Composite volcanoes are often associated with convergent plate
boundaries where subduction is occurring.
Volcanic Landscapes
In Earth's geologic past, large areas have been inundated with massive floods of basaltic lava.
A flood basalt of 170,000 cubic kilometers known as the Columbia River basalts covered a
large portion of southeastern Washington, eastern Oregon and southern Idaho. The
outpouring of 1100º C lava raced across the surface at an estimated average speed of 5
km/hour. When the eruptions ceased, over 500,000 km2 of the Earth's surface was covered.
As streams carved the massive accumulation of lava, a lava plateau formed that we today
call the Columbia Plateau.
Volcanic activity and the landscape that results is a natural, and rejuvenating process. It's
only when humans seek to inhabit these precarious situations that they become a "hazard".
Over human history, volcanoes and human beings have maintained a deadly relationship with
one another. Death comes swiftly from scorching lava flows, fiery clouds of poisonous gases,
burial by mudflows and tsunamis following an eruption.
Lava flows burn and bury much in their path. Humans have relatively little influence on the
path that these molten rivers of rock take. When hot pyroclastic material and ash rains down
and melting snowpacks, mudflows called lahars rush downslope wreaking devastation on
the countryside. In 1985 the eruption of Nevada del Ruiz in Columbia created a lahar that
buried 23,000 inhabitants of the valley below. Glowing avalanche clouds of noxious gases
and incandescent ash stream down mountain slopes enveloping all in their deadly path.
Yellowstone National Park is noted for its hot springs and geysers which reflect the active
volcanic forces beneath. Much of Yellowstone resides in the caldera of a reoccurring
"supervolcano" that could explode and devastate a massive region.
On June 15, 1991 Mt. Pinatubo, a stratovolcano on the "Ring of Fire" exploded hurling two
cubic miles of tephra into the air and sent a cloud of sulfur dioxide 25 miles into the
stratosphere. Pyroclastic flows swept down the sides of the mountain filling valleys and
extending 11 miles from the site of the eruption.
Pinatubo's toll was devastating: nearly 900 dead, 42,000 homes destroyed, 100,000 acres of
cropland covered in ash and billions of dollars in economic losses. Ash and dust injected into
the stratosphere spread across the globe depressing global temperatures by .5oC. [ For more
see: Astronauts Photograph Mount Pinatubo, Earth Observatory, NASA]
Vesuvius, Italy, AD 79
What began as a common eruption of ash from Vesuvius during the summer of A.D. 79 soon
became a disaster for the residents of Pompeii. It was common for Vesuvius to vent gas and
ash from time-to-time yet on this day the eruptions were of greater intensity and duration. As
the day wore Pompeii was in eminent danger. Evacuation of the city was ordered late in the
afternoon. Before many could flee, Vesuvius erupted with a violent force sending hot ash
down the mountain and burying those unable to escape. People and animals were literally
entombed in the ash. The city was covered with so much ash that it was abandoned
Mt. St. Helens is a stratovolcano found in southern Washington that on May 18, 1980 erupted
with a violent fury wreaking devastation over thousands of square kilometers. For weeks the
volcano had been venting steam and ash for weeks. A huge bulge on the side of mountain
warned scientists that a major explosion was about to occur. When Mt. St. Helens erupted,
four hundred meters (1,300 feet) of the north summit blew away. A cloud of ash, hot steam
and poisonous gas raced down the side of the mountain at speeds approaching 320 km per
hour (20 mph) destroying forests, lakes, and camping sites as far away as 32 kilometers (20
mi.).
Figure VL.17 Mt. St. Helens after eruption
Image courtesy USGS Cascades Volcano
Observatory
On May 8, 1902 Mt. Pelee violently erupted with no apparent warning sending a glowing
avalanche of deadly gases and ash upon the French town of St. Pierre on the island of
Martinique. Reaching a velocity approaching 200km/hr, the cloud envelope the city and its
inhabitants. Twenty thousand inhabitants were killed, except for a convicted killer being held
in an underground jail cell.
Parícutin, Mexico, 1943
In the winter of 1943, the countryside near Parícutin, Mexico was rocked by a series of
earthquakes. The tremors lasted for nearly two weeks when a fissure open in a farmer's field
and the birth of cinder cone was underway. Within 12 hours of the initial eruption, the fissure
was ejecting pyroclastic material as well as huge clouds of gas and ash. Within 24 hours a 40
meter high cone hurling volcanic bombs several kilometers away had been built. Lava began
to spill from the base of the cone building the volcano laterally. After nine years of activity,
two villages had been buried and 50 km2 of farmland had been devastated and abandon.
The small, inhabited island of Krakatau was the site of the greatest explosion ever witnessed
by humans. The island situated in an ancient caldera between Java and Sumatra exploded on
August 27, 1883. Beneath the earth, pressure from steam was building by the intense heating
of groundwater in the old volcano. The explosion hurdled 20 cubic kilometers of debris into
the air leaving a 300 meter deep hole inside the caldera. The explosion was so great that it
could be heard 2000 km away in Australia and airborne debris caused total darkness 150 km
away. The force of the explosion created a air pressure wave felt halfway around the world.
A massive, a 40 m high ocean wave radiated across the ocean killing an estimated 36,000
people living in coastal locations.
Review
Review Questions
Self-assessment quiz
Additional Resources
Multimedia
"Volcanoes" - Talk of the Nation - Science Friday (NPR) segment from August 2, 1996
explores how and where volcanoes form and how to predict eruptions with geologists from
the Cascade Volcano Observatory and others. (RealAudio required)
Underwater Lava "Host Noah Adams talks with Christopher Fox, of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) about underwater equipment that was monitoring a
nearby volcano. It got covered with molten lava, but is still working. The instrument records
pressure and temperature variations -- it also has a camera, and captured the eruption in
movie form, viewable under the title 'lava flow animation'
onhttp://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/nemo/explorer/rumble.html". (4:00)
Readings
Web Sites
Deadly Volcanoes (NOVA - PBS) Revisit some of the worst volcanic disasters of the past
400 years.
Volcanoes of the World - wealth of information, QTVR, video clips, virtual field trips to
volcanoes.