Volcano
hideA volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or crust, which allows hot, molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from below the surface. Volcanic activity involving the extrusion of rock tends to form mountains or features like mountains over a period of time. The word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano island off Sicily. In turn, it was named after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.
Volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. A mid-oceanic ridge, for example the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has examples of volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates pulling apart; the Pacific Ring of Fire has examples of volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates coming together. By contrast, volcanoes are usually not created where two tectonic plates slide past one another. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the Earth's crust (called "non-hotspot intraplate volcanism"), such as in the African Rift Valley, the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field and the Rio Grande Rift in North America and the European Rhine Graben with its Eifel volcanoes.
Volcanoes can be caused by mantle plumes. These so-called hotspots, for example at Hawaii, can occur far from plate boundaries. Hotspot volcanoes are also found elsewhere in the solar system, especially on rocky planets and moons.
For more information about Volcano, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with volcano
Study uses satellite imagery to identify active magma systems in East Africa's Rift Valley
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 04, 2009 |
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A team from the University of Miami, University of El Paso and University of Rochester have employed Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) images compiled over a decade to study volcanic activity ...
Colombia volcano rumbles back to life
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 01, 2009 |
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Officials in southern Colombia have issued a code orange alert for the newly-active Galeras volcano which they said could erupt in a matter of days or weeks, according to the state-run Geological and Mining ...
Volcanoes played pivotal role in ancient ice age, mass extinction
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 26, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (15) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers here have discovered the pivotal role that volcanoes played in a deadly ice age 450 million years ago.
Tsunami waves reasonably likely to strike Israel
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 26, 2009 |
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"There is a likely chance of tsunami waves reaching the shores of Israel," says Dr. Beverly Goodman of the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa following encompassing geoarchaeological research ...
Chilean eruption highlights risk from 'rhyolitic' volcanoes
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 07, 2009 |
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Magma from a Chilean volcano shot through Earth's crust at around a metre (3.25 feet) per second, a speed highlighting the perils from so-called rhyolitic volcanoes, scientists reported on Wednesday.
Arctic exploration finds large underwater mountain
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 10, 2009 |
3.6 / 5 (5) |
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(AP) -- Joint U.S.-Canada exploration of the Arctic sea floor discovered an unusual underwater mountain and evidence that could boost the two countries' claims that their boundaries extend farther north. For the past two ...
Lost World Found in Papua New Guinea Volcano
Sep 08, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A BBC expedition exploring inside the crater of an extinct volcano in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has discovered a lost world of dozens of weird new species and rare animals, including new frogs, ...
New clues in Easter Island hat mystery
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Sep 07, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of archaeologists has come one step closer to unravelling the mystery of how the famous statues dotting the landscape of a tiny Pacific island acquired their distinctive red hats.
Scientists deploy seismic network for study of Sierra Negra, Galapagos
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 12, 2009 |
2 / 5 (1) |
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An interdisciplinary team of scientists from the University of Miami (UM), University of Rochester, University of Idaho-Moscow and the Instituto Geofísico, Escuela Politécnica Nacional (Quito, ...
NASA Goes Inside a Volcano, Monitors Activity
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 07, 2009 |
5 / 5 (2) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have placed high-tech "spiders" inside and around the mouth of Mount St. Helens, one of the most active volcanoes in the United States. Networks such as these could one day be used ...
Oxidized lava may help explain Earth's evolution
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 30, 2009 |
3.4 / 5 (5) |
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(AP) -- Material from volcanoes where the Earth's plates squeeze together is more oxidized than in regions where the seafloor splits apart, a finding that helps shed light on some of the basic processes in ...
World's largest telescope to be built in Hawaii
Jul 22, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Hawaii was chosen Tuesday as the site for the world's biggest telescope, a device so powerful that it will allow scientists to see some 13 billion light years away and get a glimpse into the early ...
Global warming tactic cools climate but won’t help corals, say researchers
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 03, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- “Geoengineering” experiments proposed to reduce global warming by blocking sunlight with atmosphere-injected particles may cool the world but still leave carbon dioxide levels dangerously high, Stanford scientists ...
Scientists lower Alaska volcano threat level
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 01, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Alaskans can put away their dust masks and spare air filters, for now, because Mount Redoubt seems to have cooled off since its last major eruption nearly three months ago.
MIT solves longstanding volcanic mystery
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jun 08, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (10) |
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For decades, geologists have been puzzled by the mechanisms that give rise to the kind of volcanoes that form the so-called “ring of fire” around the Pacific Ocean. These arc volcanoes, which account for about 10 to 25 percent ...
