A volcano is an opening in the planet's crust which lets hot, molten rock, ash and gases escape from below the surface. Volcanic activity involving the extrusion of rock tends to create mountains or features on the world appearing to be mountains over a period of time.
They are generally found where tectonic plates are divering or converging. A mid-oceanic ridge such as the Mid Atlantic Ridge has examples of volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates pulling apart and also the Pacific Ring of Fire has examples of volcanoes caused by comvergent tectonic plates coming together.
The most common appearance of a volcano is a conical mountain spewing lava and poisonous gases from a crater at its summit. But this only describes one of the many types of volcano. Some have rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a crater, whereas others present landscape features such as massive plateaus.
Another type of volcano includes cryovolcanoes (ice volcanoes) particularly on some moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune. Mud volcanoes are another type, which are formations often not associated with known magmatic activity. Active mud volcanoes tend to involve temperatures much lower than those of igneus volcanoes, unless the mud volcanoe is actually the vent of an igneus one.
Supervolano is the popular term for a large volcano that usually has a large caldera and can potentially produce devastation on an enormous, sometimes continetal, scale. Such eruptions would be able to cause severe cooling of global temperatures for many years afterwards. The largest known is Yellowstone Caldera in America, which if erupts, would cause a Nuclear Winter on a massive scale.
They are generally found where tectonic plates are divering or converging. A mid-oceanic ridge such as the Mid Atlantic Ridge has examples of volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates pulling apart and also the Pacific Ring of Fire has examples of volcanoes caused by comvergent tectonic plates coming together.
The most common appearance of a volcano is a conical mountain spewing lava and poisonous gases from a crater at its summit. But this only describes one of the many types of volcano. Some have rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a crater, whereas others present landscape features such as massive plateaus.
Another type of volcano includes cryovolcanoes (ice volcanoes) particularly on some moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune. Mud volcanoes are another type, which are formations often not associated with known magmatic activity. Active mud volcanoes tend to involve temperatures much lower than those of igneus volcanoes, unless the mud volcanoe is actually the vent of an igneus one.
Supervolano is the popular term for a large volcano that usually has a large caldera and can potentially produce devastation on an enormous, sometimes continetal, scale. Such eruptions would be able to cause severe cooling of global temperatures for many years afterwards. The largest known is Yellowstone Caldera in America, which if erupts, would cause a Nuclear Winter on a massive scale.
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