Volcanoes Facts for Kids
Explosive facts about volcanoes and geology
The eruption of the Thera volcano in the Aegean Sea around 1600 BCE was one of the largest in the past 10,000 years. It devastated the Minoan civilisation on nearby Crete and may have inspired the legend of the lost city of Atlantis.
A volcanic neck or plug is the hardened core of an ancient volcano that remains after the softer outer layers have eroded away. Edinburgh Castle in Scotland sits on top of a famous volcanic plug called Castle Rock.
Scientists use seismometers to detect small earthquakes caused by magma moving underground, which can help predict when a volcano might erupt. Modern volcano observatories also use GPS satellites and gas sensors to monitor changes in a volcano's behaviour.
Rhyolite lava is extremely thick and sticky because it contains high amounts of silica, which makes it very viscous. This type of lava barely flows at all and tends to build up pressure inside a volcano, leading to explosive eruptions.
The Ring of Fire gets its name from the arc of over 450 volcanoes that trace the edges of the Pacific Ocean. It is also the site of about 90% of the world's earthquakes, since the same tectonic plate interactions that create volcanoes also cause earthquakes.
Lava tubes form when the outer surface of a lava flow cools and hardens while molten lava continues to flow through the inside, eventually draining out and leaving a hollow tube. Some lava tubes are long enough to walk through and are popular with tourists in places like Hawaii and the Canary Islands.
Many coral atolls in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are built on top of ancient submerged volcanoes. As the volcanic island slowly sinks over millions of years, the coral reef that grew around it remains at the surface, eventually forming a ring-shaped atoll.
Indonesia has more active volcanoes than any other country, with around 130 active volcanoes across its thousands of islands. This is because Indonesia sits at the meeting point of several major tectonic plates.
Obsidian and other volcanic glasses were among the most prized materials in the ancient world for making sharp-edged tools and weapons. Because obsidian is found only near volcanoes, ancient trade networks can be traced by studying where obsidian artefacts came from.
Large volcanic eruptions can produce massive eruption columns that rise tens of kilometres into the stratosphere, carrying ash, gas, and tiny rock particles. The column from the Pinatubo eruption in 1991 reached 35 kilometres above the Earth's surface.