Countdown to the Day of Reckoning – 10 Days – The Wonder of Volcanoes

Did you know there were 169 potentially active volcanoes in the Continental United States? Surprise. https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/index.html  has a cool interactive map of them. At least three of them have erupted since our country was formed.

Volcanic eruptions happen all the time, but not all volcanoes are the same. The four basic types are cinder cones, composite volcanoes, shield volcanoes, and lava domes.

Cinder Cones:

When congealed lava and other partials are blown out of a single vent, they fall back to the ground as cinders. Picture an anthill on the beach. I got to climb a cinder cone in Lassen Volcanic National Park in California. It’s like climbing a giant sand dune made up of pebbles. Very tiring.

 

 

Composite Volcanoes:

These steep-sided volcanoes are formed when alternating layers of ash, lava, and cinders build up. The lava flows over the ash and cinders holding it together like glue. All that layering makes for a strong structure. Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier in Washington state are both composite volcanoes.

Sometimes the top of a volcano collapses in forming an indention called a caldera. Crater Lake in Oregon is a caldera that filled with water.

 

Shield Volcanoes:

Shield volcanoes are created almost entirely from flowing lava. The lava often come out of fissures in a slow steady stream. This is the kind of eruption you often see pictures of where people are standing nearby taking pictures. Kilauea, in Hawaii has been in the news a bunch lately.

 

Lava domes:

These are formed when thick goopy lava squishes up like a partially dried tube of glue. Lava domes have been known to explode dramatically. When the dome at Mont Pelée formed in 1902, an entire town on the coast was wiped out.

 

For more information check out these sites:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/volc/types.html

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-active-volcanoes-are-there-earth?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products

http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/volcanoes/vlocation.html

And don’t forget to pick up your copy of STAR TOUCHED.

Eighteen-year-old Tatiana is running from her past and her star-touched powers eight years after a meteor devastates earth’s population.