Introduction to Volcanoes
Here is the entrance to the wonderful world of volcanoes, and take note: Once you enter, there's no turning back.
Don't worry, here is just an overview about the things you should know about volcanoes before we tackle everything about them bit-by-bit. So what are volcanoes? What are their purposes and contributions in shaping the world that we've known now?
Volcanoes, as what they looked like in the photo (source: National Geographic) are mountain-like structures, though it is quite different from that. A mountain is a large natural rise of the earth's surfac, while a volcano is also like a big rise on earth, but they are mixtures of lava, ash, dust, and other substances that have piled up over many years. A volcano has a crater or vent through which lava, rock fragments, hot vapor, and gas are being or have been erupted from the earth's crust.
Volcanoes are found along destructive (subducting) plate boundaries, constructive (divergent) plate boundaries and at hot spots in the earth's surface. The 'Ring of Fire' is a volcanic chain surrounding thePacific Ocean. The 'Ring of Fire' is famous for its regular earthquake and volcanic activity.
In A.D. 79 two Roman cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum, were completely buried in ash and dust in a matter of hours after a volcanic eruption. Their remains were not uncovered until modern archaeology made that discovery 1700 years after. (you can do your own research into this event) The word, ‘volcano’ was made out of the name of a Roman god of a small island in the Mediterranean sea of Sicily called ‘Volcan’.
And... that's about it. It's important to know these things about volcanoes for our self-awareness over the things it had caused, and it may cause in the future. We'll tackle all of those in our next blogs.
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Thank you for reading, until our next post.