Essay on Volcano

A volcano is a mountain with an opening in the top called a crater which allows hot liquidly magma, volcanic ash and gases to escape out from inside the earth and burst from the crust (surface) when a volcano erupts. The red fiery substance that erupts out of a volcano is ash and molten rock. The volcanic rocks are called Magma. It has a very hot liquid rock which is very deep inside the earth. The Earth pushes magma as lava and when it cools down it becomes solid. The earth’s temperature is always so hot that rock melts to become liquid magma.

Volcanoes have many different shapes. Some are:

Shield Volcanoes formed from the flows of watery lava. They have very gentle slopes e.g. Mount Kilimanjaro is the world’s tallest volcanic mountain.

Cinder Cones are the very smallest kinds of volcanoes. They are formed when the earth pushes the cinder from its inside. E.g. Paricutin (below) is a cinder cone.

Stratovolcanoes are the most common ones. They are made up of layers of ash and lava from the past eruptions e.g. Mount Fuji and Mount Vesuvius.

When volcanoes erupt, they can have catastrophic consequences for the regions and people near them. The devastation they leave behind accounts for the complete extinction of the surrounding landscape. In the last 500 years, volcanic eruptions have killed around 200,000 people.

Buildings are destroyed, people are displaced, people are killed, plant and animal life is destroyed, and the poisonous gases emitted by volcanoes can cause death and diseases such as pneumonia in those who survive.

The world’s tallest volcano is the Ojos del Salado, Chile’s volcano. The Muano Loa in Hawaii is the world’s largest volcano.