Volcanoes
What is a volcano?
Inside the earth, there is a layer of very hot liquid rock. A volcano is a place where this hot rock can escape through a hole in the surface. When this happens, we call it a volcanic eruption. When a volcano erupts, the hot liquid rock cools down in the air and solidifies on the surface around the hole. Because of this, most volcanoes are mountains.
Types of volcano
We can put volcanoes in three categories:
1. Active volcanoes erupt quite often.
2. Dormant or inactive volcanoes erupted a long time ago, but they can erupt again.
3. Extinct volcanoes cannot erupt again.
The tallest volcano
The tallest volcano in the world is a dormant volcano called Mauna Kea. It is on the island of Hawaii. The base of Mauna Kea is 6,000 metres below sea level. The summit is 4,205 metres above sea level. From the base to the summit, Mauna Kea is 10,205 metres tall.
The largest volcano in the solar system
The largest volcano in the solar system is on Mars. It is called Olympus Mons. It is an incredible 25 kilometres high! That’s three times higher than Mount Everest!
No comments:
Post a Comment