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🌋 Planet Earth 🌋 Volcanoes and earthquakes

Volcanoes

Volcanoes

📖 In short

Boom! A mountain puffs out smoke and ash, and a glowing red river pours down it… it's a volcano! A volcano is an opening in the Earth's crust where very hot melted rock comes out from deep inside. Some volcanoes build tall mountains, and some make new islands in the middle of the sea!

🤩 Did you know?

  • Lava can be hotter than 1000 degrees Celsius!
  • The biggest known volcano isn't on Earth but on Mars, and it's called Olympus Mons.
  • Scientists who study volcanoes wear special clothes that protect them from the heat.
  • Many volcanoes are hidden under the oceans.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Magma and lava

Deep in the Earth is melted rock called “magma”. When it comes out of a volcano onto the surface, it's called “lava”, and then it cools into hard rock.

🔍 Asleep or awake?

Scientists sort volcanoes into active ones that erupt now and then, dormant ones that might wake up one day, and extinct ones they don't expect to erupt ever again.

💡 Volcanoes make islands

The beautiful Hawaiian islands in the Pacific were made by volcanoes! Lava piled up layer upon layer on the seabed until it rose above the water.

🎯 Fertile soil

After a long time volcanic ash turns into very rich soil, so crops grow wonderfully around many volcanoes.

📸 More pictures

Volcanoes
Volcanoes
Volcanoes

🧩 Test yourself

1 What do we call melted rock when it comes out of a volcano?

2 On which planet is the biggest known volcano?

3 Which picture shows “Volcanoes”?

🌋 Discover more

📷 Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons