volcanoes

volcanoes are a pretty basic subject to understand i mean most people already know what volcanoes are but with basic concepts like these, people don’t always look further into it, well today is your chance to change that! as your read further into my post your knowledge of volcanoes will only grow bigger.

lets start with the basics, most of volcanoes on earth are located along the boundaries of earth’s tectonic plates, and (75%) of volcano are located around the ring of fire it’s a 25,000 mile long ‘’u’’ shaped zone, the zone starts at the southern tip of South America to the West Coast of North America then to the Bering Sea to Japan to New Zealand. a count of 15,00 volcanoes in the world today are still active and could explode any day… scary right!?¹

when volcanoes erupt they make a river of lava that freely flows in the forest or wherever the eruption occurred, after a little bit of time the lava cools down and turns into volcanic rocks, they break down bringing nutrients to the earth creating very fertile soil, in time this has allowed civilization to flourish. although volcanoes are generally viewed as just a scary exploding burden that will do only but destruction, they also have there pros, as stated before when they finally cool down, they create fertile soil which is very good for our environment and also they way we live. humans depend on good fertile soil for the growth of food and just basic human needs. there are multiple types of volcanoes, one of them being the cinder cone volcano, there are the most common type of volcanoes and the ones you have most likely seen everywhere on television. the other most commonly known volcano is the shielded volcanoes they are one of the biggest ones. The lava on the shielded volcano spreads out slowly with little power, erupting from all sides of the volcano. Its name comes from its slope that looks like a medieval shield.²

the job related to studying volcanoes is called a volcanist, they study in the field volcanic eruptions, seeing when they happen and why. they study everything from the color and temperature of the lava to the location and time of the eruption.³ its because of them that we know so much information about volcanoes, there’s constantly people researching volcanoes because even after all the information they have gathered up through the years these natural phenomenon are still quite unpredictable, well 99% of the time they are but there always that 1% chance that a volcano will erupt unexpectedly and without scientific preparation, always expected the unexpected as they say.

as a fellow Canadian i grew an interested in knowing if there was any potential dangerous volcanoes surrounding me, after some research i found that mainly British Columbia had documented volcanic eruptions. There are 5 volcanic hazardous areas in BC the most famous one being mount Edizaz, its a volcanic complex consisting of a couple different types of volcanoes including shield volcanoes, calderas, cinder cones and lava domes. this large complex is surrounded by a national park. the only way to access the perimeter is by hiking trails.  (the image above is a picture of mount edizaz). the national park was made to protect the volcanoes as they are coming pretty rare in our country, don’t worry, not in the wprld, theres still plenty of volcanoes left out there for you to explore.. well maybe watch from afar!

1-https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/volcanoes  

2-https://www.livescience.com/27295-volcanoes.html

3-volcanoes: global perspective by john P. lockwood