What is the smallest , largeest, tallest ,hottest valcano and why do they erupt?

Ryan

Hi Ryan,

I can answer some of your quesitons, but not all of them have answers. For example, it is hard to say what the smallest volcano is. Usually when people ask this question I say that it is perhaps Paricutin, which erupted between 1943 and 1951 in Mexico. It is essentially a large cinder cone. The largest volcano is Mauna Loa, here in Hawai'i. The tallest would be Mauna Kea, which, when measured from its base on the ocean floor, is more than 30,000 feet high. The hottest is hard to determine. One guess might be Kilauea, which seems to have the best-developed plumbing system of all volcanoes (at least it erupts the most frequently).

Why do they erupt? Volcanoes erupt because the magma that is generated beneath them, in the upper mantle, has a lower density than the surrounding rocks. Something with a low density that is surrounded by something with a higher density will try to rise. The lower density of magma is due to a combination of it being hotter than the surrounding rocks, and to its containing gas bubbles.

Sincerely,

Scott Rowland

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