We have been studying volcanoes in our fourth grade class and have
talked about the three types of volcanoes, shield cone, composite cone and
cinder cone. Which type is most commonly found on earth?
Mrs. Dominguez's fourth grade class
Hi Mrs. Dominguez's class,
First thing, I don't know where this "3 types" comes from; there are more
than 3 types of volcanoes. "Volcanoes of the World" by Tom Simkin and Lee
Seibert, lists 26 different types. Probably the most common types are
strato volcanoes, shield volcanoes, monogenetic fields (with many types of
individual vents included), rhyolite caldera complexes and submarine
volcanoes. Many times people say that "cinder cone" is a type of volcano,
but that is kind of confusing. Individual members of a monogenetic field
can be cinder cones and in this case you might say that it is a volcano
(although the volcanic system really includes all the associated vents
within that particular monogenetic field). Additionally, however, cinder
cones exist as vents on larger volcanoes, particularly shield volcanoes
and strato volcanoes. In these cases the volcano is the big structure and
the cinder cone is only the product of a single eruption from that volcano.
Once in a while cinder cones can be found all by themselves, and in these
cases can indeed be considered "volcanoes".
"Volcanoes of the World" says that there are 699 strato volcanoes (same as
composite cone), 164 shield volcanoes, 105 submarine volcanoes, 92
monogenetic fields (which may contain hundreds of vents, some of which may
be cinder cones), 87 isolated cinder cones, and 83 caldera complexes. The
other 20 types of volcanoes make up the remainder of the volcanoes on Earth.
Sincerely,
Scott Rowland
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