VOLCANOES AROUND THE WORLD

Welcome to our Social Studies page concerning interesting tidbits and important notes about volcanoes. Here we are hoping to provide you with information about volcanoes and volcanic activity that is fun and factual at the same time. Enjoy!

• Did you know that in Hawaii moving lava is also known as "aa" (ah-ah) and also pahoehoe (pa-hoy-hoy). Pahoehoe lava is very smooth in appearance and wrinkles as it advances while aa has a very jagged, rough look."aa" wave sweeping over a previous "pahoehoe" layer on Hawaii
• In Northern Ireland there is a place called the Giant's Causeway where a series of hexagonal (six-sided) columns made of basalt is found. The local people tell stories that many years ago the Giant's Causeway is all that is left of a bridge built by the Irish giant Finn MacCoul from Ireland to Scotland. Today scientists have explained this natural phenomena as the unique result of magma cooling in this shape after it was pushed to the surface. But the story is certainly a lot more fun , don't you think.

  The Causeway proper is a mass of basalt columns packed tightly together. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Altogether there are 40,000 of these stone columns, mostly hexagonal but some with four, five, seven and eight sides. The tallest are about 40 feet high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 90 feet thick in places.

   

  

   

• Did you know that some of our most beautiful sunsets are a result of volcanic eruptions?! That's right. Whenever a volcano erupts it pushes up to several tonnes of ash, dust and debris into the air. When this material comes into contact with the wind and circulating air currents it is pushed around the atmosphere. When the sunlight manages to filter through this assortment of erupted stuff it is often altered to appear orange, red, yellow and other assorted bright colours providing some of the prettiest sights on Earth.
• Volcanoes have been known to create not just fiery eruptions but also mudflows, Nuee ardente,debris avalanches, and lava showers that help alter the landscape. After Mt. St. Helen's blew in 1980 it was said that the side of the mountain and the valley below looked like the face of the Moon.
• It is generally thought that volcanic eruptions cause nothing but destruction and harm for people, but volcanic debris can actually help turn regular soil into extremely fertile land for growing crops.
• In 1816, an extremely cold spring and summer in north-eastern Canada and the United States caused a series of crop failures. There was also a famine period in England, Germany and France. Scientists have traced the cold weather to the huge amount of volcanic debris ejected by the eruption of the volcano Tambora in Indonesia the year before. Over 30000 metres of tephra was thrown into the atmosphere and the winds spread it around the globe. The effects were so severe in New England in particular that 1816 came to be known as the "year without a summer".
• Sometimes volcanic activity can create entirely new land. In 1963 a volcanic eruption and surge of magma from an ocean floor site resulted in the fairly sudden appearance and formation of the new island of Surtsey. This took place south of Iceland were there had just been water before. Surtsey is the youngest island on Earth.
• Surtsey

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