Volcano

Volcano

A vent or opening in a planet's surface that lets out pressurized molten rocks or magma, and gases from the inner core. Volcanoes come in various shapes and structure, but the most common ones are mountain-like structures with a crater at the summit.

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Volcano

Hypocenter

Natural environment; Volcano

The place on a buried fault where an earthquake occurs.

Plug

Natural environment; Volcano

Solidified lava that fills the conduit of a volcano. It is usually more resistant to erosion than the material making up the surrounding cone, and may remain standing as a solitary pinnacle when the ...

Plug dome

Natural environment; Volcano

The steep-sided, rounded mound formed when viscous lava wells up into a crater and is too stiff to flow away. It piles up as a dome-shaped mass, often completely filling the vent from which it ...

Plinian eruption

Natural environment; Volcano

An explosive eruption in which a steady, turbulent stream of fragmented magma and magmatic gases is released at a high velocity from a vent. Large volumes of tephra and tall eruption columns are ...

Plate tectonics

Natural environment; Volcano

The theory that the earth's crust is broken into about 10 fragments (plates,) which move in relation to one another, shifting continents, forming new ocean crust, and stimulating volcanic eruptions.

Pipe

Natural environment; Volcano

A vertical conduit through the Earth's crust below a volcano, through which magmatic materials have passed. Commonly filled with volcanic breccia and fragments of older rock.