Stratovolcano Analysis

Analysis

There are lots of different types of volcanos, but they can be divided in three main types.

The first one is the stratovolcanoes. It’s called like that after the Latin word “strato”, which means layer. They are usually high mountains that can erupt with a lot of power. They are so high because of the many eruptions that already happened here. The debris were falling on the sides of the volcano, making it grow. A stratovolcano is able to produce the worst of all the eruptions: the Plinian eruption. It is called after a famous Roman naval commander and at the same time a scientist interested in natural and geological events, Pliny the Elder. He died while trying to get closer to the Mount Vesuvius that was erupting. Pliny the Younger

The seismic activity began on the 26th of august 1883. The next day, two thirds of the caldera volcano Krakatoa collapsed in cause of a series of gigantic explosions. Krakatoa stayed active until February 1884, and expulsed an astonishing amount of ash and pumice. At the beginning of the Plinian eruption, the plume produced by the fire mountain was about 27 kilometers high. A few tsunamis were created because of the main explosion (Krakatoa) and the ones that followed after from other volcanos surrounding the site. In all, four main consecutive eruptions, and the fourth and final one was incredibly powerful: the ash column was propelled to about 80 kilometers of height, with a speed of more than 1000 kilometers per hour. The shockwave that preceded the explosion reverberated seven times around the Earth globe and the sound that followed the eruption wrecked the eardrums of all the sailors of the ships around the island. The official number of killed people is about 36 thousands, but some source say that it could be 120 000 or even more. So that eruption was one of the worst the modern humanity had ever

They don’t have any magma chamber and are connected directly to the mantle. That obviously means that it can erupt only once. Sometimes, these cinder cones are regrouped in one place. This is called a monogenetic volcano field. When one volcano explodes, the other habitually follow. Fortunately, it just finishes in a giant lava flow, that can do much damage if it passes through town or forests, but otherwise, it just flows until it cools down, or until it dives in a sea or an ocean. There are lots of these volcanos in countries on the edges of different tectonic plates. For example the Iceland, which is on the limit between the European plate and the American one. This actually causes other problems like earthquakes and other seismic activities, but the volcanoes are one of the