Volcanoes

Lately we have been researching volcanoes so I'm going to tell you a bit about them.

A volcano is an opening in the planet's surface or crust, which allows hot lava, magma, ash and gases to escape from below the surface.

Some volcanoes can be very violent. This is where the top of the volcano may blow right off and lava, magma, ash and gases will explode out very quickly.

Other volcanoes may not be very violent at all - just oozing out lava for a long time or they might have a soft quick eruption not as often (just a little spray of lava etc).

There are ratings for volcanos going fron 0-5 so 0 is not active and 5 is violently active with eruptions happening up to every 20 minutes sometimes.

The types of volcanoes are "cinder cone volcanoes" which are ones that normally blow the top off them so they have a dented circle at the top.

Composite volcanoes are more sort of an oozing volcano and sometime are quite symmetrical with more of a point at the tip.

Shield volcanoes are really flat and when the lava comes out it goes everywhere and it can't be controlled.

Mayon Volcano, a beautifully symmetrical but dangerous composite volcano on Luzon Island, Philippines.