How Do Volcanoes Erupt

How Do Volcanoes Erupt?

Have you ever witnessed an erupting volcano? You feel like you're at the bottom of the underworld when the hot lava comes near you, ash all over the place, people suffocating in ash and most of the town or city covered in ash. This was all because of tectonic plates.

Volcanoes are formed by tectonic plates, these tectonic plates are huge pieces of rocks that stay on the Earth’s mantle (a layer of the earth that is a sort of liquid rock). The tectonic plates will move. The tectonic plates will then form into a look-alike mountain called a volcano. Volcanoes can rise up to 17000 metres (so that could be bigger than Mount Everest).

Deep down in the Earth’s crust, rocks and crystals slowly melt and become a thick and hot substance called magma. The tectonic plates will push the magma into the volcano's magma chamber (which is at the bottom of the volcano).

Once the magma gets pushed into the magma chamber it will then be pushed into the volcano’s vent or the side vent (which is at the side of the volcano). There are 3 kinds of volcanoes that will form: the biggest is a composite volcano (which is constructed from multiple eruptions), there is also a cinder cone volcano (it has a curve in the middle of  the volcano) and a shield volcano (it is very small at a 5.5 km and made from multiple vents).

The magma will then be pushed out of the volcano. When the magma is pushed out of the volcano, the magma is then turned into lava. Volcanoes will throw ash many kilometres into the air and then back down onto  the ground. You will be advised to do a lot of surviving tips on the radio to make it through the eruption.

A dormant volcano means it is a volcano that hasn’t erupted in a long time but might erupt again one day. An extinct volcano is one which isn’t supposed to erupt ever again. Active volcanoes are the ones that erupt regularly.

By Rome

The Aurora Australis

What causes the Aurora Australis

By Rome

Have you ever witnessed nature’s light show dancing across the night sky? This colourful display is often referred to and known as ‘The Southern Lights’.

At first a solar flare comes from the Sun with high energy particles. The sun is always active so it can eject a lot of clouds with electrons, ions and atoms. There is a constant flow of ions in each cloud.

The Earth has a magnetic field protecting our atmosphere. The magnetic field acts as an invisible shield around Earth. The particles from a solar flare follow the shape of the magnetic field. The magnetic field directs the ions to both the North and South Poles.

The ions accelerate to the North and South Poles. The ions will collide with other particles. Once the ions have reached the North or South Pole, all the ions will release energy in the form of colorful lights. This is called the Aurora Australis.

This is how the Southern Lights are formed. It doesn't happen all the time so you have to keep an eye out for it.

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