Volcanoes
Facts about volcanoes
- A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or crust, which allows hot magma, volcanic ash and gases to escape from the magma chamber below the surface.
- Volcanism away from plate boundaries has also been explained as mantle plumes. These so-called "hot spots", for example Hawaii, are postulated to arise from up welling diapairs with magma from the core–mantle boundary, 3,000 km deep in the Earth.
- Erupting volcanoes can pose many hazards, not only in the immediate vicinity of the eruption.
- Mount Etna is Europe's tallest active volcano and is located in Sicily, Italy.
- Etna has erupted many times during recorded history and is still very active.