Community Magazine August 2017

90 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Peleh the BoyWonder HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED… I n the innermost layers of Earth, the temperature sometimes gets so hot that it melts rocks that are deep down in the mantle and the core. This can cause extremely high pressure from inside the earth to build up, to the point where eventually it forces the melted rock up and out of the earth through vents , which are cracks or holes in Earth’s crust. This is how a volcano is created. Oftentimes, the vent is inside of a mountain, which means that when the volcano erupts, the melted rock shoots out of the top of the mountain. Sometimes the vent is in a flat area, and after the melted rock erupts, it cools around the vent, causing mountain-like structures to form. There can even be vents in the floor of the ocean, which means that volcanoes can erupt underwater, too. The melted rock that is pushed out of the earth is called magma . Once the magma reaches the surface of the earth and explodes out of the volcano, it is called lava . The lava flows very quickly and is very dangerous, because it is burning hot! Dangerous gases, whole rocks, and ash can also shoot out of a volcano, along with the lava. The effects of a volcano on the land surrounding it can be very deadly. Plants and trees are often burned by the hot, flowing lava. However, the nutrients found in a volcano’s lava and ash, which spread across the land following a volcanic eruption, actually work like a fertilizer that makes the soil a perfect place for new plants to grow! Child Prodigy PelehWunder – more commonly known as Peleh the BoyWonder That’s a lotta’ Lava! How do volcanoes form? About sixty volcanoes erupt every year worldwide. Flowing lava has a temperature of about 1800 degrees Fahrenheit and flows downhill at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour!