What kinds of Volcanoes are there?

Most visualise a volcano as a large mountain with lava pouring down the sides, although there are several different formations of volcanoes. These are some of them:

• Shield Volcanoes - Are the largest volcanoes on Earth and erup with a fine, lava fluid. Hence these volcanoes are not steep, but very low-lying. Rarely do they erupt with such ferociousness, but with the exception of water entering the lava vent.


• Strato Volcanoes - These volcanoes are most common, making up 60% of the world's individual volcanoes. A well known characteristic of these volcanoes is that the viscous lavas allow gas pressures to build up and eventually resulting in a catastrophic eruption.


• Rhyolite Caldera Complexes - Despite not looking anything like a typical volcano, Rhyolite Caldera Complexes create the most explosive eruptions. The reason being, is because these volcanoes have such gigantic magma chambers, that when they erupt, they'll usually collapse on itself. The result of these volcanoes will be huge deposits of ash which will extend for thousands of square kilometres. Luckily, our Earth hasn't experienced such an eruption since A.D. 83.


• Monogenetic Fields - These don't exactly look like the typical volcanoes we often see, rather, they contain hundred or even thousands of vents and flows. This is due to a lack of, or a slow rate of magma supply. A monogenetic field is basically one volcano having separate eruptions over a large area.

• Mid-ocean ridges - These volcanoes form along the earth's oceanic plates, or ridges. These ridges were initially formed by the convection in the upper mantles. Lava is then able to intrude through these ridges, hence pushing the oceanic plates apart. Sometimes this causes small scale earthquakes.