Transcript for:
Introduction to Volcanoes and Volcanism

Welcome, everyone, to our chapter  5 video lecture for Geology 101.   Chapter 5 continues the discussion we began  in chapter 4. Chapter 4, we talked about   igneous processes, magmas and lavas, and how those  molten materials can cool to form igneous rocks.   This chapter is going to focus on the processes   that allow for that magma to really form and  then escape onto earth's surface as lava.   If I were to ask you to kind of sketch  out what a volcano looks like, I think   most of us would come up with a similar feature.  We might have kind of steep mountainsides with   a little crater at the top. We might draw a  little bit of gases coming out, and then lava   moving down slope. And it is true, that  is our conventional idea of a volcano.   Even the emoji for a volcano looks something  like this. A little bit better than what I’ve   come up with, but as we'll learn, there  are several different types of volcanoes.   There will be different shapes. They  will form in different locations.   So, our definition of a volcano must be a little  broader than just a mountain with a vent on top.   We will see that some volcanoes are more  hill shaped. Some are steep sided like   the first doodle I had there. But what they  all have in common is that they have a vent,   and the vent is where lava escapes  and erupts onto the surface.   It's kind of the pathway between  earth's interior and the surface.   And we'll see that some of these vents are quite  small, maybe have just a small trickle of lava,   whereas some of these events can  be quite large or explosive.   And even though volcanoes often get   a deserved bad wrap, right, they're  catastrophes. They damage property.   They often come with a death toll after an  eruption. They can be quite devastating.   We do owe them a little bit of gratitude though,  because they helped to make our planet habitable.   As we have big eruptions, like you see here  with mount Pinatubo at the top, volcanic   activity releases gases into our atmosphere.  And these gases also include water vapor.   So, in early earth, when volcanic  activity was very common, our planet   wasn't super habitable. We didn't really  have surface water. We had very little crust.   It was just a generally unpleasant  place. Repeated volcanic eruptions,   however, released the materials and  gases that helped form our atmosphere,   keeps us nice and insulated, as well as the  hydrosphere, surface water that pooled together,   together as the water vapor from volcanic  eruptions cooled and settled to the surface.   Volcanic activity is also responsible for creating  new oceanic crust. In chapters two and in chapter   four, we talked about the different types of  plate boundaries and how they are linked to   igneous material. At divergent plate boundaries,  that's again where our plates are spreading apart,   magma pushes up, pushing the plates apart. And as  that magma cools, it forms new oceanic crust. So   volcanic activity helps make our planet habitable.  And it continues to expand our seafloor. Now,   of course, I’m not trying to diminish the more  serious implications of volcanic activity.   In 2011, there was a massive eruption in Iceland.  On the left bottom part of the slide, you can see   a map with this kind of dark black cloud. See the  north pole at the top and that teeny tiny red dot.   That is the location of a volcano in  Iceland that erupted. And the ash cloud   was so intense from this eruption that it  covered much of Europe, going into Asia,   disrupting domestic and commercial air  travel for up to 10 days. So, while the   physical damages were small, right, the  economic damages were considerable.   Perhaps we are all familiar with Pompeii as well.  We'll look at the eruption history of this area,   specifically Mount Vesuvius, which in 79 AD  erupted explosively, coating the nearby coastal   town of Pompeii with a thick ash. This was able  to preserve, unfortunately, the bodies of people   living in Pompeii, as well as the infrastructure,  the architecture, the frescoes painted on the   ceilings and walls. So even though the eruption of  Mount Vesuvius was catastrophic and devastating,   it also allowed us to have insight into  what life was like in 79 AD in this region,   So, the title of this chapter is volcanoes and  volcanism. Volcanism is simply the process by   which this activity occurs. How magma  rises up, pushing towards the surface.   If we recall back in chapter four, we learned that  magma is less dense than its surrounding material.   It wants out. It wants up and out. Most magma  in earth's interior never finds its way to the   surface. But when it does, it escapes onto the  surface, often bringing with it volcanic gases.   And the combination of this hot molten material  and gas moves and onto earth's crust, as well   as into the atmosphere. We can see here lava is  being discharged from a small vent in Kilauea   on the big island of Hawaii. Remember that magma  is the interior of our planet, whereas lava   is once it's on the outside or exterior.

So, the volcanic processes or volcanism   pushes that molten stuff out of  the interior and onto the surface.   When we categorize our volcanoes  based on their eruption activity,   we look at what we know about different  volcanoes around the world and lump them   into one of three categories: active volcanoes are  those that have erupted in historic time. We have   a clear understanding of its past eruption  history. We can predict at least how the volcano   will behave if it erupts. We are not really able  to predict exactly when it will erupt, again,   but we can kind of see, if it erupted a certain  way in the past, it might give us some inclination   of what might happen in the future. So, our active  volcanoes we know that they've erupted before.   Dormant volcanoes are those that haven't  erupted in historic time but could.   They show some activity. There's something still  going on underneath that volcano. We just don't   have evidence that it has erupted  yet. That's the big word there – yet.   The final group of volcanoes are those that  are extinct or inactive. Those are volcanoes,   they have the vent, but they have not erupted.  They show no activity. We pretty much don't   think that they will erupt in the future. Now,  again, science is constantly evolving and so this   grouping of these different volcanoes can change.  But for now, if a volcano meets these two criteria   that it hasn’t erupted and it shows no activity  at present, it is considered extinct or inactive.   So, traveling back across the Atlantic Ocean to  Italy, I’d like to show this map of past eruptions   of Mount Vesuvius, again in 79 AD. So long,  long time ago this volcano erupted, completely   devastating Pompeii. Was trying to find it on this  map here. Here it is, down there at the bottom.   This map only shows eruptions in the  200-year period between 1631 and 1831 AD.   Each of those colored blobs, for lack of a better  word, represents a singular eruption event.   So, this pink eruption event, for  example, which took place in 1631,   it's very widespread. It reaches the coast. Some  of the smaller eruptions do not travel as far,   or they may be very low in terms of  volume of lava. This little yellow   deposit here, from 1813, is an example of that.  Still, Mount Vesuvius is considered active.   We know that it has erupted in historic time, it  has had activity as recently as the early 90s.   This is a very monitored volcano. We do have a  good understanding of how Vesuvius can erupt,   how it has erupted and that is because we  have such a detailed history of this region.   And volcanoes are not an earth-only process.  We see volcanic activity on other planets,   and in some cases, moons. This is a series  of images, images of Jupiter’s moon   Io. And in 2007, the new horizons space probe took  a series of photographs that have been patched   together here to show an animation of a volcanic  eruption on this moon. It is incredibly large in   scope. We can see it kind of rising up, almost  like a blemish off the surface of that moon.   But this shows that volcanic activity  is not limited to just earth, that it   can occur in many other places throughout  the solar system. Now, earth is the most   geologically active body in our solar system by  far. Between plate tectonics, volcanic activity,   there's a lot going on both in the interior of our  planet and on the surface. But that doesn't mean   that things like volcanoes are limited to earth  only. They can be found elsewhere as we see here.   In chapter 4, we talked at length about lava  and magma. And we're going to look at different   types of lava flows in just a minute. That  type of material is not the only stuff that   arises from earth's interior  during a volcanic eruption.   We can see that volcanic gases are also a major  part of an eruption. Here is an image, or rather,   it's a video of volcanic vents called fumaroles  releasing volcanic gases onto the surface.   I'll play this video in just a second here.  But the key thing to take away from this,   is that most of the composition of volcanic gas  is water vapor, from about 50 to 80 percent.   Again, early volcanic activity helped form our  hydrosphere, and that's because of the repeated   emissions of these volcanic gases. There are  other kind of stinky things that can come out from   a volcanic eruption. Sulfur jumps to mind. But  really, the bulk of these gases is water vapor.   So, let's take a quick look at this kind of  animation. Keep an eye on these fumaroles.   You'll see that it almost looks like  steam coming out of a tea kettle.   And this takes place in Yellowstone,  sitting over a large magma chamber,   that contains several geyser basins.  We'll learn more about geysers in chapter   12.

So,   you can see that there are a number  of fumaroles in this region, again,   all releasing that heated water vapor.  Some carbon dioxide, nitrogen, sulfur.   These, again, while the bulk of it is water vapor,  they do have kind of that stinky stuff as well.   Very impressive fumaroles. Some places that  are very susceptible to volcanic activity,   these fumaroles will just pop up along the side  of a road. Now they're likely to be very hot. You   should not go up and try to touch a fumarole. Of  course not. And especially in Yellowstone, if you   ever have the opportunity to visit, do not leave  the designated pathways, as the materials both   in this basin and in the fumaroles can be quite  hot, and in some cases deadly, due to the heat.   So volcanic gases are going to be one  component of a volcanic eruption.   The second component of a volcanic eruption will  be lava flows. In general, lava flows tend to move   very slowly. Rarely are they linked to fatalities.  There can be explosive eruptions that are deadly,   of course, but in cases like that of the big  island of Hawaii or the recent eruption in Spain   on la Palma, while the lava flows can move vast  distances over the surface, it's not going to   be like a tsunami wave. There's usually enough  time to escape, evacuate, protecting human life.   Property may be damaged as the lava flow moves  across the surface, but saving lives is what's   most important. And there are a number of ways  that lava flows can cool, forming unique features   on earth's surface. The first type of lava  flow that we'll see it's called a lava tube.   This is almost like a candy bar with an ooey gooey  center. The outer edge of the lava flow will cool   rapidly. It's exposed to the much cooler earth air  compared to what's going on down beneath our feet.   So, the outer edge will solidify into this  thick kind of lava, igneous rock crust.   But the inside of that lava tube is nice and  insulated. It's kept nice and warm, so lava can   easily flow throughout that kind of solid cavern.

as the lava moves away, it can leave behind   these big empty gaps or caves. you can see a  geologist on the big island of Hawaii walking over   the top of a lava tube here, just to show you how  large these features can be. now in some cases,   lava tubes are much smaller. but this is  pretty impressive, pretty cool to look at.   The next two types of lava flows are named  for Hawaiian words. We have pahoehoe,   and aa, like you would say  at the doctor's office.   These are lava flows that are common on the big  island of Hawaii or in the Hawaiian island chain.   And they have distinct characteristics that allows  us to differentiate them. Pahoehoe is very ropey,   stringy, almost like taffy that is being  pulled. So, you kind of yank it out. It's   kind of stretchy. Pahoehoe is shown here on the  bottom, it's very ropey, very stringy texture.   Here on the top, this feature will be very  blocky, very angular. It doesn't flow as neatly   as pahoehoe does, instead kind of giving  us these solid boulder shaped features.   To zoom in and look at what a pahoehoe  looks like as it's kind of moving here,   we have an animation from the USGS, showing   a geologist sampling a pahoehoe on the  big island. So, let's take a look.   So, we can see there's a ropey stringy texture  in the background. It's still very hot in molten.   The outside is cooling down first, but that hot  kind of red interior is still visible in places.   Pretty neat.   Two more types of lava flow we'll look at:  pillow lavas. These are going to be very common   at divergent boundaries, where mafic lava or is  kind of settling at the bottom of the sea floor.   Remember at divergent boundaries, magma pushes  up and kind of settles there as it does. So,   it kind of takes on this billowy, rounded shape.  So just kind of trickling up and settling down.   Much of the oceanic crust is made up  of features like this pillow lava.   And if sea level falls, we can actually  see pillow lavas exposed at the surface.   Here in Alaska on the right, you  can kind of see these rounded,   almost blobs of igneous rocks that cooled  as pillow lava settled at the sea floor.   On the left, you can see an  example from Oregon there.   The last type of lava flow: columnar joints. These  are really cool, because mother nature loves a   pattern. We'll see patterns that repeat themselves  across nature as we move through this class.   As lava flows become stationary or stop  moving altogether, we have time for the   minerals within that lava flow to cool  and set up a 3D atomic structure. And   as that occurs, we start to see the lava flow  consolidating into these polygon shapes.   On the left bottom left, you can see looking up  at devil's post pile national monument. You can   see those columns kind of extending upward  into the sky. If we were to stand on top   of the devil's post pile, you would see something,  or see a feature like that on the right there,   where it is a flat smooth surface,  but we have these polygons   taking hold. These shapes  appearing in that cooled rock.   So, our first material with volcanic  eruptions are volcanic gases.   The second lava flows, we  looked at five distinct types.   The last type of material that can be ejected  during a volcanic eruption are what are called   pyroclastic materials. These are the solid  stuff. So, it's not exact, but just to review:   Gas would be the gases removed,   The water vapor emitted during an eruption.  If you think of molten lava as a liquid,   it's kind of a stretch, but it's more  of that liquid-like behaving material.   The solid are the pyroclastics.  These are the solid rocks, the ash,   the things that come out and stay  solid as a volcano goes boom.   Ash is probably the most familiar to us. This is  very fine, less than two millimeters in diameter.   No different really in size than the  ash you might see in a fireplace.   As the material gets bigger, the pebble  size, we'll see things like lapilli.   And if we get into the centimeters  to inches scale, we'll start to see   volcanic bombs, which are smooth or rounded.

Or blocks which will be angular, sharp angles.   We'll look at some explosive eruptions in a little  bit here. But you can imagine that if an eruption   is particularly explosive, the lava is coming  out, so the gases are coming out. But we're also,   sometimes, basically blowing out the side of  a mountain. Those rocks gotta go somewhere.   So, we call those our pyroclastic  materials, our solid materials   that come out with an eruption event.   So, we're going to switch gears now and  talk about the different types of volcanoes.   As I mentioned earlier, if I asked us all to  draw one, we'd probably come up with a mountain   that, I’m sure yours is much more   interesting looking than mine, that's why  I went to school for science and not arts.   But in general, right, the vent is what's  important. We might have more of a rounded hill.   We might have a tall mountain like the figure on  the right. But in general, there is a vent that   allows for that lava to escape. And this vent,  depending on its size, can take on two different,   can be named one of two things, I guess is what  I would say. Smaller vents are called craters.   One kilometer in diameter would be very small,   right. So, this crater in Death Valley, you can  imagine, you could not have a very long walk.   These craters are less than, again, going to be  smaller than many of the other features we see,   but do form by an explosive collapse of the  mountain top. So, if we have a massive eruption,   as things settle down, it'll leave  that kind of curved bowl-like surface.   And at first, you might think  one kilometer is large. But   there are massive features much larger than  craters and we call them calderas. These form   when we have an enormous eruption. When  the entire magma chamber beneath a volcano   drains out, leaving a huge empty space. And  everything, including the mountaintop, just   collapses inward. So, this will be  greater than one kilometer in diameter.   And we'll see these huge bowl-shaped features,   perhaps most recognizable is the caldera that  sits in crater lake national park in Oregon.   Now the name is a little confusing,  but I assure you, that crater lake   is a caldera. It is massive in size.

Let's talk about how crater lake formed.   We started with mount mazama. Mount mazama  was a volcano, high, with an elevation of   Over 10,000 feet easily. Probably closer to,  sorry I’m doing math in my head right now,   probably closer to 12,000 feet give  or take. Very impressive in size.   And when mount mazama started to erupt, first ash  was being ejected out of that magma chamber. You   can see this likely took place out of the side of  the mountain, and not necessarily the tip or peak.   We'll see a little bit later,  when we talk about Mount St.   Helens, the 1980 eruption kind  of behaved in a similar way.   As the eruption continues and ash is released,  we'll see that the summit or the peak will start   to sink down. As that magma is released, the gases  are released, the summit will collapse inward.   Eventually, after all or most of that  magma is released, the ash is gone,   it leaves behind a big empty space. So, this  feature here that you see in the second image,   once it's all gone, gravity does the  work, and pulls the summit downward,   leaving behind crater lake, a large caldera.  Today, the rim of crater lake sits at about   6,000 feet or so, which means that it almost  halved in elevation. Now again, this is very   rough math. But still it lost a considerable  elevation when that peak collapsed inward.   There is a small volcanic feature  in the center of crater lake called   wizard island. It is a small cinder cone.  Very teeny, tiny, volcano. And there are,   you know, there have been some small eruptions  after this massive event. But for the most part,   that magma chamber is drained, the  explosive activity is behind this region.   Here is another image looking out  across the caldera of crater lake.   Here is wizard island, the small cinder  cone sitting in the center of the lake.   So again, about 4,000 feet up, this  mountain used to rise. Then, as the   peak collapsed, it left behind this deep caldera,  that again is over one kilometer in diameter.   We've made the distinction  between craters and calderas,   now we will look at the four types of volcanoes.   Volcanoes are going to be classified by two  characteristics: their shape, and how they form.   If we look at the animation or illustration,  rather, on the bottom of this slide, you can see   the four types of volcanoes are drawn from left to  right: a lava dome, a shield volcano, composite,   and cinder cone. The shapes are pretty different.  Looking at these four, even though they're just   illustrations, and as we move through this  material, we will see how their formation varies.   We're going to start with the shield volcanoes.  Shield volcanoes are low and rounded.   If you take captain America’s  shield, and lay it on its side,   you will see just a very shallow kind of  bump. Not very dramatic. Very shallow slopes.   These form due to the eruption of  mafic lava flows. In chapter four,   we learned that mafic material is lower viscosity,  which means it flows more like water than honey.   I'll say water, like, it's not exactly the  same. So that mafic lava flow can reach   kind of far out away from the vent,  creating this shallow profile.   We can see a famous example of the shield  volcano here: Mauna loa in Hawaii. It is tall   like a mountain, but it's still not as distinct or  dramatic as the doodle I had been making earlier.   It's very low, kind of rounded edge.   The next type of volcano is called cinder  cones. I often refer to these as baby volcanoes.   As we saw with crater lake, after that massive  eruption left behind that caldera, wizard   island did pop up due to some kind of remnant  eruption behavior. So, these will be very small   compared to larger volcanoes, things like  mount mazama for example. This is a tiny,   tiny bit compared to the larger mount mazama. So,  wizard island, as we saw in that image before,   a small part of the caldera, is an example  of a cinder cone. It will be steep sided,   but often isn't the center of volcanic activity.  This can form on the edge of a larger volcano,   or in the caldera after a massive eruption.  That is what we saw with crater lake.   Next, we go to stratovolcanoes. This is likely  what you imagine when you think of a volcanic   eruption or a volcano. Stratovolcanoes are very  steep. They're mountainous. They have these steep   sides; they often erupt very explosively. They're  very dangerous. We call them stratovolcanoes or   composite volcanoes, because they have strata or  layers. They are composed of different volcanic   eruption events that kind of stack the different  layers up top. So repeated eruptions, each time it   erupts, it deposits new material, creating  this massive steep stratovolcano feature.   These will often occur at convergent boundaries.   So, we'll see intermediate and felsic materials  as one plate is subducted beneath another.   We'll often see that material rising  up, creating these stratovolcanoes.   And most famously, over the last 50 years,   Mount St. Helens. Excellent example of a  stratovolcano and the explosive eruptions   that we see in these locations. This image  is from 1978 looking up at Mount St. Helens.   This is a series of images actually  illustrating the eruption itself. So again,   we see that the primary eruption direction is from  the side of the mountain, not necessarily the top.   And it is so catastrophic, it is causing a  massive landslide. We can see - wait for it - some   volcanic blocks there coming out, because the  pressure from this slow moving, high viscosity   felsic or intermediate material, it builds up, and  builds up, and builds up, eventually exploding.   So, if we go back to our chapter four analogy  of honey jar or a little plastic bear of honey,   we squeeze the bear and the honey  kind of dribbles out the top.   So that's the kind of slow-moving  eruption we would see in a stratovolcano.   But if this continues, and we start to  plug up the top of that little honey bear,   eventually if enough pressure is applied,  boom! All of that honey that was blocking   up the tube is released at once, creating  this massive eruption. And as I mentioned   in chapter one, mount saint Helens, we did  a pretty good job of closing off the area.   Geologists worked with the governments  to make sure people were safe.   But even still, there was a loss of life,  including a geologist who was surveying   this region from over a mile away. Parts of his  vehicle have been found. But Daniel Johnston   and his remains have never been found.  His last words were radioing into the   United States geological survey with “Vancouver!  Vancouver! This is it!” Meaning the eruption is   coming. And today one of our volcano monitoring  stations is named for David Johnston.   It's a dangerous, dangerous job, and I have  a lot of respect for the geologists who   choose to study volcanoes. I, myself, am a bit of  a fraidy cat. I'm comfortable behind my computer.   Right. The last type of volcanoes that we will  see lava domes. Lava domes form just like our   honey jar. As we squeeze out that high viscosity  material, it doesn't really flow. It just kind of   sits right on top of the vent. So, these  felsic or intermediate magmas just kind of   rise up and sit there. They're so resistant to  flow, they block up the larger volcanic vent.   That's why they're often called plug domes.   If the pressure beneath gets too great, these plug  domes will erupt in a very violent and destructive   eruption, because the pressure has  to be great enough to basically   push loose that plug of volcanic  material that's blocking the vent.   So, often, we'll see that these  lava domes get to be quite large   in size. An example would be  Lassen peak here in California.   Again, it is felsic or intermediate, giving  it that light color that you see there.   When we have these massive lava dome eruptions,  they're often accompanied by nuee ardente.   Nuee ardente are these pyroclastics,  remember that's the explosive   solids, that come with an eruption. And when  these pressures are so great the nuee ardente   is a massive cloud of volcanic bombs, blocks,  ashes, gases, that can be quite devastating   in their own right. So, it's not always just the  lava flow itself that people need to be afraid of,   although our disaster movies might tell us  otherwise. The nuee ardente can be quite,   quite devastating in its own right. And we saw  that with Mount Pelee in Martinique. Nuee ardente   took the lives of 28,000  people after this eruption.   There were only two survivors in the region. One  was in a prison cell contained beneath the ground.   One person was found severely  injured on the edge of town.   There was a small child, a little girl, who was  found after the eruption afloat in a boat. It is   believed that she may be a survivor of this event  as well. But still, of 28,000 people two or three   survivors. That's just a catastrophic event. And  this took place in, I believe it was the 1920s.   I don't have these; I should  put the year on there.   So now that we've introduced  the four types of volcanoes,   we looked at how they differ in their  shape, their size, and how they form,   I’m tying our types of volcanoes back to the  four groupings of magma, lava, or igneous rocks.   Recall, on the left side ultramafic and mafic  are called low silica, whereas intermediate and   felsic are the high silica examples. High or  low silica. Ultramafic is found in the mantle,   very deep in earth's interior. So, we're not going  to really see that with our types of volcanoes.   Cinder cones and shield volcanoes will often  be composed of or erupt mafic material.   Stratovolcanoes usually sit right  over the intermediate category,   whereas lava domes can kind of straddle  that intermediate or felsic zone.   This is just to summarize what we just  learned and then tie it back to chapter four.   When we talk about volcanic eruptions, at least  us here in south Louisiana, we're pretty secure,   as we saw with the earthquake distribution.  These volcanic eruptions are often limited to   well-defined zones, matching plate boundaries.   The circum-pacific belt, as we learned  in our chapter 8 on earthquakes,   is home to about 80 percent of all earthquake  events. We also have a good number of volcanoes   that dot the edge of this circum-pacific  belt. We call that the ring of fire.   If you look at this map here,  you can see those little red   triangles represent individual volcanoes.  So quite extensive throughout the region.   The Mediterranean belt, again for earthquakes,  this was home to approximately 15 percent   of all earthquake events. We can see that in  this area, in this purple kind of rectangle,   there's not nearly as many volcanoes  as we see in the ring of fire.   But they're still present. For example, we can  see in Italy things like Vesuvius located there.   So as with earthquakes, most volcanoes  fall within these defined zones,   aligning with our plate boundaries. And  as promised, it's going to keep coming up.   How does igneous activity differ at our different  plate boundaries? You know I’m going to tell you!   At divergent plate boundaries,  we're largely going to see   mafic magmas as the ocean is ocean floor  is pushed or spread apart by rising magma.   This material that is mafic in composition will  cool naturally giving us this dark black basalt   or gabbro or pillow lavas. So divergent plate  boundaries things like our oceanic ridges.   Seafloor spreading zones.

We're going to see a lot of   mafic material. And that is why our new oceanic  crust is going to fall in that mafic category.   It's not all beneath the sea, though. I include  this picture here of Iceland to show that   we can see some divergent plate  boundaries on land. Most are   going to be found in the ocean, but  there are exceptions to the rule.   At convergent plate boundaries, we  will have one plate subducting down   and another plate sitting atop. When we have that  plate being pushed or subducted down, it will   kind of melt, causing intermediate or felsic magma  to want to push up and rise creating volcanoes   along these convergent plate boundaries. So, the  volcanoes of the pacific northwest, also along the   western edge of south America, these convergent  plate boundaries are characterized by extensive   composite volcanoes or lava domes. Very slow  moving, high viscosity stuff. Lighter in color,   found throughout the circum-pacific ring  of fire and the Mediterranean zone.   We learned in chapter four, transform boundaries,  we're not gonna see volcanoes there. So, we're   gonna skip over that, and instead go back to a  topic we covered in chapter two. Hot spots. There   are places in the center of tectonic plates where,  as they move over a stationary mantle plume,   new volcanoes pop up and form. These hot spots  can build from mafic lava, building those   shield volcanoes, those kind of  slow rounded, low slope profiles.   Hot spot volcanism is how the island chain of  Hawaii was formed. The pacific plate slid over   that mantle plume, and as that took place,  these volcanic islands started to pop up.   To summarize just as we did with the types of  volcanoes, again, ultramafic is going to be   really constricted to our mantle. We will  see at divergent boundaries and hot spots   mafic material. So again, that's kind of  the lower silica. At convergent boundaries,   we're going to range from intermediate to felsic  or high silica features. So, this is a good   review slide to kind of keep these features  straight as you're preparing for your exam.   The last topic I want to cover is  how we characterize volcanic hazards.   We talked about a number of pretty  devastating events throughout this class,   ranging from Mount Pelee uh Mount Vesuvius,  Mount St. Helens, the eruption of mount mazama.   And as scientists, we want to  be able to compare these events   to each other. And we do so using what is  called the volcanic explosivity index or VEI.   The VEI does not take into consideration how many  homes were damaged, how many lives were lost,   not even the speed of lava. What the VEI  is interested in is the volume of material   ejected upward and how high that  plume goes. The higher the plume goes,   the more material ejected upward, right,  the more explosive you would imagine   that eruption to be. So, this ranges from  gentle to explosive to cataclysmic. You can   see at the bottom here, gentle eruption, that  volcanic plume does not necessarily go so high.   Whereas the VEI of four to seven falls in the  cataclysmic range because the volume of material   ejected upward, as well as the height of the  material, gives us a very explosive event.   To put into perspective how some of these events,  what they might look like, the mount Pinatubo   eruption in 1991 had a volcanic explosivity of  six. So, this falls in that cataclysmic range.   Now this took place, again, in the Philippines  not far from a U.S. military installation. So,   there was a good amount of forecasting that was  done in this region, so the fatalities were low.   due to the forecasting, you know, evacuation  orders, now many people were left without a home,   given refugee status because of this  event. It was still quite devastating,   because again, it is a really  just explosive massive event.   On canvas, I have a short video, it's less  than 10 minutes. I want to say it's like   seven minutes long from pbs talking about  how U.S. Scientists forecast mount Pinatubo,   the different pieces of  evidence that they used to   at least say something was going to happen.  Now prediction is not black and white. They   weren't able to say the eruption will occur  on Tuesday morning at 9:22 am until, you know,   2:53 pm. That's not what forecasting is about.  It's about removing people from unsafe situations.   So, as you watch this video  about forecasting mount Pinatubo,   you'll see a number of these  different forecast methods used   to predict when or if a volcano may erupt. May  being the operative word. There so definitely   check out that video, it is fair game because  it ties in what you see on this slide here.   So, this is it for our chapter 5 lecture on  volcanoes. Hopefully, you see now how it ties   in so nicely to our chapter 4 lecture on igneous  rocks. Take what you've learned here and chip away   at the chapter 5 MindTap homework. And as always,  if you do have specific questions for me, there's   the discussion board or my office hours, where  I’d be delighted to talk with you about specific   events, questions you may have, anything of that  nature. All right. Happy studying, everyone!