When Do Volcanos Erupt?

The ranges of eruptions by individual volcanoes vary. The frequencies in which they occur also vary. The Stromboli volcano in Italy erupts every 10-20 minutes daily. This display provides a fiery night- time spectacle for the many tourists who love to climb up its flanks at dusk to witness it eruptions. Super eruptions only happen every several hundred thousands years. These large eruptions have the potential to erupt several thousand cubic kilometers of magma. We have been fortunate not to have witnessed any of these eruptions.

The magma or molten rock is fragmented into ash and pumice, known as tephra, by the quickly release of the gases dissolved in it. The strong ejection is at great speed and can form turbulent columns that can reach up as high as 30-to 35 miles up in the sky. Winds help to disperse the tephra over large areas. Ashes falling from these eruptions will clog rivers, coat houses, cars and fields. Not all the tephra makes into the atmosphere, it will collapse back to the ground to form extremely fast and hot moving pyroclastic or larva; has been known to travel up to some 65 miles away its volcano.

Correlating the layers of ash erupted can help to understand the size of a certain eruption. Every eruption leaves its fingerprint of chemical and mineralogical dust. The scientists use a range of tools to analyses this data. Using the decay of radionuclides in the crystals dates the dated layers of ash. In the sea, the mud layers on the ocean bottom help to tie down the age of ash layers.

There is no certain way to say when any volcano will erupt. The one thing for sure it will. A large super eruption on the earth will affect the climatic and every living thing on earth. Mankind must be aware and concern about volcano eruption.