Introduction
Eruption Date Volume in km^3 -------- ---- -------------- Paricutin, Mexico 1943 1.3 Mt. Vesuvius, Italy 79 A.D. 3 Mount St. Helen, Washington 1980 4 Krakatoa, Indonesia 1883 18 Long Valley, California pre-historic >450 & <700 Yellowstone, Wyoming pre-historic 2400A valcano is a location where magma, or hot melted rock from within a planet, reaches the surface. It may happen violently, in a massive supersonic explosion or more quietly, as a sticky, slow lava flow.
Volcanoes have been a part of earth's history long before humans. Compare the history of human beings, a few million years in the making, to that of the earth, over four billion years in the making.
Volcanoes were important contributors to the early earth atmosphere by releasing gases such as nitrogen (N2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and ammonia (NH4).
created by Josephine V. Jayasuri, vanijamal@yahoo.com
last modified: September 19, 2007
URL: http://www.oocities.org/vanijamal/intro.html