Bill's Views on Most Everything

I no more than post about Kileaua, a shield volcano, when Fuego, a stratovolcano, lets loose.  Guatemala is part of a string of beautiful Central American countries harboring many volcanos.

 

 

 

The Cocos tectonic plate is smashing into the North American Plate just north of the Caribbean Plate.  As the Cocos dives below the North American, its rock containing lots of water goes down (subducts) and is heated by the hot magma in the mantle.

 

 

 

New, lighter magma is formed which then rises and erupts.  The volcano’s lava doesn’t just flow out as in Hawaii.  Stratovolcano magma is more viscous, sticks and plugs the magma channel until pressure builds up and it blows in an explosive, destructive eruption.  The hot stuff rises into the atmosphere (ash), and also flows down the mountain as a  pyroclastic flow of superheated rock and ash, the killer.  Pinatubo in the Philippines, Pompeii, Etna, Mt. St.Helens,

Rainier, Lassen, Hood, and El Volcan de Fuego (Fuego=Fire).  The volcanos ring most continents and island arcs.

Kileaua has been erupting for a month with just a few injuries, and Fuego has probably killed hundreds in one day.  Don’t live too close to a stratovolcano.