Supervolcanoes

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  • Supervolcanoes
    • develop at destructive plate boundaries or over parts of the mantle that are really hot (hotspots)
    • 1) Magma rises up through cracks in the crust to form a large magma basin below the surface.
      • The pressure of the magma causes a circular bulge on the surface several kilometers wide
    • 2) The bulge eventually cracks, creating vents for lava to escape through.
      • The lava erupts out of the vents causing earthquakes and sending up gigantic plumes of ash and rock
    • 3) As the magma basin empties, the bulge is no longer supported so it collapses- spewing up more lava
    • 4) When the eruption's finished there's a big crater (a caldera) left where the bulge collapsed. Sometimes these get filled with water to form a large lake
    • Characteristics
      • flat
      • cover a large area
      • Have a caldera
    • Effects of a supervolcanic eruption
      • will throw out thousands of cubic kilometres of rock, ash and lava
      • a thick cloud of super-heated gas and ash will flow at high speeds killing and burning everything it touches
        • everything within tens of miles will be destroyed
      • ash will shoot kilometres into the air and block out almost all daylight
      • The ash will also settle burying fields and building
  • develop at destructive plate boundaries or over parts of the mantle that are really hot (hotspots)
  • 3) As the magma basin empties, the bulge is no longer supported so it collapses- spewing up more lava
  • cover a large area

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