Fearsome Foursome of Eruptions Seen from Space (PHOTOS) |
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By: Becky Oskin
Published: January 22, 2013
[h=3]The Pacific Ring of Fire
NASA Earth Observatory
Pictured is the Tolbachik volcano, captured from space on Jan. 11, 2013.
Finally, Kizimen’s lava is a mix: not as viscous and sticky as Shiveluch and Bezymianny, but not as fluid as Tolbachik's. The intermediate lava forms thick, blocky flows. The dark, fan-shaped deposits seen on the volcano are rocks and ash that fall from Kizimen's summit.
More than 100 volcanoes on the
Kamchatka peninsula have erupted in the past 12,000 years. The land sits above a subduction zone, where two of Earth's tectonic plates meet and one slides beneath the other into the mantle, the deeper layer beneath the crust. As heat and pressure from the mantle squeeze water out of the lower plate, the water escapes. The water helps partially melt the nearby mantle, creating magma. The magma rises upward, drilling through the Earth's crust and, when it reaches the surface, eventually forming volcanoes.
Kamchatka's volcanic arc is one of several surrounding the Pacific Ocean, part of the
Pacific Ring of Fire.