Volcanoes Are Often Associated With Fire, Earthquakes,

Volcanoes are often associated with fire, earthquakes, victims and damage. The activity of nature often turns peaceful mountains with smoky tops into fire vents with lava and smoke getting out and turning everything into fire and burning it.

Why do volcanoes erupt and where does such an incredible energy get from inside the earth?

After the radioactivity phenomenon was discovered, especially one of uranium and thorium, scientists began to understand that the heat is conserved inside the earth because of the radioactive decay of some chemical elements. The studies made in the field of nuclear energy problems proved this fact again.

Accumulation of heat energy inside the earth makes the earth matter heated. The temperature gets so high that the matter has to melt but under the high pressure of the upper earth layers it stays solid. In the places where the pressure of the upper earth layers is not so high (it happens because of the motion of crust and in the places with tectonic cracks) the heated masses transform from solid phase into liquid.

The masses of melted rock saturated by gases in the deep layers of earth are called magma. Under the high pressure of releasing gases, magma passes the way and forms volcanic vent or volcanic canal. Released gases, by the means of explosions free the way for lava, breaking and throwing the pieces of rock on high altitude. This phenomenon is also followed by earthquakes in the environs of volcano.

The volcano starts by eruption of post of black smoke on the altitude from 1 to 5-kilometer. Then it gets wide and more intensive at the same time pieces of rock are also erupted from the volcano's vent. The amount of pieces of rocks, gasses, smoke and ashes often increases the number of ten million cubic meters or even 100 million cubic meters. The nature of erupted gases can be different, between volcano gas products are: combinations of chlorine, sylph gases, hydrogen, nitrogen, combinations of oxygen with other gases, water steams, etc.

There are several dozens of acting volcanoes nowadays, most of them are situated in the Pacific region, as it's a place of high tectonic activity (the facts such as earthquakes in Japan, Hawaii, Pacific Isles and the motion of Australian continent are good examples that witness high rate of geological activity of crust).

One of the most interesting cases about volcanoes happened in Mexico, 1943 on the plane farm land. It was formed on a plane farmland and got the name of the closest village-Paricutin. The witness of the volcano's birth was an Indian- the owner of the farmland. He plowed and felt that the soil was getting hotter and hotter from day-to-day, then he saw the steams of smoke and loud rumble under the ground. He escaped.

There began the earthquake and clouds of sand, rocks and dust were erupted from the ground, then the lava flowed. The eruption was lasting more than a year and later on the activity of volcano didn't stop. Now the height of a relatively new-born volcano is approximately 2500 meters.

In the Pacific, in the strait of Zond there is a volcanic island Krakatau that has a shape of half-moon. The volcanic vent is hidden under the water. In the year of 1883 during the volcano's eruption the huge explosion occurred. The biggest part of the mountain was destroyed and appeared in the sea, and the resultant motion was so strong that huge waves were noticed in all parts of the world in all the oceans. Sea waves with an altitude of 30 meters (100 feet) caused devastating damage on the islands of java and Sumatra and went all the way to the shores of South America. Volcanic dust, released during the eruption of volcano covered the entire planet.

The chronics of that days say the following. The eruption started on the 20th of May. The column of ashes and smoke rose up to 11 km high from the north crater of the old Krakatau volcano. The ashes fell all the way in Sumatra island. The next day the explosions were registered every five-ten minutes. In a period of one month the top of the volcano was blown off by the massive eruption. The most terrible eruption happened two months later on August, 26. Th ehuge explosion of the volcano was heard in a range of 160 km. The resultant of the explosion was a column of smoke and ashes that rose to the high of 36 km in just 4-hour period. The next couple of days the explosions were even more powerful and louder and could be heard on Java island as well. In the city of Batavia (155 km from the volcano) the temperature was only 18 C. instead of 28, because of the volcanic smog. The resultants of the explosions were terrible tsunamis that hit the coast of Java and Sumatra, killing nearly 36-000 people.

The effects of the eruption were incredible and terrible. The explosions were heard nearly 4700 km away from the centre of volcano activity. Waves two meters high were registered nearly 8000 km away from the volcano. The masses of volcanic dust and volcanic pumice covered some locations on South African coast nearly a year after the explosion. Volcanic dust and gases circled the world in a two-week period of time and reached stratosphere. The island of Krakatau was destroyed, and only one third of the original island was remained relatively safe. According to article The Great Volcanic Explosion of Krakatoa: