Volcanoes: What They are and What They TeachJudd, John W. (John Wesley)
Science
Volcanoes: What They are and What They Teach
Judd, John W. (John Wesley)
Volcanoes
We sometimes find that outwelling masses of lava, when issuing in small
quantities from a vent, accumulate in cauliflower-shaped masses, or
sometimes in the form of a column, or bottle. Professor J. D. Dana
describes many such fantastically-formed masses of lava as being found
in Hawaii, one of which is represented in fig. 25 (p. 100).
When the lava issues from the vent in great quantities it tends to
flow on all sides of it, and to build up a great conical heap above
the orifice. If the lava be very liquid it flows to great distances,
resting at a very slight slope. Thus we find that the volcanoes of
Hawaii have been built up of successive ejections of very liquid lava,
which have formed cones having a slope of only 6° to 8°, but of such
enormous dimensions that the diameter of their bases is seventy miles
and their height 14,000 feet.
[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Outlines of Lava-cones.
1. Mauna Loa, in Hawaii. Composed of very fluid lava. 3. The
Schlossberg of Teplitz, Bohemia. Composed of very imperfectly fluid or
viscid lava.]
If, on the other hand, the lava be viscid, or very imperfectly liquid
in character, it tends to accumulate immediately around the vent; fresh
ejections force the first extruded matter outwards, in the manner so
well illustrated by Dr. Reyer's experiments, and at last a more or less
steep-sided bulbous mass is formed over the vent. Such bulbous masses,
composed of imperfectly fluid lavas, occur in many volcanic districts,
and constitute hills of considerable size. From the tendency of matters
thus extruded to choke up the vents, however, these volcanoes composed
of viscid lavas cannot be expected to attain the vast dimensions
reached by some of those composed of very liquid lavas. The difference
in the forms of lava-cones composed of very fluid or of somewhat
viscid materials is illustrated in fig. 58. When the interior of such
steep-sided volcanic mountains composed of viscid materials is exposed
by the action of denuding forces, the peculiar internal structure we
have described is displayed by them. In the Chodi-Berg of Hungary,
a great bulbous mass of andesitic rock, this endogenous structure is
admirably displayed. It is also well seen in the excavation of the hill
of the Grand Sarcoui, a similar mass, composed of altered trachyte,
which has been erupted in the midst of a scoria-cone in the Auvergne.
See fig. 44 (p. 126).
[Sidenote: CHARACTERS OF COMPOSITE CONES.]
Most of the great volcanic mountains of the globe belong to the
class of 'composite cones,' and are built up by alternate ejections
of fluid lava and fragmentary materials. The slope of the sides in
such composite cones is subject to a wide range of variation, being
determined in part by the degree of liquidity of the lavas, in part
by the nature of the fragmentary materials ejected, and in part by
the proportions which the fragmentary and lava-ejections bear to one
another.
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