A report on Lava, Volcano and Komatiite

10 m lava fountain in Hawaii, United States

Bromo volcano in Indonesia. This country has more than 130 active volcanoes, one of which is a supervolcano, making Indonesia the country with the most active volcanoes in the world.

Komatiite lava at the type locality in the Komati Valley, Barberton Mountainland, South Africa, showing the distinctive "spinifex texture" formed by dendritic plates of olivine (scale shown by a hammer on the right edge of photo)

Lava flow during a rift eruption at Krafla, Iceland in 1984

Cordillera de Apaneca volcanic range in El Salvador. The country is home to 170 volcanoes, 23 which are active, including two calderas, one being a supervolcano. El Salvador has earned the epithets endearment La Tierra de Soberbios Volcanes, (The Land of Magnificent Volcanoes).

Komatiite sample collected from the Abitibi greenstone belt near Englehart, Ontario, Canada. Specimen is 9 cm wide. Bladed olivine crystals are visible, though spinifex texture is weak or absent in this sample.

Pāhoehoe and ʻaʻā lava flows side by side in Hawaii, September 2007

Sabancaya volcano erupting, Peru in 2017

Graph of komatiite geochemistry MgO% vs Cr ppm, from basal flows, Wannaway, Western Australia

Toes of a pāhoehoe advance across a road in Kalapana on the east rift zone of Kīlauea Volcano in Hawaii, United States

Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska photographed from the International Space Station, May 2006

Photomicrograph of a thin section of komatiite showing spinifex texture of pyroxene needle-like crystals

Columnar jointing in Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland

An eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 12, 1991, three days before its climactic eruption

A2 facies dendritic feathery olivine crystals, drill hole WDD18, Widgiemooltha, Western Australia

Lava entering the sea to expand the big island of Hawaii, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Fountain of lava erupting from a volcanic cone in Hawaii, 1983

A3 facies bladed olivine spinifex, drill hole WDD18, Widgiemooltha Komatiite, Western Australia

Lava enters the Pacific at the Big Island of Hawaii

Aerial view of the Barren Island, Andaman Islands, India, during an eruption in 1995. It is the only active volcano in South Asia.

Glowing aā flow front advancing over pāhoehoe on the coastal plain of Kilauea in Hawaii, United States

Map showing the divergent plate boundaries (oceanic spreading ridges) and recent sub-aerial volcanoes (mostly at convergent boundaries)

Pāhoehoe lava from Kīlauea volcano, Hawaii, United States

Lakagigar fissure vent in Iceland, the source of the major world climate alteration of 1783–84, has a chain of volcanic cones along its length.

Block lava at Fantastic Lava Beds near Cinder Cone in Lassen Volcanic National Park

Skjaldbreiður, a shield volcano whose name means "broad shield"

Pillow lava on the ocean floor near Hawaii

Izalco volcano, the youngest volcano in El Salvador. Izalco erupted almost continuously from 1770 (when it formed) to 1958, earning it the nickname of "Lighthouse of the Pacific".

Arenal Volcano, Costa Rica, is a stratovolcano.

Cross-section through a stratovolcano (vertical scale is exaggerated):

A forested lava dome in the midst of the Valle Grande, the largest meadow in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico, United States

Satellite images of the 15 January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai

Shiprock, New Mexico, United States: a volcanic neck in the distance, with a radiating dike on its south side

Pāhoehoe lava flow on Hawaii. The picture shows overflows of a main lava channel.

The Stromboli stratovolcano off the coast of Sicily has erupted continuously for thousands of years, giving rise to its nickname "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean"

Lava can easily destroy entire towns. This picture shows one of over 100 houses destroyed by the lava flow in Kalapana, Hawaii, United States, in 1990.

Columnar-jointed basalt lava erupted from a volcano, South Penghu Marine National Park in Taiwan

Light-microscope image of tuff as seen in thin section (long dimension is several mm): The curved shapes of altered glass shards (ash fragments) are well preserved, although the glass is partly altered. The shapes were formed around bubbles of expanding, water-rich gas.

Fresco with Mount Vesuvius behind Bacchus and Agathodaemon, as seen in Pompeii's House of the Centenary

Narcondam Island, India, is classified as a dormant volcano by the Geological Survey of India

Fourpeaked volcano, Alaska, in September 2006 after being thought extinct for over 10,000 years

Mount Rinjani eruption in 1994, in Lombok, Indonesia

Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico, US

Koryaksky volcano towering over Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on Kamchatka Peninsula, Far Eastern Russia

Schematic of volcano injection of aerosols and gases

Solar radiation graph 1958–2008, showing how the radiation is reduced after major volcanic eruptions

Sulfur dioxide concentration over the Sierra Negra Volcano, Galapagos Islands, during an eruption in October 2005

Comparison of major United States supereruptions (VEI 7 and 8) with major historical volcanic eruptions in the 19th and 20th century. From left to right: Yellowstone 2.1 Ma, Yellowstone 1.3 Ma, Long Valley 6.26 Ma, Yellowstone 0.64 Ma . 19th century eruptions: Tambora 1815, Krakatoa 1883. 20th century eruptions: Novarupta 1912, St. Helens 1980, Pinatubo 1991.

The Tvashtar volcano erupts a plume 330 km (205 mi) above the surface of Jupiter's moon Io.

Olympus Mons (Latin, "Mount Olympus"), located on the planet Mars, is the tallest known mountain in the Solar System.

A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.

- Volcano

Komatiite is a type of ultramafic mantle-derived volcanic rock defined as having crystallised from a lava of at least 18 wt% MgO.

- Komatiite

Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or underwater, usually at temperatures from 800 to 1200 C. The volcanic rock resulting from subsequent cooling is also often called lava.

- Lava

Ultramafic lavas, such as komatiite and highly magnesian magmas that form boninite, take the composition and temperatures of eruptions to the extreme.

- Lava

Komatiite volcano morphology is interpreted to have the general form and structure of a shield volcano, typical of most large basalt edifices, as the magmatic event which forms komatiites erupts less magnesian materials.

- Komatiite

Some erupted magmas contain ≤45% silica and produce ultramafic lava. Ultramafic flows, also known as komatiites, are very rare; indeed, very few have been erupted at the Earth's surface since the Proterozoic, when the planet's heat flow was higher. They are (or were) the hottest lavas, and were probably more fluid than common mafic lavas, with a viscosity less than a tenth that of hot basalt magma.

- Volcano

3 related topics with Alpha

Magma

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Molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed.

Phase diagram for the diopside-anorthite system

$Schematic diagrams showing the principles behind fractional crystallisation in a magma. While cooling, the magma evolves in composition because different minerals crystallize from the melt. 1: olivine crystallizes; 2: olivine and pyroxene crystallize; 3: pyroxene and plagioclase crystallize; 4: plagioclase crystallizes. At the bottom of the magma reservoir, a cumulate rock forms.$

Two silica tetrahedra joined by a bridging oxygen ion (tinted pink)

Following its ascent through the crust, magma may feed a volcano and be extruded as lava, or it may solidify underground to form an intrusion, such as a dike, a sill, a laccolith, a pluton, or a batholith.

Ultramafic magmas, such as picritic basalt, komatiite, and highly magnesian magmas that form boninite, take the composition and temperatures to the extreme.

Pillow lava

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Weathered Archean pillow lava in the Temagami Greenstone Belt of the Canadian Shield

Pillow lava formations from an ophiolite sequence, Northern Apennines, Italy

Pillow lava at Boatman's Harbour near Oamaru, New Zealand.

Pillow lavas are lavas that contain characteristic pillow-shaped structures that are attributed to the extrusion of the lava underwater, or subaqueous extrusion.

Pillow lavas are commonly of basaltic composition, although pillows formed of komatiite, picrite, boninite, basaltic andesite, andesite, dacite or even rhyolite are known.

They occur wherever lava is extruded underwater, such as along marine hotspot volcano chains and the constructive plate boundaries of mid-ocean ridges.