Meet our main character, Frank, as he stumbles into an FBI headquarters and lands himself a job where he has to save the world from Mother Nature's impending doom.
He starts off by traveling to a set of volcanoes.
Volcanoes
A volcano is an opening in the earth’s crust caused by magma rising to the surface. They can be either active, dormant, or extinct. It is active if it has erupted within the past 10,000 years, dormant if it has not erupted in the past 10,000 years but is predicted to erupt in the future, and extinct if it has not erupted in the past 10,000 years and is not predicted to again.
There are about three different types of volcanoes, although there is some debate over the exact number. The most commonly categorized as cinder cones, stratovolcanoes (or composite volcanoes), and shield volcanoes.
Cinder cones are the most common, and the simplest, type of volcano. They can appear on their own, but they are also typically paired with other types of volcanoes. Lava comes out of a single vent, and then cools and falls as cinders. This creates a large crater at the top. The most famous of the cinder cones is Parícutin in Michoacán, Mexico, which formed out of a cornfield in 1943.
Stratovolcanoes, also known as composite volcanoes, are the most dangerous of all of them. They are tall and have very explosive eruptions. They don’t erupt often, but when they do you don’t want to be there for it. This is because there is lots of pressure building up on the inside that comes bursting out when ready. Their cones are made up of several layers of lava and other material that have built up. Famous stratovolcanoes include Mt. St. Helens in Washington, USA, and Mount Fuji in Japan.
Shield volcanoes are huge and wide. Basaltic lava comes out from the vents to form the mountain over time. The lava has a low viscosity, meaning it flows easily and over far distances. They’re generally not as explosive as the other types, however, they erupt more often. The most famous shield volcanoes are Kilauea and Mauna Loa, both located in Hawaii, USA.
There is some debate in the scientific community about how much humans impact volcanic activity. Some people think that it doesn’t have much to do with humans, and more with plate tectonics. But others are speculating that global warming can increase and intensify eruptions.
Volcanoes, while they can sometimes be frightening, are really fascinating features of our planet.