Hello Everyone! Get ready, because this week’s Theme of the Week is VOLCANOES!!!
Yes, volcanoes are super cool. Or should I say, super HOT…?

Actually, the volcanoes themselves aren’t hot. Basically a volcano is any place where magma (the super-hot super-heated super-melted rock) that is inside the earth can come out. Believe it or not, they don’t even have to be shaped like mountains. They can be mountains, but they can also just be bulges, or holes, or cracks.

Have you ever had a cake pop? If not, here’s how to make them. The Earth is basically a giant cake pop. Except instead of having a delicious cake ball on the inside, it has magma (that super-hot super-heated super-melted rock I was talking about up there). And instead of having a delicious layer of chocolate on the outside, it has plain old rock (the unhot unheated unmelted regular kind) – called the Earth’s crust. So, not a very delicious cake pop.

Anyway, that hot hot magma sometimes just needs to get squeezed out, and of course it squeezes out in the places in the crust that are weakest – the cracks and the holes (which, if you’ve been paying attention, we call volcanoes). And once that magma is squeezed out, we call it lava. Don’t ask me why. It’s the same stuff.

And when that magma gets squeezed out and we call it lava, it can be pretty amazing.

Holy fountains of lava, Batman!

Or… hole-y mountains of lava, Batman!

Once the lava cools off, it turns back into rock.

Some volcanoes are under the ocean. As the lava comes out, it cools into rock underwater. Then more lava comes out and cools into rock on top of that. And then more. And then more. And then eventually, all that rock builds up on itself, higher and higher until it reaches all the way from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the water and becomes and island. A lot of archipelagos are formed by underwater volcanoes. If you don’t know what an archipelago is (aside from being an awesome word) it’s just a bunch of islands next to each other. In fact, we have a book called Archipelago that you should read. Not because you’ll learn anything about archipelagos, but because you’ll learn something about cool words.

Check out this island/volcano:

It’s a japanese island that has 205 people living on it. Luckily, it hasn’t erupted since 1785. But it could – it’s still called an “active” volcano, which means it could erupt again. Most volcanos are actually “dormant,” which means they haven’t erupted in so long we think that they’re pretty safe. And some are called “extinct”—which doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared, like the dinosaurs—it just means that we don’t think they’ll ever erupt again, so are pretty much just like any other mountain. Except still awesome, of course.

And here’s a little something you might not have thought about – there are volcanoes on other planets! The biggest volcano in our solar system is on Mars. It is called Olympus Mons. It is 373 miles across, and 13 miles high. Here’s a picture of it compared to Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on earth. HUGE!

And here is a photo of it (I know, I know, it looks much less impressive than the drawing above). 

All of this is to say, volcanoes are pretty neat. But of course, no one says it better than my favorite Science Guy, Bill Nye:

For more fun and interesting stuff about volcanoes, check out the Discovery Kids interactive Volcano page.

And, if you haven’t made the cake balls, why not try a Molten Lava Cake? Even if it turns out terribly, you can be sure it will taste better than a cake made out of real molten lava.

And if you discover any more interesting things about volcanoes, please post them below!