Monday, November 9, 2009

VOCLANO ERUPTS!



My weekly post is kind of a combo of the end of this unit, and the beginning of the next unit.

The article I read was about the Chaiten volcano which is in southern Chile. It had been dormant for 9,400 years, until May in 2008 when it started erupting, producing plumes, pyroclastic flows, and built a new lava dome. The volcano itself is located above the Peru-Chili subduction zone. Which is a convergent, subducting boundary between the Nazca, an oceanic plate, and the continental south american plate. We know that when a continental and an oceanic plate collide they subduct and form a volcano, hence the Chaiten volcano, and they also form trenches, like the Peru-Chile trench which is right next to Chile.


http://geology.com/volcanoes/chaiten/


Although outdated I think this article gives us a real life look at plate boundaries and a good intro to volcanoes.

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