Funanya Uchemefuna

Professor Daniel
EAR 100
26 October 2016
Don’t Shame the Volcano

Volcanoes happen to be one of the most dangerous entities on earth and yet they still

seize to amaze me. Volcanoes have a multitude of hazards that can harm human kind. An

common example being lava flow or even ash fall. My intrigue in these ruptures that alter earth’s

surface derives from the fact that as dangerous as these heaps are they are equally important.

Volcanoes have the outstanding ability to slow climate change by increasing Earth’s water

endow and creating new islands. These glorified mountains may be unstable, nonetheless they

are crucial to Earth’s maintenance.

Volcanoes form from magma in the Earth’s upper mantle rising to the surface and

building pressure until it explodes resulting in lava flow and the spreading of ash. This constant

erosion occurrence will cause the volcano to expand. This may seem harmful to Earth’s surface,

but in fact it is not. The ash fall that erodes from the volcano contains minerals that mix into

Earth’s soil as a type of nutrients. Not only are volcanoes beneficial to plant life, but they

provide for the hydrosphere and atmosphere as well with the use of their gasses. Some may say

volcanoes are horrible because they destroy homes, which unfortunately they have, take Kilauea

in Hawaii or Tambora, Indonesia in 1815 for instance. Volcanoes destroy, but they also help

rebuild with the help of their volcanic deposits like basalt and diabase that are used for things

like road metal, concrete aggregate, railroad ballast, etc. They also slow climate change by

releasing certain gasses that get into the stratosphere leading to the blockage of light. In a way

volcanoes are a part of the circle of life because in order for something to strive another thing

must die.
 I chose volcanoes as my topic of discussion because it seemed to me that volcanoes were

constantly being put down. Realizing the amount of good volcanoes do for me and my Earth

gave me a better appreciation of them. I understand that these giant heaps can cause mass

destruction and take many lives, but I believe people either forget or fail to see that it also

provides for us in many ways more than we think. Volcanoes expand the Earth’s hydrosphere,

atmosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere by slowing climate change, adding to the water supply,

creating land, and causing weather change. All volcanoes are different because some may be

more dangerous than others depending on if they are active or if the magma is thin, nonetheless

they are all helpful in keeping our four spheres of Earth healthy.

Work Cited

“Volcanoes.” BBC Newsround BBC, UK. Web. 14 October 2016.

 “What Are Some Good Things That Volcanoes Do?” Volcano World OSU Oregon State

University Bates, R.L., 1969, Geology of the Industrial Rocks and Minerals: Dover, NY,459 p.

Web. 14 October 2016.

“Volcanoes.” WeatherWizKids, Weather Wiz Kids, 2015. Web. 14 October 2016.