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.
- Between 10 and 20 volcanoes are erupting somewhere on Earth every day.
- The word "volcano" originally comes from the name of the Roman god of fire, Vulcan.
- The southernmost active volcano on Earth is in Antarctica. It spews crystals and is very close to the U.S. Research Center.
- There's a volcano in Indonesia that spews blue flames.
- On April 1, 1974, black smoke was seen rising from Mount Edgecumbe, a volcano in Alaska. When a Coast Guard pilot came closer to investigate, he found 70 tires burning and the words "APRIL FOOL" spray painted into the snow.
- In 1600, a volcano eruption in Peru caused a famine that killed about 2 million people in Russia.
- The Japanese authorities constructed a fence around a volcano at Mount Mihara to stop a trend of over 2000 people committing suicide by jumping in.
- The eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia is believed to be the reason why the sky is red in Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream", set in Norway.
- In 1943, a fissure opened in a farmer's cornfield in Mexico, growing into a five story tall volcano in only a week and up to 1,100 feet after a year.
- No other country in Europe has as many volcanoes as Italy: the peninsula stands on a fault line.
- In 1986, a volcanic lake in Cameroon, Africa burped a C02 gas cloud that killed 1,746 people in minutes.
- 80% of volcanic eruptions happen underwater.
- Some volcano eruptions are capable of creating powerful electrical charges that can lead to bolts of lightning as large as two miles long.
- The volcanic system beneath Yellowstone holdsenough lava to fill 11 Grand Canyons.
- There are about 1,500 active volcanoes in the world.
- Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet in the solar system, with over 1600.
- The extreme sport of "Volcano surfing" was invented in 2004 at Cerro Negro, Nicaragua.
- 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes are in the Ring of Fire, an area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean.
- The world's largest underwater volcano, Tamu Massif, is the size of New Mexico.
- The Masaya Volcano located in Managua, Nicaragua, is getting Wi-Fi. Researchers are installing it to better predict the volcano's eruptions.
- The largest volcanic region on Earth is two kilometres below the surface of the vast ice sheet that covers west Antarctica, where at least 136 volcanoes are located.