Do you know what a volcano is?

About what a volcano is and how it appears, the inhabitants of our planet began to think back in ancient times.

For example, the ancient Romans called the volcanoThe mountain in which the god of fire Vulcan lived. When he began his dangerous work, smoke came from the mountain and fire erupted. The Kamchadals believed that in the fire-breathing mountains, the spirits of the volcanoes are visited by the souls of the dead, and the smoke is visible when they start to sink their yurts. Indians of North America, who lived at the foot of the volcano Mazama, believed that his eruptions occurred during the struggle of the good god of snow and the evil god of fire.

But how to explain what a volcano is,specialists. The volcano is a hole in the earth's crust, naturally formed due to the displacement of tectonic plates, from which the burning lava, often accompanied by an explosion, is thrown out under enormous pressure, and along with it - steam, gases and ashes.

On the African continent is one of theunusual volcanoes of the planet - Oldoino-Lengai. Its crater, whose diameter is 400 m, is filled with white matter, but it is not snow, but soda ash. Surprisingly, it has risen from the depths of the earth, because this volcano is the only one whose lava contains calcium and potassium and sodium instead of the usual silicon minerals. It is called cold, because the temperature of this lava is twice lower than that of the usual one. In the daytime it looks black, and only with the arrival of darkness it becomes clear that in fact it is of a dark purple color. Then, gradually cooling, the lava acquires a white color. Streams of soda are carried away to a beautiful lake, as if covered by a pink veil. This is another amazing moment, because the pink veil is a lot of flamingos, which attracted spirulina, one of the few living organisms that live in "soda" water.

The Hephaestus volcano, located on the Rotten HillTaman Peninsula, is unique in that it is a volcano ejecting mud fountains. This mud, called peloid, is saturated with boron, bromine, iodine, selenium, which is used as a medicinal product in medicine. Right in the crater of the volcano, mud baths are arranged, the temperature of which ranges from +12 to +20 degrees Celsius.

Volcanoes of Iceland for 60 million yearsconduct an unceasing struggle with glaciers. Over the past two centuries, out of 20 volcanoes, almost half have shown their activity at least once. And one of the largest eruptions on this island lasted almost two years during the years 1821-1823. - it was Eyyafyadlyayukudl. By the way, in 2010, with his action, he practically melted down a huge glacier with the same name and simultaneously provoked the activity of another volcano - Cutla. According to experts, volcanoes and earthquakes, their constant satellites, will make themselves felt during the next 60 years.

And what is a volcano in space? In 2005 On Enceladus (Saturn's satellite), Cassini's space station registered active volcanoes. For hundreds of kilometers they spewed not lava, but fountains of water, which immediately turned into fog from the ice crystals. A little earlier, in 1989, it became known about volcanic activity on Triton (Neptune satellite). There, on one of the coolest bodies of the solar system (- 240 degrees Celsius), nitrogen geysers activated by solar heat were discovered.

So what is a volcano - a fire-breathing mountain, a mud fountain or a gas geyser?