Did you ever wonder where the most and the largest volcanoes are found?

By David McClelland

I am eliminating from my search, volcanoes on other planets and stars. Otherwise, I'd have to include Olympus Mons (OM) on Mars which is the largest volcano yet found in our solar system. It is nearly 400 miles wide and rises 16 miles into the thin Martian atmosphere. The area of the base of OM would almost cover the entire State of Arizona.

I've always been interested in volcanoes, but that interest intensified while on a 17-day visit to the relatively small country of Ecuador where I learned that there are 55 active volcanoes. An "active" volcano is defined as one that has erupted at least once in the last 100 years. There are 45 active volcanoes on the mainland of Ecuador and another ten on the Galapagos Islands. We flew over some of the ones on the mainland when we took a commercial flight from Quito to Guayaquil. Then, we took a driving trip and we stayed one night in a lodge at the base of the Tunguraqua volcano near Banos and could hear its rumblings all night. We found it comforting. By the way, Alaska has 41 active volcanoes, 30 of which are along the Aleutian Island chain.

I find it interesting to note that our Hawaiian Islands were formed on the tops of gigantic volcanoes above a hot spot in the Earth's interior. As the volcanoes grew, they were carried away from the hot spot as the Pacific Plate moved forward northwest at about 3 ½ inches per year. The fixed hot spot is currently beneath the southeastern part of the Big Island of Hawaii.

The largest volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa (ML) on the Big Island of Hawaii, both in terms of volume and height above its base. ML consists of about 19,000 cubic miles of lava and rises more than 50,000 feet above its base. Due to its mass, it has depressed the ocean floor by about 5 miles.

Remember the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State? It occurred on May 18, 1980 and lasted for about 9 hours. In that short period, more than 540 million tons of ash fell over an area of 22,000 square miles and changed the lives of thousands of people and converted a pristine forest area into a volcanic lava bed.

There are about 1,500 active volcanoes around the world and about 500 million people live close to active volcanoes. Indonesia has the greatest number of active volcanoes (86).

The current list of the ten largest active volcanoes are: 1 – Mount Mazama/Crater Lake, Oregon, 2 – Mount Etna, Sicily, 3 - Mount Vesuvius, Italy, 4 – Mount Tambor, Indonesia, 5 – Mount Krakatau, Indonesia, 6 – Mount Pelee, Martinique, 7 – Paricutin, Mexico, 8 – Mount St. Helens, Washington, 9 – Nevada del Ruiz, Columbia and 10 – Mount Pinatubo, Philippines.

Now, we all know a lot more about volcanoes. Leaning about them "blew" my mind.