A lava cave is any cave formed in volcanic rock, though it typically means caves formed by volcanic processes, which are more properly termed volcanic caves. Sea caves, and other sorts of erosional and crevice caves, may be formed in volcanic rocks, but through non-volcanic processes and usually long after the volcanic rock was emplaced.
There are many types of lava caves, with these being the most notable:
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.
Volcanic cones are among the simplest volcanic landforms. They are built by ejecta from a volcanic vent, piling up around the vent in the shape of a cone with a central crater. Volcanic cones are of different types, depending upon the nature and size of the fragments ejected during the eruption. Types of volcanic cones include stratocones, spatter cones, tuff cones, and cinder cones.
Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a U.S. national monument and national preserve in the Snake River Plain in central Idaho. It is along US 20, between the small towns of Arco and Carey, at an average elevation of 5,900 feet (1,800 m) above sea level.
Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as their creating process, shape, elevation, slope, orientation, rock exposure, and soil type.
Belknap Crater is a shield volcano in the Cascade Range in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located in Linn County, it is associated with lava fields and numerous subfeatures including the Little Belknap and South Belknap volcanic cones. It lies north of McKenzie Pass and forms part of the Mount Washington Wilderness. Belknap is not forested and most of its lava flows are not vegetated, though there is some wildlife in the area around the volcano, as well as a number of tree molds formed by its eruptive activity.
Ascraeus Mons is a large shield volcano located in the Tharsis region of the planet Mars. It is the northernmost and tallest of three shield volcanoes collectively known as the Tharsis Montes.
Puʻu ʻŌʻō is a volcanic cone on the eastern rift zone of Kīlauea volcano in the Hawaiian Islands. The eruption that created Puʻu ʻŌʻō began on January 3, 1983, and continued nearly continuously until April 30, 2018, making it the longest-lived rift-zone eruption of the last two centuries.
Agglomerate is a coarse accumulation of large blocks of volcanic material that contains at least 75% bombs. Volcanic bombs differ from volcanic blocks in that their shape records fluidal surfaces: they may, for example, have ropy, cauliform, scoriaceous, folded, spindle, spatter, ribbon, ragged, or amoeboid shapes. Globular masses of lava may have been shot from the crater at a time when partly molten lava was exposed, and was frequently shattered by sudden outbursts of steam. These bombs were viscous at the moment of ejection and by rotation in the air acquired their shape. They are commonly 1 to 2 feet in diameter, but specimens as large as 12 feet (3.7 m) have been observed. There is less variety in their composition at any one volcanic centre than in the case of the lithic blocks, and their composition indicates the type of magma being erupted.
Ubehebe Crater is a large volcanic crater of the Ubehebe Craters volcanic field in the northern half of Death Valley, in Death Valley National Park, California, United States.
A fissure vent, also known as a volcanic fissure, eruption fissure or simply a fissure, is a linear volcanic vent through which lava erupts, usually without any explosive activity. The vent is often a few metres wide and may be many kilometres long. Fissure vents can cause large flood basalts which run first in lava channels and later in lava tubes. After some time, the eruption tends to become focused at one or more spatter cones. Small fissure vents may not be easily discernible from the air, but the crater rows or the canyons built up by some of them are.
A pit crater is a depression formed by a sinking or collapse of the surface lying above a void or empty chamber, rather than by the eruption of a volcano or lava vent. Pit craters are found on Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the Moon. Pit craters are often found in a series of aligned or offset chains and in these cases, the features is called a pit crater chain. Pit crater chains are distinguished from catenae or crater chains by their origin. When adjoining walls between pits in a pit crater chain collapse, they become troughs. In these cases, the craters may merge into a linear alignment and are commonly found along extensional structures such as fractures, fissures and graben. Pit craters usually lack an elevated rim as well as the ejecta deposits and lava flows that are associated with impact craters. Pit craters are characterized by vertical walls that are often full of fissures and vents. They usually have nearly circular openings.
Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or underwater, usually at temperatures from 800 to 1,200 °C. The volcanic rock resulting from subsequent cooling is also often called lava.
In volcanology, a pressure ridge or a tumulus, and rarely referred to as a schollendome, is sometimes created in an active lava flow. Formation occurs when the outer edges and surfaces of the lava flow begin to harden. If the advancing lava underneath becomes restricted it may push up on the hardened crust, tilting it outward. Inflation also takes place and is a process where the plastic layer of lava underneath expands as it cools and small crystals form. The end result is a raised mound of hardened lava rock, usually a relatively narrow but long ridge. Tension cracks form on the surface of pressure ridges and run along the axis of elongated ridges, and at both edges of broader ridges, sometimes referred to as pressure plateaus. Along the edges of a pressure ridge, if the tension crack is large enough it will create a liftup cave. Other caves can form inside pressure ridges in which conditions arose for the ridge to form and but the lava that created the internal pressure quickly drained leaving an inflationary cave.
Hornitos are conical, or pipe-like, structures built up by lava spattering or being ejected through an opening in the crust of a lava flow. Hornitos are similar to spatter cones but are rootless, meaning they were once a source of lava but that source was not directly associated with a true vent or magma source. They are usually created by the slow upwelling of fluid lava through the roof of a lava tube, and are often associated with pahoehoe lavas of basaltic composition. High pressure causes lava to ooze and spatter out. The lava builds up on the surface and solidifies creating the initial structure. Hornitos can grow and exceed 10 meters in height.
Aden Crater is a small shield volcano located in Doña Ana County, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Las Cruces, New Mexico. It is located in the northwest part of the Aden-Afton basalt field, which is part of the central area of the Potrillo volcanic field.
Vulcan, named after the Roman god of fire, is an inactive volcano on the West Mesa near Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is the largest of six volcanoes in the Albuquerque volcanic field within Petroglyph National Monument. Vulcan is a spatter cone volcano, formed primarily by lava fountains that were active in the central vent and in smaller vents on flanks of the cone. These flank vents formed the arches and caves seen today. It is believed to have last erupted around 150,000 years ago.
The surface of Venus is dominated by geologic features that include volcanoes, large impact craters, and aeolian erosion and sedimentation landforms. Venus has a topography reflecting its single, strong crustal plate, with a unimodal elevation distribution that preserves geologic structures for long periods of time. Studies of the Venusian surface are based on imaging, radar, and altimetry data collected from several exploratory space probes, particularly Magellan, since 1961. Despite its similarities to Earth in size, mass, density, and possibly composition, Venus has a unique geology that is unlike Earth's. Although much older than Earth's, the surface of Venus is relatively young compared to other terrestrial planets, possibly due to a global-scale resurfacing event that buried much of the previous rock record. Venus is believed to have approximately the same bulk elemental composition as Earth, due to the physical similarities, but the exact composition is unknown. The surface conditions on Venus are more extreme than on Earth, with temperatures ranging from 453 to 473 °C and pressures of 95 bar. Venus lacks water, which makes crustal rock stronger and helps preserve surface features. The features observed provide evidence for the geological processes at work. Twenty feature types have been categorized thus far. These classes include local features, such as craters, coronae, and undae, as well as regional-scale features, such as planitiae, plana, and tesserae.
The Sand Mountain Volcanic Field is a volcanic field in the upper McKenzie River watershed, located in the United States in Oregon. Part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, it lies southwest of Mount Jefferson and northwest of Belknap Crater and Mount Washington. Its highest elevation is 5,463 feet (1,665 m).
A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described as: "a bowl-shaped pit that is formed by a volcano, an explosion, or a meteorite impact". On Earth, craters are "generally the result of volcanic eruptions", while "meteorite impact craters are common on the Moon, but are rare on Earth".
A fissure is a long, narrow crack opening along the surface of Earth. The term is derived from the Latin word fissura, which means 'cleft' or 'crack'. Fissures emerge in Earth's crust, on ice sheets and glaciers, and on volcanoes.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)