Talk:Volcano/@comment-96.225.159.233-20120401135009/@comment-173.67.234.121-20120629064642

@ the smartass who posted that long comment:

Here's an even longer one:

volcanoes do erupt spering everything everywhere. But its mostly molten ash. Volcanoes aren't always erupting, otherwise yellowstone would be a constant stream of ash 60 miles wide that was blocking out the sun and destroying the human race along with 5 or 6 other supervolcanoes. Eruptions are sudden releases of pressure. Hot magma builds up the pressure underneath the rock, and when the pressure is too great for the rock it shoots up like the cork in a champagne bottle. The real devistation is the burning dust that shoots up and travels faster than the speed of sound accross the ground, the lava is the campagne that comes bubbling up afterwards. It's not nearly as thick as it is in minecraft, and don't tell me u werent talking about the real thing because volcanoes in minecraft don't constantly dribble lava down the sides.

Anyway, volcanoes aren't big pits where you can look down and see a big pool of lava slowly rising up to you. Most of them are big mountains that lie dormant for years. The volcanoes you are thinking of are a special kind. Those are like the ones in Hawaii that steadily bubble out fresh magma. That's how the islands themselves were formed. But don't get me wrong, they can erupt, too. An eruption is the spewing of hot ash and magma from a volcano in an instant when the pressure becomes too great. What those particular volcanoes do are technically eruptions, but they can have the real thing, too. The idea of volcanoes erupting the way they are pictured had to come from somewhere (a.k.a. the truth). So no, most volcanoes are NOT always erupting, and the rare ones that do constantly produce a stream of lava DO have violent outbursts.

So a better question would NOT be do they not erupt some times

And the answer is yes.

Ex: Pompeii was built around a (quote) "Dormant Volcano." They thought it was just a mountain that Vulcan was working under (hence the earthquakes). The city lasted for decades before it erupted. The mountain literally popped its top, and the burning ash incinerated everyone, then the liquid rock came shooting down the hill (about the viscocity of maple syrup) and covered everything in a mile of rock (the mile thing is a poetic exxageration).

You do not deserve that duckface. People who act like they know what they are talking about and show extreme and immediate stupidity just get in everyone else's way. Get off the internet.