NSW Government Education and Communities Sites2See

Volcanoes

Explosive Earth. Volcanoes erupt somewhere on earth every day1

Activity just under the earth’s crust  causes volcanoes. Watch an undersea eruption; link to YouTube video2

Image of the earth's core, linked to Volcanoes 101 video3

Watch National Geographic video on Volcanoes.4

Track the latest volcanic activity7

Mt Vesuvius erupts. Start of quote from Pliny the Younger, 'The air turned to fire and a living city became a fiery tomb.'8

... darkness came … like the black of closed and unlighted rooms. You could hear women lamenting, children crying, men shouting …’17-year-old Pliny the Younger was an eyewitness to the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in AD 79.9

At Archaeology.org10 read about the historic and more recent digs in Pompeii, which tell us more about what it was like to live near Mt Vesuvius11, and what exactly happened on that summer’s day in AD 79.

Pyroclastic flows on the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines in 1984, with inset view for space, linked to Wikipedia entry12

Australian volcanoes. Find a list of volcanoes on the Australian mainland and Tasmania on Wikipedia13

Use the National Geographic Mapmaker14 with tectonic and volcanic activity layers active to explore The Australian plate. Use Google Maps15 with the terrain layer to see where the tectonic plate boundaries are under the sea.

Learn about volcanos16

Learn about the eruption in 2005 on McDonald Island17, or Heard Island18 in 2016.

Australia is not on the edge of a tectonic plate, so its extinct volcanoes19 are due to hot-spot activity.

Learn about 50-million-year-old volcanos20 just off the coast near Sydney.

Tectonic activity. Molten rock from the mantle of earth oozes or erupts to the surface when tectonic plates move. Link to a podcast about volcanoes.21

Investigate the earth’s structure and plate tectonics, with ABC Education22 and National Geographic23.

Find information at Geoscience Australia24 and learn about plate tectonics in a nutshell23 (plus a teaching companion25).

See also Sites2See: Earthquakes26.

Syllabus links information for teachers

Links

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano
  2. https://youtu.be/hmMlspNoZMs
  3. https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/videos/101-videos/volcanoes-101-4686.aspx
  4. https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/videos/highlights/volcanoes-3667.aspx
  5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroclastic_flow
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Mayon
  7. https://earthquakes.volcanodiscovery.com/
  8. http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/collections/mount_vesuvius
  9. http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/pompeii_and_herculaneum/pompeii_live/eruption_timeline.aspx
  10. https://interactive.archaeology.org/pompeii/history.html
  11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Vesuvius
  12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayon_Volcano
  13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_Australia
  14. https://mapmaker.nationalgeographic.org/#/
  15. https://www.google.com/maps/@-26.4684206,136.4678036,5180211m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e4
  16. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/volcano/
  17. https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=234011
  18. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-01/scientists-witness-big-ben-volcano-erupting-remote-heard-island/7130556
  19. http://www.volcanolive.com/australia.html
  20. https://blog.csiro.au/rv-investigator-discovers-a-50-million-year-old-volcano-cluster-off-the-coast-of-sydney/
  21. https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-volcanoes-work.htm
  22. http://education.abc.net.au/home#!/media/1481497/piecing-together-the-puzzle-of-plate-tectonics
  23. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/plate-tectonics/
  24. http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/hazards/volcano
  25. https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/edu_resources.html
  26. https://app.education.nsw.gov.au/rap/resource/access/d7c073b8-14e8-4fb9-afc7-a17e19b83115/1