Did you know that the longest volcanic eruption emitted lava to up to one kilometer into the sky?
Well, according to the Guinness World Records of 2018, the longest volcanic explosion fired lave one kilometer into the sky. This was an equivalent of 3,300 feet high.
In an eruption that lasted for 30 minutes, Mount Etna, on the Italian Island of Sicily, also spilled an ash plume that reached a height of about 7 kilometers into the sky. These were approximately 23,000 feet high, the longest in the history of volcanic eruptions.
The first documented eruption of Mount Etna dates back to 1500 BCE when it was written that the Sicani people were made homeless following a cataclysmic explosion.
Mount Etna is a stratovolcano with a summit height of 3,329 meters and is said to have erupted more than 200 times with the most recent being in March 2017.
Facts about a Volcano
There are three types of volcanoes:
- Stratovolcano (or composite volcano) — a conical volcano consisting of layers of solid lava flows mixed with layers of other rock.
- Cinder cone volcano — doesn’t have any horizontal layers, and is instead a steep conical hill of tephra (volcanic debris) that accumulates around and downwind from the vent.
- Shield volcano— a type of volcano built entirely or mostly from fluid lava vents. They are named like this because when viewed from above, you can see just how massive and imposing they are – like a warrior’s shield.