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Multiple successive and extensive lava flows cover the original landscape to eventually form a plateau, which may contain lava fields, cinder cones, shield volcanoes and other volcanic landforms. In some cases, a lava plateau may be part of a single volcano.
The word lava comes from Italian and is probably derived from the Latin word labes, which means a fall or slide. [2] [3] An early use of the word in connection with extrusion of magma from below the surface is found in a short account of the 1737 eruption of Vesuvius, written by Francesco Serao, who described "a flow of fiery lava" as an analogy to the flow of water and mud down the flanks of ...
Lava lake – Molten lava contained in a volcanic crater; Lava field, also known as lava plain – Large, mostly flat area of lava flows; Lava spine – Vertical growth of solid volcanic lava; Lava tube – Natural conduit through which lava flows beneath the solid surface; Lavaka – Type of gully, formed via groundwater sapping
Malpaís, in the Southwestern United States, Spain, Mexico, and other Spanish-speaking regions, are rough and barren landscapes that consist of relict and largely uneroded lava fields exhibiting recognizable lava flows, volcanic cones, and other volcanic landforms. This type of volcanic landscape is extremely rough and difficult to traverse.
Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, structure stratification, rock exposure, and soil type.Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, cliffs, hills, mounds, peninsulas, ridges, rivers, valleys, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains ...
Worldwide, lava tubes, karst caves, and rock shelters are the most common varieties of cave. Karst caves typically form through dissolution of limestone by carbonic acid, but some caves, such as Lechuguilla, have instead been formed from the bottom up via sulfuric acid released from oil reservoirs. [2]
The two main types of lava field structures are defined as sheet flow lava and pillow lava. Sheet flow lava appears like a wrinkled or folded sheet, while pillow lava is bulbous, and often looks like a pile of pillows atop one another. [3] An important aspect of lava flow morphology is a phenomenon known as lava flow inflation.
Composite or stratovolcanoes often have andesitic magma and typically form the extrusive rock andesite. Andesitic magma is composed of many gases and melted mantle rocks. [2] Cinder or scoria cones violently expel lava with high gas content, [2] and due to the vapor bubbles in this mafic lava, the extrusive basalt scoria is formed. [6]