Volcanoes
Narrator: On Earth, there are about 1500 active volcanoes.This means they still erupt.
About 90 percent of the volcanoes on Earth are near a Ring of Fire, around the Pacific Ocean.
The outside of the Earth is made from big pieces of rock,called plates. The plates move around a lot.When there move,rocks deep inside the Earth get hot. There become magma.When the magma comes out of a volcano,we call it lava.
In some volcanoes, the lava goes slowly down the side of the volcano.There volcanoes are safer to be near,and can be beautiful. Other times,a volcano's lava suddenly comes up from inside the Earth. The volcano erupts and rock, ash,and lava go high into the air.
Kilauea,in Hawaii, is one of Earth's most active volcanoes. It has been erupting since 1983. People from all over the world go there to see it.
Kilanuea's lava goes down the volcano and into the sea. Then it becomes new land.
But not all volcanoes are not safe. In A.D. 79, Mount Vesuvius suddenly erupted near Pompeii in Italy. It was terrible.The ash went everywhere. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius killed 2000 people.
Many volcanoes are not safe. But they can help us, too.Volcanoes made a lot of the air, too.
Volcanoes help us understand the power deep inside the Earth.