I remembered a time in my life when my parents took my siblings and I to Hawaii and we got to go on this helicopter ride that took us to see the the island from up top. I distinctly remembered on that helicopter ride I saw a gigantic volcano on that island. I later remembered that the volcano name was Mauna Loa. It is the largest active volcano on earth right now. The last time it erupted was in 1984. I found out that Mauna Loa is a shield volcano that was made by a bunch of fluid basaltic lava. You can tell right away that it is a shield volcano because of is broad and slightly domed structure. Because I was so fascinated by Mauna Loa, I did some research and found out that it was formed by a mantle plume which is also called a hot spot underneath the pacific plates. Because this spot is so thin, molten lava and gasses wiggled there way to the surface with ease which caused this volcano to form. A fun fact I learned about Mauna Loa is that it is getting so big that it is causing the pacific plates to sag under the weight of this volcano. Because Mauna Loa has flanks with gentle slopes, you can tell that the lava that came out of this volcano was flowing fast and far. Because Mauna Loa is a shield volcano it has more of a quiet eruption, but Mauna Loa is also known to be explosive too said the geologist that we went with back then. He said that they have found at least four debris fans made up of fragmented rocks deposit on top of a pāhoehoe lava flows that spread from the summit. These fragments he said is what a typical explosive volcano would have. It is kinda scary to know that Mauna Loa will erupt again. He said that it is a matter of when not if. The last time this volcano erupted, the earthquake reached a magnitude of 6.6. If Mauna Loa was to erupt again hell would break loose. They say that a huge amount of fast moving lava will occur with potentially large devastating earthquakes. Possibly explosive eruptions that can impact the air traffic and volcanic gas emissions will cause a health hazard for sure. As it was fun to see Mauna Loa from above remind me to not be there when it erupts!
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