Where do volcanoes form?
In general, volcanoes form at plate boundaries (particularly the Ring of Fire) or over hot spots in the mantle (eg: the Hawaiian volcanoes). Different volcano forms can be found at either type of location. Cinder cones are the simplest type of volcano. They are built from particles and blobs of congealed lava ejected from a single vent. As the gas-charged lava is blown violently into the air, it breaks into small fragments that solidify and fall as cinders around the vent to form a circular or oval cone. Most cinder cones have a bowl-shaped crater at the summit and rarely rise more than a thousand feet or so above their surroundings. Cinder cones are numerous in western North America as well as throughout other volcanic terrains of the world. Composite Volcanoes Some of the Earth’s grandest mountains are composite volcanoes–sometimes called stratovolcanoes. They are typically steep-sided, symmetrical cones of large dimension built of alternating layers of lava flows, volcanic ash, cin
