The God of Fire...

You have all heard about The six-day closure of European airspace during April due to the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland, I find it a good time to explain some facts about Volcanoes...
A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or crust, which allows hot magma, ash and gases to escape from below of the surface.
The word volcano is derived from the name of Volcano island off Sicily which in turn, was named after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.
a volcanic blast releases an energy 500 times greater than the Hiroshima atomic bomb and it can send it ashes up to the upper layers of atmosphere and block the sun for quite some times , this is one of the theories that explains the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The largest volcano on earth is Mauna Loa on Hawai'i Big Island. It is a massive shieldvolcano constructed by countless lava flows. When measured from the base to the top, the pile of lavas measures more than 17,000 m (56,000 ft)!

When measured from the sea floor, Mauna Loa's height is still more than 9,000 m, thus it is also the highest mountain on earth. Mauna Loa in fact is so heavy, that its weight has bent the oceanic crust under the volcano several kilometers downwards into the mantle.

Going to Hell

Standing on firm ground, we're bound to think of Earth as a stable, rock-solid place. But the surface of Earth is constantly being changed,by powerful forces deep inside the planet that give rise to mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and even move whole continents.

so what happens inside the earth?

The Earth's interior is composed of four layers, three solid and one liquid—not magma but molten metal, nearly as hot as the surface of the sun or you can say as hot as HELL it self...

The deepest layer is a solid iron ball, about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) in diameter. Although this inner core is white hot, the pressure is so high the iron cannot melt.
Above the inner core is the outer core, a shell of liquid iron. This layer is cooler but still very hot, perhaps 7,200 to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit, It creates the Earth's magnetic field and is about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) thick.

The next layer is the mantle. Many people think of this as lava, but it's actually rock. The rock is so hot, however, that it flows under pressure, like road tar. This creates very slow-moving currents as hot rock rises from the depths and cooler rock descends.

This river of rock is about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) thick and appears to be divided into two layers: the upper mantle and the lower mantle. The boundary between the two lies about 465 miles (750 kilometers) beneath the Earth's surface.

The crust is the outermost layer of the Earth. It is the familiar landscape on which we live: rocks, soil, and seabed. It ranges from about five miles (eight kilometers) thick beneath the oceans to an average of 25 miles (40 kilometers) thick beneath the continents.

Currents within the mantle have broken the crust into blocks, called plates, which slowly move around, colliding to build mountains or rifting apart to form new seafloor.

Continents are composed of relatively light blocks that float high on the mantle, like gigantic, slow-moving icebergs. Seafloor is made of a denser rock called basalt, which presses deeper into the mantle, producing basins that can fill with water.

Geology-The Science of Earth

I have studied Geology and earth science for the past 10 years , Geology is an incredibly fascinating subject. It concerns earth and all that is in it. Its origin, its history, and the dynamics of how it changes. Geologists study such diverse phenomena as volcanoes and glaciers, rivers and seas, earthquakes and mountain building processes, and even the history of life. It is a study what happened in the past and what is happening at present- a study that increases our understanding of nature and our place in it.

I like to share what I know about the most important aspect of our life Our Planet Earth.