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Revision as of 09:16, 25 April 2004 by 68.122.182.124 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)This article is about volcanic calderas. There is also a corporation called Caldera Systems.
A caldera is a volcanic crater which usually has a flat surface at the bottom, formed by a volcano collapsing into itself, usually because of low pressure in the magma chamber below or because of a violent eruption. Calderas often filled with water, creating crater lakes.
A common mistake is that calderas are not as powerful as other volcanos. In fact, a caldera eruption will have several thousand times the explosive force as a normal volcanic eruption, and will eject considerably more debris. When Mount St. Helens erupted, it released eight cubic kilometers of ash, but when the Yellowstone Caldera erupted it released over a hundred thousand cubic kilometers, covering half of North America in two meters of debris. The ecological effects of this can be seen in the historical record of the Sumbawa eruption in Indonesia 40,000 years ago, which killed off approximately 85% of the human race.
Notable calderas
- Askja (Iceland)
- Caldera de Taburiente (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain)
- Las Cañadas on Teide (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain)
- Crater Lake on Mount Mazama (Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, United States)
- Long Valley (California, US)
- Mount Tambora (Sumbawa, Indonesia)
- Valle Grande (New Mexico, US)
- Yellowstone Caldera (Wyoming, US)
- Newberry Caldera (Oregon, US)