Mains Practice Questions

Approach

• Start the answer by defining What is Volcano and their occurrence at global level.
• Enumerate some of the examples of volcanic eruptions along with their place of eruption, in 2021.
• Discuss the Impact of volcanic eruption on the environment.
• Conclude suitability.

Introduction

• A volcano is an opening or rupture in the earth’s surface that allows magma (hot liquid and semi-liquid rock), volcanic ash and gases to escape.
  
  • The volcanic eruption could have implications for the local and regional environment like earthquakes, landslides, lahars (mudflows), ash and thunderstorms.

Body

• Impact of volcanic eruption on the environment:
  
  • Volcanic eruptions are responsible for forming new rock on the Earth’s surface.
  • The gases and dust particles thrown into the atmosphere during volcanic eruptions have influences on climate.
  • Volcanoes have also caused global warming over millions of years during times in Earth’s history when extreme amounts of volcanism occurred, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
  • Even though volcanoes are in specific places on Earth, their effects can be more widely distributed as gases, dust, and ash get into the atmosphere
    
    • This is due to the atmospheric circulation patterns, eruptions in the tropics can have an effect on the climate in both hemispheres.
    • Eruptions at mid or high latitudes only have an impact on the hemisphere they are within.
  • Volcanic eruptions are generally preceded by increased seismic activity.

Conclusion

Most of the active volcanoes on earth occur on the Circum-Pacific Belt, also referred to as The Ring of Fire. Volcanoes are a natural exogenic phenomenon that cannot be avoided, but developing disaster risk resilience will surely be a step in the right direction.