How Big Is The Largest Volcano In Our Solar System?

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• published: 16 Jan 2015
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Ever wondered what or where the largest volcano is? Watch this video and find out. Volcanoes are mountains from which hot lava, volcanic ash and gases can escape a planetary objects burning insides, through a rupture in its crust. Our home, Earth, has hundreds of active and extinct volcanoes, they occur because the planet's crust is broken into 17 major, rigid tectonic plates that float on a hotter, softer layer in the Earth's mantle. The largest volcano discovered on Earth to date is called Tamu Massif, this monster is classed as a shield volcano and is around the same size as the British isles. Tamu is 400 miles wide but only about 2.5 miles high and around 100,000 square miles in diameter. It erupted for a few million years during the early Cretaceous period, about 144 million years ago, and has been extinct since then. The giant was discovered under the Pacific Ocean, about 1000 miles east of japan. Tamu Massif dwarfs the largest active volcano on Earth, Mauna Loa in Hawaii, which measures about 2,000 square miles. However Earth cannot take the credit for having the largest volcano in the solar system, this has to be given currently to our red neighbor, Mars. It is called Olympus Mons and is also a shield volcano, the cliffs leading up to this monster are over 5 miles high and these are just the foot hills. This giant towers around 16 miles above the surrounding plains and stretches across 374 miles, roughly the size of the state of Arizona. The crater alone is over 52 miles wide and you could fit the entire chain of Hawaiian Islands inside of it. Olympus Mons in around 25% larger than Tamu Massif and is 3 times the height of Mt. Everest, however Unlike Everest, Olympus Mons has a very gentle slope. Made up as a result of many thousands of basaltic lava flows over millions of years. The extraordinary size of the volcano has been attributed to the lack of tectonic plate movement on the planet. The lack of movement allows the Martian crust to remain fixed in place over a magma hotspot allowing repeated, large lava flows, resulting in the creation of massive volcanoes like Olympus Mons. Crater counts taken by high resolution images returned by the Mars Express spacecraft in 2004 seem to show that flows on the northwestern flank range in age from 2 million years old to 115 million years old. Since these flows are geologically young, it may indicate that the volcano is still active, however it also may of died within the last 3 million years. Massive volcanoes like Olympus Mons would of also helped mars create an atmosphere, allowing rivers, lakes and oceans to flow across the surface, which may of resulted in the possibility of Martian life existing. However these hotspots below the giant volcanoes have cooled and no volcanic activity has every been recorded on mars. Olympus Mons has been extensively studied and these study's have been massively helped by the closeness of Mars. Which means that we will continue in the future the exploration of the largest volcano in the solar system, along with other ancient lava spitting giants, as well as the entire planet and who knows what we will find. Attribution - Kilauea Volcano - Creation Videos Lava Fountain - Denis Dzyuba Mars Showcase - ESA NonsuchMedia -Eruption at Bardabunga Volcano Space Scene with After Effects and Element - Marco Masott Teide Zeitraffer - Der Polyi Volcanic smoke - Jonmundur Gislason What Mars Looked Like 4 Billion Years Ago -NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab Music- Split Screen - YouTube Audio library The Descent- Kevin Macleod