There are 1511 volcanoes on earth, and they can be found in one of three
places:
1)
where pieces of the earth's crust are breaking
apart
(called divergent
plate boundaries)
2)
where pieces of the
earth's crust are breaking apart
(called
convergent plate boundaries)
3)
hotspots
Sounds
pretty technical, huh? Well, fear not! It's
really pretty easy to understand.
Most volcanoes are found at
divergent plate boundaries.
These
are where two tectonic plates
(chunks of the Earth's crust) are moving apart.
You can imagine why volcanoes might form there -- splitting
tectonic plates means gaps in the Earth's crust!
Luckily, most of these divergent plate boundaries are on the
bottom of the ocean. Here's an interesting fact for
you -- most of the volcanic activity on our planet is
underwater! Sometimes these underwater volcanoes can
spew out enough stuff to make new islands. Iceland was
made that way!
