← Geography / 2 Natural Systems and Processes

2.3 Vulcanicity

Geography · Grade 10 · 13 lessons in the design

What this covers

  • Meaning and causes of vulcanicity
  • Intrusive features: batholith, laccolith, lopolith, phacolith, sill, dyke
  • Extrusive features: types of volcanoes, craters, calderas, lava plateaus, hot springs, geysers
  • World and Kenyan distribution of features due to vulcanicity
  • Significance of vulcanicity to human activities
  • Disaster preparedness and management

What you will be able to do

  • investigate the causes of vulcanicity in the Earth
  • describe features resulting from vulcanic activities in the world
  • illustrate the global distribution of features due to vulcanicity
  • examine the significance of vulcanicity on human activities
  • acknowledge the effects of vulcanicity on the environment

Key questions

“Why study vulcanicity?”

“Why do people continue to farm on the slopes of active volcanoes?”

Lessons

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  1. Vulcanicity: what happens and what it builds
    40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
    Why molten rock rises, and the landforms it makes above and below the surface.
  2. Where volcanoes are, and what they mean for people
    40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
    The world and Kenyan distribution, the real benefits, the real dangers, and how communities prepare.
  3. Causes of vulcanicity in the East African Rift
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Why magma rises where Kenya is splitting: thinning crust, faults, heat and pressure, with hot spots as the exception.
  4. Magma, lava and viscosity
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    One substance, two names, and why runny basaltic lava builds shields while sticky lava builds explosive Kenyan cones.
  5. Intrusive features: batholith to dyke
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Naming batholith, laccolith, lopolith, phacolith, sill, dyke and plug, and how erosion turns them into Kenyan hills.
  6. Shield, composite and cinder volcanoes in East Africa
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Three cone types matched to Longonot, the Chyulu Hills, Menengai's small cones and Nyamuragira.
  7. Craters, calderas and lava plateaus
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Vent versus collapse versus flood: Menengai and Suswa as calderas, and the Yatta Plateau as a long phonolite flow.
  8. Hot springs, geysers and fumaroles
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Groundwater on hot Rift rock: Bogoria geysers, Magadi springs, Olkaria fumaroles, and why a geyser is not a hot spring.
  9. Kenya's Rift volcanoes from Turkana to Magadi
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    A named north-south chain: The Barrier, Silali, Menengai, Olkaria, Longonot, Suswa, plus Mount Kenya and the Aberdares off-axis.
  10. World distribution of volcanic features
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Ring of Fire, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Mediterranean belt, East African Rift and hot spots - four kinds of plate setting.
  11. Benefits of vulcanicity to Kenyan livelihoods
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Soils, Olkaria geothermal, tourism, Magadi soda, catchments and building stone - the case for living with volcanoes.
  12. Volcanic hazards and negative effects
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Lava, ash, gas, lahars and the Goma warning: why valleys and downwind farms around Longonot are not equally at risk.
  13. Volcanic disaster preparedness and management
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Before, during and after: monitoring, hazard maps, evacuation, and why Kenyan policy must live with people on fertile slopes.