Earth and Environment Atlas

How The Planet Works
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Geological Formations

Volcanic Field

Volcanic Formations

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

A volcanic field is an area of Earth crust prone to localized volcanic activity, typically made up of a cluster of as many as around a hundred individual volcanoes, often cinder cones, that share a common source of magma, along with lava flows in some cases. A field may be monogenetic, meaning each volcano within it erupts only once before a new one forms elsewhere in the field, or polygenetic, meaning individual volcanoes can erupt repeatedly. Geologists have not settled on a strict definition of how many volcanoes or what spatial arrangement is required for an area to count as a volcanic field, so the term is applied somewhat flexibly across different volcanic regions.

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.