Dormant Volcano Story

“How the heck does a volcano become dormant?!”

Our org was proofreading our articles when our coordinator saw in one of the articles something about a dormant volcano choosing to stay dormant and found that its metaphorical comparisson with something was just totally illogical and unscientific… so she asked us… “Does that mean an active volcano can just choose to sleep and tell its magma to stop coming out whenever it wants to? C’mon… that’s impossible. How the heck does a volcano go into its dormancy anyway?”

Lotsa theories were given.

Numerous explanations were suggested.

But none ever satisfied the thirsty mind of our coordinator. So she sent me to the library. I ran. But I was not able to find the answer. All they have there were “how volcanoes are formed” or “Kinds of volcanoes” but nothing about the process of Dormancy.

So she made me ran to the nearest Com Shop (our Office has two computers, but we have a very low budget to afford an internet connection). I searched and found this:

A dormant or sleeping volcano is a volcano that has been quiet for a long time, but still has signs it may erupt again. A volcano becomes dormant when the vent is blocked by hardened lava, called a plug, or if the magma seeps back under the earth’s crust. Volcanoes can be dormant for hundreds of years. Then suddenly a volcano will erupt again. The eruption is usually very violent. The plug of a dormant volcano stops the magma from rising. Then pressure under the plug builds up, so the plug gives away and a large eruption is caused. The volcano is then classified again as an active volcano.