Volcanic mountains are formed by magma rising up from the mantle to the crust of the earth.

A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases escape from a magma chamber below the surface.

Earth’s volcanoes occur because its crust is broken into 17 major, rigid tectonic plates that float on a hotter, softer layer in its mantle.

Therefore, on Earth, volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging, and most are found underwater.

Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the crust’s plates. For this activity, we created volcanoes out of a few materials.

Using blue gravel, wet sand, baking soda, gravel, and vinegar, we created out very own volcanoes, and then watched them erupt!