The Enigma of Volcanoes
Today, there are more than 1,500 active volcanoes on the surface of the globe. They are found mainly around the Pacific Ocean, in a 40,000 km zone called the Ring of Fire.
It is bubbling away under the water! 🌋
About 1.5 million volcanoes lie beneath the oceans. That is a thousand times more than at the surface! Among them is the largest volcano in the world: the Tamu Massif. Located in the north-west of the Pacific Ocean, its area is the largest on Earth and one of the largest in the solar system!
Volcanic eruptions have wiped out entire towns and villages over the course of history. We need only think of Pompeii. Or the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia, in 1883, which is considered the most powerful in history: 12,500 times the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. A grim toll: 36,400 dead. Powerful and unpredictable, volcanoes can be real time bombs. And yet… They could also be the origin of life itself!
Some studies do indeed indicate that primitive forms of life were able to develop in hot springs and volcanic pools on land around four billion years ago.
Others argue that our beautiful planet, with its atmosphere and its vast oceans, is habitable thanks to volcanic activity. Volcanoes do indeed play a major role in the production cycle of carbon dioxide, which has contributed to the greenhouse effect in our atmosphere. It is this greenhouse effect that keeps the water of the oceans in a liquid state by maintaining a high enough temperature. Careful not to confuse things: the greenhouse effect is essential to life on Earth, which does not stop its current imbalance, caused by humans, from genuinely threatening our environment!
Finally, still others suggest that it is thanks to volcanoes that our planet is overflowing with water! Volcanoes are thought to have churned the rocks in the depths of the Earth, pushing large quantities of water vapour up towards the surface.
Whether or not these three lines of thinking are confirmed, volcanoes are true architects of nature: they have shaped no less than 80% of the Earth's surface!