Inside a living volcano
Slice open volcanoes and watch a full eruption, from the slow recharge of magma deep underground to the blast, the flows and the recovery. Start with how volcanoes work, or relive thirteen famous eruptions.
Dots drift with the plates, about 30 trillion times faster than in real life. Teeth sit on the plate that rides over.
Stem height shows how much came out. Hover a pin or card to see how far it reached.
Erupted volume, drawn as cubes at true scale. Tephra and ash are shown pale, lava dark. One cubic kilometre would fill about 400,000 Olympic swimming pools.
Bulk volumes; dense-rock volumes are smaller. Mixing the two is unavoidable for some eruptions.
Greyed items appear at other points in the eruption.