Fissure vent

Fissure vent

A fissure vent, also known as a volcanic fissure or simply fissure, is a linear volcanic vent through which lava erupts, usually without any explosive activity. The vent is usually a few meters wide and may be many kilometers long. Fissure vents can cause large flood basalts and lava channels. This type of volcano is usually hard to recognize from the ground and from outer space because it has no central caldera and the surface is mostly flat. The volcano can usually be seen as a crack in the ground or on the ocean floor. Narrow fissures can be filled in with lava that hardens. As erosion removes its surroundings, the lava mass could stand above the surface as a dyke. The dykes that feed fissures reach the surface from depths of a few kilometers. Fissures are usually found in or along rifts and rift zones, such as Iceland and the Great Rift Valley in Africa.

In Iceland, volcanic vents are often long fissures parallel to the rift zone where lithospheric plates are diverging. Renewed eruptions generally occur from new parallel fractures offset by a few hundred to thousands of metres from the earlier fissures. This distribution of vents and voluminous eruptions of fluid basaltic lava usually build up a thick lava plateau rather than a single volcanic edifice. The Laki fissure system produced the biggest eruption on earth in historical times, in the form of a flood basalt, during the Eldgjá eruption A.D. 934, which released 19.6 km³ (4.7 mi³) of lava.

The radial fissure vents of Hawaiian volcanoes produce “curtains of fire” as lava fountains erupt along a portion of a fissure. These vents produce low ramparts of basaltic spatter on both sides of the fissure. More isolated lava fountains along the fissure produce crater rows of small spatter and cinder cones. The fragments that form a spatter cone are hot and plastic enough to weld together, while the fragments that form a cinder cone remain separate because of their lower temperature.

List of fissure vents

External links

* [http://volcanodb.com/volcanoes/Fissure-Vent/ Detailed list and KML files for Fissure Vents]
* [http://www.volcanolive.com/fissurevent.html Volcanolive.com Page on Fissure Vents]


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  • Vent — Vent, n. [OE. fent, fente, a slit, F. fente a slit, cleft, fissure, from fendre to split, L. findere; but probably confused with F. vent wind, L. ventus. See {Fissure}, and cf. Vent to snuff.] 1. A small aperture; a hole or passage for air or any …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Vent feather — Vent Vent, n. [OE. fent, fente, a slit, F. fente a slit, cleft, fissure, from fendre to split, L. findere; but probably confused with F. vent wind, L. ventus. See {Fissure}, and cf. Vent to snuff.] 1. A small aperture; a hole or passage for air… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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  • Vent piece — Vent Vent, n. [OE. fent, fente, a slit, F. fente a slit, cleft, fissure, from fendre to split, L. findere; but probably confused with F. vent wind, L. ventus. See {Fissure}, and cf. Vent to snuff.] 1. A small aperture; a hole or passage for air… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • fissure — ALASKA VOLCANO OBSERVATORY GLOSSARY Elongated fractures or cracks on the slopes of a volcano. Fissure eruptions typically produce liquid flows, but pyroclastics may also be ejected. USGS PHOTO GLOSSARY OF VOLCANIC TERMS In geology, a fissure is a …   Glossary of volcanic terms

  • vent — English has two words vent. The verb, ‘provide with an outlet’ [14], came via Old French esventer from Vulgar Latin *exventāre ‘let out air’. This was a compound verb formed from the Latin prefix ex ‘out’ and ventum ‘wind’ (source also of English …   The Hutchinson dictionary of word origins

  • vent — English has two words vent. The verb, ‘provide with an outlet’ [14], came via Old French esventer from Vulgar Latin *exventāre ‘let out air’. This was a compound verb formed from the Latin prefix ex ‘out’ and ventum ‘wind’ (source also of English …   Word origins

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