Hello and welcome back to the Curious Kid podcast.

We have a really interesting topic lined up for you this week.

This week we're getting curious about volcanoes.

I think many of us know what volcanoes are, but depending on where you live or where you've traveled, chances are that many of you

have never seen a volcano. In fact, 75% of the active volcanoes on Earth are all in a specific

part of the Pacific Ocean that has been given a special name.

The question of the week is, what is the name of the part of the Pacific Ocean that has all these volcanoes?

Okay, let's get started by explaining why we call them volcanoes in the first place.

The name comes from Vulcan, the god of fire. In Roman mythology,

Vulcan is the god of fire, and we know what happens when a volcano erupts. So volcano seems like

a fitting name. So what is a volcano exactly? A volcano is a crack in the earth's crust.

That's right. The outer layer of earth is called the crust.

The crust of the earth is hard and dry.

Under the crust is a mantle, which is not hard and dry.

The crust makes up less than 1% of the earth's total volume,

which is a very small amount. The mantle underneath is much larger, and it contains hot, molten rock.

The molten rock under the crust is called magma. And when there is a crack in the crust, the magma underneath can occasionally burst through the crack when the volcano erupts.

Once the magma shoots out of the volcano, it's like lava.

So how about we discuss how volcanoes are formed? There are two different ways volcanoes can form,

and in order to understand it more, we need to know what tectonic plates are. Tectonic plates are

sections of the crust that float on top of the mantle. The plates float with pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.

That's a great way to think of it, but it's not a perfect jigsaw puzzle.

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