FISSURE VENT

A 'fissure vent', also known as a 'volcanic 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 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. Fissure vents are usually found in or along rifts, such as Iceland and the Great Rift Valley in Africa.
The Laki fissure system in Iceland 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.

Contents

List of fissure vents

External links

See also

List of fissure vents

Name	Elevation		Location	Last eruption
	metres	feet	Coordinates
Laki	1725	5659		1783
Lanzarote	670	2198		1824
Cordon Caulle	1798	5899		1960
São Jorge Island	1053	3455		1907
Vatnafjöll	1235	4052		1200 BP
Quetena	5730	18799		Unknown
Nejapa Miraflores	360	1181		Unknown
Manda-Inakir	600+	1968		1928
Hertali	900?	2953		Unknown
Gran Canaria	1950	6350		less than 1000 BP
Fuerteventura	529	1736		Unknown
Estelí	899	2949		Unknown
Butajiri Silti Field	2281	7484		Unknown
Bishoftu Volcanic Field	1850+	6069		Unknown
Alu	429	1407		Unknown
Singu Plateau	507	1663		Unknown
Ray Mountain	2050	-		Pleistocene

External links

★ Volcanolive.com Page on Fissure Vents

See also

★ Stratovolcano

★ Caldera