Volcanoes
While Venezuela is surrounded by other countries with volcanoes, they do not have any. In the image above, you can see the surrounding volcanoes but none are located in Venezuela. They do however have something interesting called "mud volcanoes" and "fumaroles". I know it is not the same as your average volcano and not nearly as threatening, but it is the closest thing they've got to the real deal. Mud volcanoes are part of a regional belt of soft sediment deformation and diapirism that formed in response to rapid foredeep sedimentation and subsequent tectonic compression along the Caribbean–South American plate boundary. Studies suggests that the mud volcano sediment is derived from underlying Miocene and Pliocene strata. Pretty cool, right!
Here is a video to show you what mud volcanoes look like and how they look when they erupt.The "Volcán de Sanare" or, Sanare Volcano, was once believed by locals to be a volcano. It is actually a fumarole. Fumarole comes from the Latin word fumus, which means smoke and if you look at the photo below, you will see that it does in fact resemble a volcano. They emit steam and volcanic gases and they occur usually near active volcanoes. They can also occur in areas where magma has risen into the earth’s crust without erupting like the Sanare fumarole. Depending on the longevity of its heat source, they can vent for centuries. Fumaroles that are near volcanoes are usually where scientists prefer to collect volcanic gasses which help them to detect the movement of magma in a volcano.
Work Cited:
https://www.academia.edu/20359992/Mud_volcanoes_of_the_Orinoco_Delta_Eastern_Venezuela
Very interesting research this week!
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