Volcanoes

I will be studying a volcano.

I chose Mount Fuji in Honshu, Japan. It's an active composite volcano, meaning it's a cone-shaped volcano with sills and pikes branching from the main conduit. Some of the rocks found include andesite and basalt.


I didn't do the experiment involved in this research, however, many groups chose to use a chemical reaction known as elephant's toothpaste - a reaction involving hydrogen peroxide and potassium (most people use potassium iodide, but we used potassium permanganate) - to erupt the model volcanoes they had built. Most of the volcanoes built were cinder cones, similar to composites but without the sills and pikes. One group tried to use the coke and mentos reaction (a physical reaction caused by mentos creating nucleation sites for the bubbles of carbon), but the coke turned flat before the experiment could take place.