GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -A shield volcano takes its name from its shape, which looks like a warrior’s shield seen from the side. It’s much wider than it is high. Shield volcanoes are built up of a great many flows of runny lava, each of which is relatively thin, only a few meters (yards) thick.

Detailed explanation-2: -Shield volcanoes are formed from many magma flows of low viscosity. The magma flows out of the vent and slides down the slopes of the volcano and builds up the size. A shield volcano is named so due to their similarity to a warrior’s shield lying on the ground.

Detailed explanation-3: -Shield volcanoes, the third type of volcano, are built almost entirely of fluid lava flows. Flow after flow pours out in all directions from a central summit vent, or group of vents, building a broad, gently sloping cone of flat, domical shape, with a profile much like that of a warrior’s shield.

Detailed explanation-4: -Where a volcano produces low viscosity, runny lava, it spreads far from the source and forms a volcano with gentle slopes: a shield volcano. Most shield volcanoes are formed from fluid, basaltic lava flows. Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are shield volcanoes.

Detailed explanation-5: -Mauna Loa, a shield volcano on the “big” island of Hawaii, is the largest single mountain in the world, rising over 30, 000 feet above the ocean floor and reaching almost 100 miles across at its base.