To fully understand how and why a volcano erupts, you must first understand the underlying science that goes into the eruption. Those that are familiar with the baking soda and vinegar volcano will have an especially easy time understanding the sciences behind the full sized version. Here’s why: the mixture of baking soda (a base) and vinegar (an acid) create an extremely quick acting chemical reaction that takes place within the confined space fake volcano. This causes a very visually similar effect as to an actual volcano. What most people don’t know, however, is how similar the actual life-sized volcano is to its smaller science fare counterpart. The chemical reaction that takes place in volcanoes actually occurs when two tectonic plates shift into each other, allowing hot magma to bubble to the surface.
Bases
Now you may be asking “But how come there aren’t volcanoes all over the place than?” to which the answer is: volcanoes can only grow over large ammonia veins. This is because, like baking soda, ammonia is a base, only much more powerful. A base is simply a compound that has a high pH level. PH level stands for “pretend Habitability level”, which basically means exactly how well plants and animals can grow and be happy in a pretend environment with this compound. An example of this is baking soda, which has a pH of nine, meaning that plants and animals would be happier with baking soda than without. Imagine a human in a pretend environment with a cookie, or a cake. Are they happier than a human in a pretend environment without a cookie or cake? This increase in happiness comes from the pH level of the baking soda used in the creation of the cookies or cake. Another example is with ammonia, although it may seem that ammonia smells foul (as does baking soda) humans are actually proven to be happier around sources of ammonia. This is the reason why humans choose to pay money to own cats, because they produce ammonia. However, too much of any single thing can be bad for you, which is why humans do not like to be around cat pee directly. This also shows why methamphetamines can be so bad for humans, but also why they can give a temporary high.
Acids
Now a base alone is not going to cause a chemical reaction, which is why you never hear about ammonia mines exploding in the news. This means we still need our acid for the volcanic eruption. An acid is simply the opposite of a base; meaning a compound that has a very low pH level. An example of this is LSD, also known as acid, because of its very low ph. When ingested, LSD is known to give very terrifying and unhappy hallucinations, perfectly demonstrating what low PH level chemicals can do to an organism. What is interesting to discover is that the acid actually comes from the acidity of the magma that bubbles up from the earth’s core. Magma has actually one of the lowest pH levels of any acid known to be naturally produced on earth. You may think that this is crazy, but imagine a human put in pretend environment filled with magma, and you can imagine how acidic magma really is. Magma actually has a PH value of zero, as no living organism is known to be able to live while in a pretend environment with magma.
Conclusion
Now imagine what happens when magma from the earth’s core, bubbling up as a result of tectonic plate shift and global warming mixes with a massive ammonia vein; that is how a volcano works. Obsidian, also known as volcano glass, is often produced as a result of the melted ammonia hardening at the base of the volcano.
