A lava tube, more rarely called a pyroduct, is a 'roofed conduit through which molten lava travels away from its vent'. If lava in the tube drains out, it will leave an empty cave. Lava tubes are common in low-viscosity volcanic systems. Lava tubes are important as they are able to transport molten lava much further away from the eruptive vent than lava channels. A tube-forming lava flow can emplace on longer distance due to the presence of a solid crust protecting the molten lava from atmospheric cooling. Lava tubes are often considered when preparing hazard maps or managing an eruptive crisis.
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In this Dossier
Lava tube in the context of Fissure vent
A fissure vent, also known as a volcanic fissure, eruption fissure or simply a fissure, is a linear volcanic vent through which lava erupts, usually without any explosive activity. The vent is often a few metres wide and may be many kilometres long. Fissure vents can cause large flood basalts which run first in lava channels and later in lava tubes. After some time, the eruption tends to become focused at one or more spatter cones. Volcanic cones and their craters that are aligned along a fissure form a crater row. Small fissure vents may not be easily discernible from the air, but the crater rows (see Laki) or the canyons (see Eldgjá) built up by some of them are.
The dikes that feed fissures reach the surface from depths of a few kilometers and connect them to deeper magma reservoirs, often under volcanic centers. Fissures are usually found in or along rifts and rift zones, such as Iceland and the East African Rift. Fissure vents are often part of the structure of shield volcanoes.
Lava tube in the context of Nahcolite
Nahcolite is a soft, colourless or white carbonate mineral with the composition of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) also called thermokalite. It crystallizes in the monoclinic system.
Nahcolite was first described in 1928 for an occurrence in a lava tunnel at Mount Vesuvius, Italy. Its name refers to the elements which compose it: Na, H, C, and O. It occurs as a hot spring and saline lake precipitate or efflorescence; in differentiated alkalic massifs; in fluid inclusions as a daughter mineral phase and in evaporite deposits.
Lava tube in the context of Journey to the Center of the Earth
Journey to the Center of the Earth (French: Voyage au centre de la Terre), also translated with the variant titles A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and A Journey into the Interior of the Earth, is a classic science fiction novel written by French novelist Jules Verne. It was first published in French in 1864, then reissued in 1867 in a revised and expanded edition. Professor Otto Lidenbrock is the tale's central figure, an eccentric German scientist who believes there are volcanic tubes that reach to the very center of the earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their Icelandic guide Hans rappel into Iceland's celebrated inactive volcano Snæfellsjökull. They then contend with many dangers, including cave-ins, subpolar tornadoes, an underground ocean, and living prehistoric creatures from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (the 1867 edition inserted additional prehistoric material). Eventually the three explorers are spewed back to the surface by the eruption of an active volcano, Stromboli, located in southern Italy.
The category of subterranean fiction existed well before Verne. However, his novel's distinction lay in its well-researched Victorian science and its inventive contribution to the science-fiction subgenre of time travel—Verne's innovation was the concept of a prehistoric realm still existing in the present-day world. Journey inspired many later authors, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his novel The Lost World, Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Pellucidar series, and J. R. R. Tolkien in The Hobbit.