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shield volcano

n. (context vulcanology English) A large volcano, with shallow-sloping sides and a flattened dome, formed of successive eruptions of free-flowing lava; a lava dome

Wikipedia
Shield volcano

A shield volcano is a type of volcano usually built almost entirely of fluid magma flows. They are named for their large size and low profile, resembling a warrior's shield lying on the ground. This is caused by the highly fluid lava they erupt, which travels farther than lava erupted from stratovolcanoes. This results in the steady accumulation of broad sheets of lava, building up the shield volcano's distinctive form. The shape of shield volcanoes is due to the low- viscosity magma of their mafic lava.

Usage examples of "shield volcano".

The giant Martian shield volcano, so huge its caldera poked out of the thin atmosphere.

Olympus Mons is a shield volcano, and therefore a cone that is not steep in most places, its great height resulting from its even greater breadth.

He, Cairncross, had seen an extinct shield volcano rising mightily above an arid steppe, and desired an eyrie on the heights.

To our right, many kilometers away, from the look of it, rose a blackened shield volcano.

Instead of the glorious, living Tree, there is now only the World-stump, a heap of ash and carbon looking like the eroded remains of an ancient shield volcano.

At three in the afternoon we stopped at the rescue hut under the rising bulk of the great shield volcano called Herdubreid or 'Broad Shoulders'.

A curtain of darkness lifted and she could see the mountain, the big shield volcano rising sharply out of the Tharsis Bulge.

In the Lycus and Cyane Sulci, spread across a broad band north of the old shield volcano Olympus Mons, canyons twist and shove across a thousand kilometers like the imprint of a nest of huge and restless worms.