When you travel across the United States, you can see many sights made by volcanoes. You know what cone-shaped volcanoes look like. But you can keep an eye out for many other volcanic landscapes too.
Some volcanoes build mountains, but only during the active part of their lives. When a volcano stops erupting, it starts to wear down, or erode. Eventually, only parts of the original mountain are left.
Other volcanoes don’t build mountains at all. Instead, their lava floods the land, drowning hills and valleys. Sometimes during an eruption, the top of a volcanic cone falls in, and a crater forms. A crater is also called a caldera. Craters can be from hundreds of feet wide to tens of miles across!
Let’s visit some of America’s volcanic landmarks.