Melina, 17I've learned recently that there are plenty of volcanoes in the country of Costa Rica. Here in Pittsburgh, there aren't any volcanoes because the state isn't located near any tectonic plates that could clash and cause volcanoes/mountains to form. On the other hand, Costa Rica is located between two major tectonic plates, those two being the Caribbean plate eand the Cocos plate. These plates are convergent because they aim towards one another and the plates collide causing volcanoes to form more often throughout Costa Rica. Convergent boundaries form volcanoes that produce andesitic lava, this lave type is sticky, light in color, and has little iron in it. It's known to have highly explosive eruptions when they happen to occur. Out of the major volcanoes in Costa Rica, all but one have andesitic lava and explosive eruptions. One thing they all have in common though it that they all are stratovolcanos meaning they are composite (having explosive/calm eruptions). These volcanoes can affect many of the Costa Rican people at the same time because of the amount of ask that comes from them and gets into the air and causese harm to the surrounding environments. Some of the positive effects that volcanoes have on the environment are the facts that later on down the road these ashes can becme useful because it's full of useful minerals and produces fertile soil for farming. Another advantage of volcanoes is the fact that they provide heat which later turns into electricity, also known as geothermal energy. To Pittsburgh, our closest neighboring volcano would be 1,849.18 miles away. But like mentioned earlier, Pittsburgh doesn't have to deal with active volcano eruptions because of not being surrounded by active tectonic plates that would cause this.
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