Lava dome

File:MSH06 aerial crater from north high angle 09-12-06.jpg

Lava domes in the crater of Mount St. Helens.

In volcanology, a lava dome or plug dome is a round-shaped mound created by the eruption of viscous lava by a volcano.

Lava domes are formed when erupting lava is too thick to flow and makes a steep-sided mound as the lava piles up near the volcanic vent. Lava domes have formed in Mount St. Helens and experts say a lava dome is growing inside the Shinmoedake volcano in Japan.

Lava Dome Media

• Volcán Chaitén-Sam Beebe-Ecotrust.jpg

  Rhyolitic lava dome of Chaitén Volcano during its 2008–2010 eruption

• One of the Inyo Craters, an example of a rhyolite dome

• Nea Kameni.jpg

  Nea Kameni seen from Thera, Santorini

• The bulging cryptodome of Mt. St. Helens on April 27, 1980

• Soufriere Hills Lava Dome Spire1.jpg

  Soufrière Hills lava spine before the 1997 eruption

• Time-lapse images of Mount St. Helens dome growth 2004-2008.webm

  Lava dome growth during the 2004–2008 eruptive phase of Mount St Helens

• Chao dacite domes.jpg

  Chao dacite coulée flow-domes (left center), northern Chile, viewed from Landsat 8