One of Chile's most active volcanos erupted on January 2nd scaring a lot of people who live in the area. The Llama volcano in Chile's Conguillo National Park, sent a plume of smoke nearly 12,500 meters into the air after erupting on Tuesday evening.

While the National Park was closed and about 200 tourists evacuated, there were no injuries reported. The people in local towns nearby, heard loud noises before the eruption and a lot of them left the area voluntarily. If the lava flow continues, the officials may evacuate more people but so far it seems unlikely. The only issue officials are worried about is the potential flooding of the rivers nearby, thanks to the melting of the snow around the mountain where the volcano erupted.

A volcano is a mountain that opens downward to a pool of molten (melted) rock below the surface of the earth. An eruption is merely the result of pressure below the surface of the earth, which forces the gases and liquids, now known as lava, to escape through the top of the hole in the mountain. Some volcanoes like this one in Chile and the Kilauea in Hawaii are always erupting and are known as active volcanoes. Others such as the Mauna Kea in Hawaii and Campi Flegrei in Italy, are known as dormant volcanoes, because they have not erupted in a long long time, but are still likely to do so. Extinct volcanoes are ones that erupted some time ago, but are not likely to do so ever again.

Below find two videos, one is the amazing eruption of the volcano in Chile and the other a simple experiment you can do at home, which demonstrates how a volcano erupts. Have fun!

Sources:news.bbc.co.uk,wikipedia.com, sciencedaily.com

Try this fun experiment at home to see how a volcano erupts!