Plymouth's Volcano

With all the catastrophes around the world at the moment, it might surprise many people in Plymouth that they live so close to an extinct volcano. Looking around the city, it is probably, nowadays, almost impossible to guess where it is. Many people would probably look inwards towards the land in their search for it but you're more likely to guess its location by looking out towards the sea. From the Hoe, looking out towards the Sound, is a giant plug that seals off the vent of this once active volcano. Have you guessed it yet? Yes, the plug I'm talking about is now Drake's Island. The shores of Kingsand are made up of a purple volcanic rock called Rhyolite. A close inspection of the rock shows that some of it contains thousands of gas bubbles from the volcano's last eruption. Rhyolite is a rock formed by the solidification of molten magma. For all of you concerned about an imminent eruption, don't worry. The last eruption took place a very long time ago. The Rhyolite dates from the Permian Period (299 - 251 million years ago)which represents a geologic period which included the diversification of early amniotes into the predocessors of mammals, turtles, lepidosaurs and archosaurs. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era and included the largest mass extinction known to science. Ninety percent of all marine species became extinct, as did seventy percent of all land organisms.