Skip to content
Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Thomas County, KS

Why I love volcanoes

Three orange lava fountains jet more than 100 feet above the fissure 8 cone during the 2018 Kilauea eruption. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Volcanoes" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.
Three orange lava fountains jet more than 100 feet above the fissure 8 cone during the 2018 Kilauea eruption. U.S. Geological Survey, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory · Public domain
  • The inside of the earth comes out.
  • New land gets made right in front of people.
  • Scientists can tell when one is waking up.

You can love volcanoes in Thomas County.

What it really is

A volcano is a place where melted rock from inside the earth reaches the surface.

Three things to try today

  1. Find the closest volcano to where you live.
  2. Find out when it last erupted.
  3. Find out who watches it now.
USGS and PHIVOLCS scientists load crates of volcano monitoring instruments into the back of a military helicopter before field work. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Volcanoes" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.
USGS and PHIVOLCS scientists load crates of volcano monitoring instruments into the back of a military helicopter before field work. USGS archives · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

Thomas County is one of 105 counties in Kansas. Somewhere in that number is a kid who lights up about volcanoes and has never met another one.

The USGS volcano observatories publish live data. Real monitoring, free, today.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Thomas County, KS →

Love something else too

A jagged crack running across desert ground with a yellow tape measure stretched over it, marking surface rupture from the 2019 Searles Valley earthquake. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Earthquakes" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love earthquakesHundreds of dinosaur bones still embedded in the tilted rock wall inside the Dinosaur Quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Fossils" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love fossilsThe historic quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument, built over steeply tilted Jurassic rock layers that hold a dinosaur bone bed. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Dinosaurs" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love dinosaursHurricane Juliette photographed from the Terra satellite as a huge white spiral of cloud with a clear eye at its centre. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Weather" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love weatherThe branching channels of the Godavari River delta meeting the Bay of Bengal, photographed by the crew of space shuttle Endeavour. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rivers" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love riversThe dark ragged skyline of a Douglas fir forest at Point Reyes, California, silhouetted against a pale grey sky. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Forests" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love forestsA honeybee queen marked with a yellow dot on her back, surrounded by worker bees on the honeycomb. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Bees" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love beesA cultivated agricultural field stretching to the horizon with a wetland strip along its edge. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Farming" page — read by families in Thomas County, KS.Why I love farms

Near Thomas County

Why I love volcanoes, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Thomas County