4—Watch Out! Hot Magma!
The temperature deep inside the earth is so hot it melts rock into a super-hot liquid called magma. It also builds up a lot of pressure. This pressure pushes the magma, along with gases and steam, up through openings in the earth's crust. These openings become volcanoes. When magma reaches the surface, it is called lava. It can be shot into the air in a fire fountain or just pour out any of the volcano's openings.

Though lava starts as a super-hot liquid, it will become solid rock once it cools. As it does, it builds up around the volcano's opening, getting higher and wider, as long as the volcano stays active, until it becomes a mountain. The Hawaiian islands are lava mountains. This is a photo of a small lava flow.

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