CALDERA

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does caldera mean? 

• CALDERA (noun)
  The noun CALDERA has 1 sense:

1. a large crater caused by the violent explosion of a volcano that collapses into a depression

  Familiarity information: CALDERA used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CALDERA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A large crater caused by the violent explosion of a volcano that collapses into a depression

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("caldera" is a kind of...):

crater; volcanic crater (a bowl-shaped geological formation at the top of a volcano)

 Context examples 

The other eruption, close to another caldera called Heno Patera, produced flows covering 120 square miles (310 square kilometers).

(A Hellacious Two Weeks on Jupiter's Moon Io, NASA)

The new island is perched on the north rim of a caldera on top of an underwater volcano that stands nearly 4,600 feet (1,400 meters) above the surrounding the sea floor.

(NASA Shows New Tongan Island Made of Tuff Stuff, Likely to Persist Years, NASA)

They were "born" eons before deposits from volcanoes such as Mt. Mazama, which erupted 7,700 years ago to form the Crater Lake caldera.

(New answer to MRSA, other 'superbug' infections: clay minerals?, NSF)

Once lava emerged, it flowed along a newly formed crack inside the volcano's two-mile-wide by five-mile-long opening, or caldera.

(Underwater volcano's fiery eruption captured in detail by seafloor observatory, NSF)

"The only other circular structure that might approach this size would be a collapsed volcanic caldera," MacGregor said.

(NASA Finds Possible Second Impact Crater Under Greenland Ice, NASA)

Measuring about 68 miles (110 kilometers) across, the caldera is deep enough to hold the entire volume of water in Lake Huron, and then some.

(Mars Volcano, Earth's Dinosaurs Went Extinct About the Same Time, NASA)

The brightest, at a caldera named Rarog Patera, was calculated to have produced a 50-square-mile (130-square-kilometer), 30-foot-thick (10-meter) lava flow.

(A Hellacious Two Weeks on Jupiter's Moon Io, NASA)

At their peak about 150 million years ago, the vents in the Arsia Mons' caldera probably collectively produced about 0.25 to 2 cubic miles (1 to 8 cubic kilometers) of magma every million years, slowly adding to the volcano's size.

(Mars Volcano, Earth's Dinosaurs Went Extinct About the Same Time, NASA)