Free Printable Volcano Word Search

Print 16 volcano words with an answer key, or swap in eruption types, volcanic rocks or the earthquake list.

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Volcano Word Search

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0 of 16 words found

IVOKNXOQMBEWPBZ

AHORCXHRLSIYUWM

SEARTHQUAKETMEA

ADORMANTGEJJIBG

NQHNCVTDFFHTCDM

ESFEEACTIVEDEEA

OTAVLENHSGAAOEC

BUUEXPLOSIVETGC

SCLNBHAPUDTPIIR

INTTACHNRDEPYLA

DCIUSEALEXTINCT

IADEAERYZAMFYHE

AEAYLAVASHORLCR

NFBTTEORDFTAIHR

AGGLEDLRNRASKTL

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

VentVENT
CraterCRATER
FissureFISSURE
LavaLAVA
MagmaMAGMA
AshASH
LaharLAHAR
ActiveACTIVE
DormantDORMANT
ExtinctEXTINCT
ExplosiveEXPLOSIVE
BasaltBASALT
ObsidianOBSIDIAN
PumicePUMICE
EarthquakeEARTHQUAKE
FaultFAULT

16 of 24 words from the Volcano Key Terms list.

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Answer key: Volcano Word Search

IVOKNXOQMBEWPBZ

AHORCXHRLSIYUWM

SEARTHQUAKETMEA

ADORMANTGEJJIBG

NQHNCVTDFFHTCDM

ESFEEACTIVEDEEA

OTAVLENHSGAAOEC

BUUEXPLOSIVETGC

SCLNBHAPUDTPIIR

INTTACHNRDEPYLA

DCIUSEALEXTINCT

IADEAERYZAMFYHE

AEAYLAVASHORLCR

NFBTTEORDFTAIHR

AGGLEDLRNRASKTL

VENT, CRATER, FISSURE, LAVA, MAGMA, ASH, LAHAR, ACTIVE, DORMANT, EXTINCT, EXPLOSIVE, BASALT, OBSIDIAN, PUMICE, EARTHQUAKE, FAULT

Next step Type in the terms from your own volcano chapter Scramble the same volcano words

All 98 words

Parts of a Volcano 20

Caldera A large cauldron-like hollow left when the ground collapses into an emptied chamber.
Conduit The passage that lets magma rise through the crust.
Crater A roughly circular, bowl-shaped hollow that holds one or more vents.
Fissure A long, narrow crack through which lava erupts, usually without an explosion.
Flank The side of the mountain, where smaller cones can grow.
Fumarole A vent that gives off hot gases and vapors, with no liquids or solids.
Hot spring Water heated underground that rises to the surface.
Island Land that eruptions can build up from the seafloor, as at Surtsey in 1963.
Lava dome A round mound built by thick lava that is squeezed out slowly.
Lava lake A large volume of molten rock held in a vent, crater or broad hollow.
Lava tube A natural roofed channel that carries molten rock; drained, it leaves a cave.
Magma chamber A large pool of liquid rock beneath the surface of the Earth.
Peak The pointed top of a mountain; a Vulcanian ash cloud rises high above it.
Plug Magma that hardened inside a vent; it is also called a neck.
Rim The raised edge around the bowl at the top.
Slope The slanted side of the mountain; steep on a stratovolcano, gentle on a shield.
Strata The alternating layers of hardened lava and tephra in a composite cone.
Summit The top of the mountain, where the usual picture puts the crater.
Vent The opening that lets magma come out onto the surface as lava.
Volcano A vent or fissure in a planet's crust that lets out lava, ash and gases.

Show all 98 words (78 more)

Lava, Ash and Gas 20

Ash Fragments of rock, crystals and glass less than 2 mm across.
Blast A sudden burst; a Strombolian eruption gives relatively mild ones.
Bomb A lump of partly molten rock larger than 64 mm, thrown out in an eruption.
Cinders Loose, bubbly fragments that pile up around a vent into a steep cone.
Column The tall cloud of ash and gas that rises above an explosive eruption.
Debris Broken rock that a lahar carries down a river valley.
Fountain A jet of fluid lava, typical of a Hawaiian eruption.
Gases Water vapor, carbon dioxide and sulfur compounds are the main ones given off.
Lahar A violent mudflow of volcanic material, rocky debris and water.
Lapilli Tephra the size of little stones, which is what the Latin name means.
Lava Magma that has been expelled onto the surface.
Magma Molten or partly molten rock under the ground, from which all igneous rocks form.
Molten Melted by heat, like the rock in a lava lake.
Mudflow A river of wet earth and debris; a lahar is a violent kind.
Pahoehoe One of the two common types of basalt flow; the other is rough and rubbly.
Pyroclastic Describes the fast current of hot gas and volcanic matter that hugs the ground.
Steam What water becomes when magma heats it; it can cause an explosion.
Sulfur The element in two gases given off, one a dioxide and one a sulfide.
Tephra Every fragment an eruption throws out, whatever its size.
Viscosity How strongly a liquid resists flowing; for most lava it is about that of ketchup.

Kinds of Volcano and Eruption 20

Active Has a history of erupting and is likely to erupt again.
Cinder cone A steep hill of loose fragments built around a single vent.
Composite Another name for a stratovolcano, after its alternating layers.
Dormant Has not erupted for a long time but may erupt again.
Effusive The type of eruption in which lava steadily flows out onto the ground.
Eruption The escape of lava, ash and gases from a vent.
Explosive The most violent type of eruption, which makes ash and tephra instead of lava flows.
Extinct Not capable of erupting at all, because it has no magma source.
Hawaiian A relatively gentle eruption of very fluid lava from the vent.
Maar A broad, low crater made when groundwater meets hot magma; it often fills with water.
Pelean A type named after a mountain on Martinique that erupted in 1902.
Phreatic A steam-blast eruption, set off when magma heats ground water or surface water.
Plinian Like the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, which a Roman letter writer described.
Shield volcano A kind with a low profile, built by very fluid lava; Mauna Loa is one.
Stratovolcano A steep cone built of many layers of hardened lava and tephra.
Strombolian Relatively mild blasts of glowing scoria; named for a volcano in Italy.
Submarine Under the sea, where the greater part of Earth's volcanic activity happens.
Supervolcano A kind that has had an eruption of 8, the top value on the explosivity index.
Surtseyan An explosive eruption in shallow seas or lakes; named after a new island off Iceland.
Vulcanian A dense cloud of ash-laden gas explodes from the crater and rises high above the peak.

Volcanic Rocks 18

Andesite A volcanic rock midway between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite.
Basalt A dark, fine-grained rock; more than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth.
Cooling Losing heat; done quickly, it turns lava to fine-grained rock or glass.
Crystals Mineral grains; quick cooling leaves them small or missing.
Extrusive Describes igneous rock that cooled on the surface instead of underground.
Glass What lava becomes when it cools too fast for crystals to grow.
Igneous The family of rocks that forms from magma or lava.
Mafic Describes lava rich in magnesium and iron, like the kind that makes basalt.
Obsidian Natural volcanic glass that breaks with very sharp edges.
Pillow lava Rounded masses, up to about a meter across, formed when lava erupts underwater.
Porous Full of small holes, as pumice is.
Pumice A light-colored rock so full of holes that it floats on water.
Rhyolite The most silica-rich volcanic rock, generally light in color.
Scoria A dark rock full of holes, also called volcanic cinder.
Silica Most magma is rich in it; rhyolite has the most of any volcanic rock.
Tuff Rock made of volcanic ash that has hardened.
Vesicles The holes that trapped gas leaves in volcanic rock.
Welded Describes tuff whose ash was hot enough to stick together as it settled.

Earthquakes 20

Aftershock A smaller quake that follows a larger one in the same area.
Earthquake Shaking of the Earth's surface when energy is suddenly let go.
Epicenter The point on the surface directly above the place where a quake starts.
Fault A fracture in rock along which the two sides have moved.
Foreshock A quake that comes before a larger one and is related to it.
Hypocenter The point below ground where a quake starts; also called the focus.
Landslide A mass of rock or soil sliding downhill; it can set off a tsunami.
Liquefaction When shaking makes wet, loose soil behave like a liquid.
Magnitude The size or strength of a quake, as a number on a scale.
Mainshock The largest quake in a sequence.
Primary The first of the two types of body wave.
Rupture The break along a fault; its starting point is the hypocenter.
Secondary The second of the two types of body wave.
Seismic The kind of wave that an earthquake sends through the Earth.
Seismometer An instrument that responds to ground shaking.
Shaking The ground motion that a seismometer responds to.
Slip The movement of one side of a fault past the other.
Swarm Many small quakes together; one can mark where magma is moving.
Temblor Another word for an earthquake.
Tsunami A series of waves in the sea, set off by a quake, eruption or landslide.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The facts in the clues were checked on 2026-10-07 against English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), among them the articles on the volcano (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano), types of volcanic eruptions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_volcanic_eruptions), volcanic rock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_rock) and the earthquake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake). Licence: own work

How it works

This free printable volcano word search works from the inside out: the parts of a volcano, what comes out of one, the kinds of volcano and eruption, the rocks left behind, and a list of their own for earthquakes.

Read the full guide

A free printable earthquake word search

Pick Earthquakes under Start from a list and the sheet prints as Earthquakes Word Search. Its 20 words run from Epicenter, Fault and Magnitude to Hypocenter, Foreshock, Aftershock, Liquefaction and Tsunami. For an earthquake and volcano word search in one, stay on the key terms: Fault and Tsunami sit beside Crater, Lava and Caldera.

Eruption types and volcanic rocks

Kinds of Volcano and Eruption has 20 words, among them Shield volcano, Stratovolcano, Cinder cone, Plinian, Strombolian and Phreatic. Volcanic Rocks has 18, from Basalt and Obsidian to Pumice, Scoria and Tuff. Easy Volcano keeps to 21 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Vent, Lava, Ash and Tuff.

Shield volcano, Magma chamber and Pillow lava each hide as one run of letters: SHIELDVOLCANO.
Stratovolcano and Supervolcano hold the word Volcano, so the key terms leave both to their own list.

Questions and answers

What is the difference between magma and lava?

Magma is molten or partly molten rock under the ground. Lava is magma that has been expelled onto the surface. Both words are key terms in this puzzle.

What is the difference between an active, dormant and extinct volcano?

An active volcano has a history of eruptions and is likely to erupt again. A dormant one has not erupted for a long time, generally about 12,000 years, but may. An extinct one has no magma source and cannot erupt.

What is the difference between the epicenter and the focus of an earthquake?

The focus, or hypocenter, is the point below ground where the rupture starts. The epicenter is the point on the surface directly above it. Both are in the Earthquakes list.

Does the volcano word find come with an answer key?

Yes, as page 2 on Letter or A4. For a volcano worksheet, tick Show clues, not words, and Caldera prints as "A large cauldron-like hollow left when the ground collapses into an emptied chamber."

All 98 words

Parts of a Volcano 20

Lava, Ash and Gas 20

Kinds of Volcano and Eruption 20

Volcanic Rocks 18

Earthquakes 20

How it works

A free printable earthquake word search

Eruption types and volcanic rocks

Questions and answers

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