Lava explodes and flows in different forms. How many of these are you familiar with?
The explosive nature of these fascinating geological mountains provide us with a time line of earth's past, they create chains of living and breathing islands, and they cause deathly destruction to everything they touch.
The violence of a volcanic eruption is based upon many factors including the viscosity of the given magma. (the more viscous, the more violent) Viscosity is a measure of a materials resistance to flow, and the thicker it is, the slower is will flow. This works the same way in our bodies when we are dehydrated.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lannaxe96.
As for the link, I was hoping they would show Strombolian eruptions, or at least what they deposit all over the countryside. Giant blobs of lava shoot into the air, fly a few hundred feet, and cool just enough too be solid when they strike something and ooze lava onto it.
Oh, and the name I've seen volcanologists use is "lava bombs", which makes it awesome.
Strombolian eruptions are very low level eruptions. Not to impressive really, at least I don't think they really are.
The eruptions don't produce much lava, but they do shoot the above-mentioned lava bombs, which is why they are dangerous. They can routinely be this size:
http://www.exo.net/~pauld/antarctica/erebusjessiebomb.jpeg
That one came from Mt Erebus, in Antarctica. The mountain is very special in the way that it features one of the very few lava lakes. That is to say, it's crater has a very large lake of lava. It's really cool, too.