So, there are three basic types of volcanoes: basaltic, andesitic, and rhyolitic.
Basaltic magma is found under volcanoes like the ones in Hawaii. Basalt melts at a temperature of about 1000 degrees C, and is low viscosity. That is why there are thin rivers of magma flowing out of those volcanoes during eruptions. These are called Pahoehoe. It can cause a lot of damage, but it is mainly localized damage and it is not explosive. These are called shield volcanoes due to the typical shape of the cone.
Andesite melts at a similar temperature but is very viscous and so it is very explosive. Andesitic volcanoes are mainly called stratovolcanoes. These are the volcanoes in the Cascade range in the Pacific Northwest and the ones in the Andes (hence the name of the rock). Krakatoa (what’s left of it) is another example. Fuji-san is another. Basically the entire *Ring of Fire around the Pacific is andesitic. These volcanoes explode when they erupt and cause immense damage. There is a huge **plume of ash and lava, pyroclastic flows (huge flows of molten lava and ash), lahars (giant ***mudslides), and lots of other damage.
Rhyolitic volcanoes are the most explosive. They are most often associated with calderas, and don’t even necessarily look like what we’d normally consider a volcano. They are huge craters with magma beneath them. There is one in California called Long Valley Caldera. It’s crater is about 30 miles across. The last time it erupted (about 760,000 years ago) it sent pyroclastic flows into Nebraska which created the Scott’s Bluff geological feature. Yellowstone is also one. Its last eruption was about 25,000 years ago and if it were to erupt today it would create immense destruction from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and also in Canada and Mexico, so basically all across the entire North American continent.
There are several more different subtypes of these three basic volcanoes, but as different as they are, they have a few things in common. One of those things is that they have nothing to fucking do mine tailings! That is one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard. Mine tailings are very destructive, but we’ve studied and continue to study mine tailings and what they both do and do not cause in terms of ecosystem damage. They don’t cause ash, or giant mudflows, or the other types of damage associated with volcanoes. Also, nobody was mining anything 25,000 years ago, much less 760,000 years ago.
No, dumbass, you are not fucking smarter that all the geologists and seismologists and volcanologists.
I know he wouldn’t believe me if I told him any of this and he’d just feel sorry for me for being tricked by the establishment and all those “CGI” events. I invite him to go inside one, or channel David Johnston. He could go inside Table Mountain, an extinct volcano in Golden, Colorado, but I doubt he’d go and if he did, he’d probably pretend he found something to back up his bullshit.
*like the Johnny Cash song.
**this is sometimes called a Plinian Column, after Pliny the Elder who witnessed the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
***an entire town in Colombia (Armero) was buried in a giant lahar when the Nevado del Ruiz volcano let off some steam nearby. That melted some snow on the top and as a result about 30,000 people died in one night.
TL;DR Jerry Derecha is a dumbass… but we already knew that didn’t we?