Why are there no active volcanoes in the uk?
The UK doesn’t have the right ingredients for volcanoes right now. There used to be volcanoes in the UK. The most famous ones are in western Scotland. They are about 60 million years old. The islands of Skye and Mull and a few other islands are old volcanoes! The volcanoes you are probably most familiar with are shaped like cones/witch hats. These form at subduction zones. Subduction zones are where the Earth’s oceanic lithosphere (the hard, cold upper layer of the Earth) sinks back into the mantle. The UK does not currently have a subduction zone. It probably will one day. But right now, the oceanic lithosphere near the UK does not want to sink. It is too young. It is warm and therefore not dense enough to sink. It needs to cool down and become denser before it will sink. There are two other environments where volcanoes can form and the UK doesn’t have those either. One is mid-ocean ridges/rifts. The UK is not splitting/rifting apart. The other is hotspots, like at hawaii. The UK does
