Meaning & use
caldera
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Meaning
nouncountabletechnical
A very large, basin-shaped hollow in the ground left when the top of a volcano sinks inward after the magma beneath it has been blown out or drained away.
Grammar: Countable: Yellowstone sits inside a huge caldera; the island has two calderas.
Patterns
- a caldera lake
- the caldera of a volcano
Crater Lake fills a caldera that formed when an ancient volcano collapsed.
Hikers walked along the rim of the caldera and looked down at the steaming vents.
Geologists monitor the caldera for any sign that magma is moving again.
Word forms
| plural | calderas |
|---|
Common combinations
- volcanic caldera
- The island is the rim of a volcanic caldera partly flooded by the sea.
- caldera rim
- Tourists gathered at the caldera rim to watch the sunrise.
- caldera lake
- The deep blue caldera lake attracts thousands of visitors each summer.
- form a caldera
- A massive eruption can form a caldera many miles wide.
- collapse into a caldera
- The summit collapsed into a caldera within a matter of days.
Synonyms and how they differ
- crater
- A crater is a bowl at the top of a volcano or made by an impact, and is usually much smaller than a caldera, which is formed by collapse.
- basin
- Basin is a general word for any dip in land and says nothing about a volcanic origin, unlike caldera.
- depression
- Depression is a loose geographical term for a low area and does not point to the collapse of a volcano.
Word family
Commonly confused: caldera or crater? caldera or cauldron?
caldera vs crater
A crater forms from an explosion or an impact and is generally smaller. A caldera forms when the ground collapses into an emptied magma chamber.
caldera vs cauldron
A cauldron is a big pot for boiling. The two words come from the same Latin root, but only caldera is a volcanic feature.
Practice
What most clearly separates a caldera from an ordinary volcanic crater?
Choose one answer.
A caldera results from collapse after an eruption and is typically many times wider than a crater. Many calderas hold lakes but not all do, they occur on land too, and an impact creates a different kind of crater.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “caldera”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.