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Caldera

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Caldera

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A caldera is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. The ejection of large volumes of magma in a short time can upset the integrity of a magma chamber's structure by in effect removing much of the chamber's filling material. The walls and ceiling of a chamber may then not be able to support its own weight and any substrate or rock resting above. The ground surface then collapses into the emptied or partially emptied magma chamber, leaving a large depression at the surface that may have a diameter of dozens of kilometers. Although sometimes described as a crater, the feature is actually a type of sinkhole, as it is formed through subsidence and collapse rather than an explosion or impact. Compared to the thousands of volcanic eruptions that occur over the course of a century, the formation of a caldera is a rare event, occurring only a few times within a given window of 100 years. Only nine caldera-forming collapses are known to have occurred between 1911 and 2022, with the caldera collapses at Kīlauea, Hawaii, in 2018 and Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai in 2022 being the most recent. Volcanoes that have formed a caldera are sometimes described as "caldera volcanoes".