Lava delta deltas make attractive sites for building and many villages and towns are located on old lava deltas, such as Garachico on Tenerife. Lava delta Lava deltas, similar to river deltas form wherever sufficient sub-aerial flows of lava enter standing bodies of water. The lava cools and breaks up as it encounters the water, with the resulting fragments filling in the adjacent seabed topography such that the flow can move further offshore sub-aerially. Lava deltas are generally associated with large-scale, effusive type basaltic volcanism. Lava deltas are found mainly associated with volcanic islands, particularly those formed at hotspots as they produce
Lava temperature, its viscosity and its mode of eruption. "Felsic" or silicic lavas such as rhyolite and dacite typically form lava spines, lava domes or "coulees" (which are thick, short lava flows) and are associated with pyroclastic (fragmental) deposits. Most silicic lava flows are extremely viscous, and typically fragment as they extrude, producing blocky autobreccias. The high viscosity and strength are the result of their chemistry, which is high in silica, aluminium, potassium, sodium, and calcium, forming a polymerized liquid rich in feldspar and quartz, and thus has a higher viscosity than other magma types. Felsic magmas can erupt at temperatures