Home › Glossary › Letter C

Caldera

Geology
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A large volcanic hollow formed when the ground collapses after an eruption. It can suggest absence, aftermath, and immense buried force.

Detailed Definition
A caldera is a broad basin created when a volcano erupts so powerfully that its emptied magma chamber can no longer support the land above it. The summit collapses, leaving a vast depression that may later hold lakes, forests, or new volcanic cones. In poetry, a caldera offers an image of aftermath: a beautiful hollow made by catastrophe, silence surrounding old fire, or a heart altered by the loss of what once sustained it.
Example
Example in poetry:
After the volcano emptied itself, a caldera opened like a vast bowl beneath the sky; A poet may use a caldera to describe the hollow left after an emotional upheaval; The lake within a caldera can create a contrast between violent geologic origins and present stillness; “We camped on the caldera rim” gives a poem a setting of scale, danger, and deep time
Additional Notes
A caldera forms through collapse, not simply an explosive hole. Its vast emptiness can make aftermath feel active, with pressure still imagined below.
Other Meanings of “Caldera”
Also Known As
Volcanic Cauldron Cauldron
Skip to main content