What makes the volcanoes on the moons different from the volcanoes on Earth?

Answer 1

For one thing, the moon has a cold core, and a thick (60-78km) crust. The lack of a molten core means the moon stopped producing volcanoes about 3 billion years ago. The few it did produce look like very old craters now. The Apollo 17 astronauts found volcanic material that was thrown out by the impact of Shorty Crater, which just happened to expose an ancient volcanic glassy deposit. The main reason the Apollo 17 astronauts landed where they did was because Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden saw volcanic vents in the area while in lunar orbit 60 miles above the surface. NASA scientists were looking for evidence of volcanism on all the moon landeings. Apollo 17 was the only mission to return any volcanic material. The volcanic material came from a volcanic vent about 70 feet below the surface. The astronauts immediately knew the soil was volcanic was because it was orange and black. The orange color came from the soil being oxidized, which can only happen in a volcano. The black soil was pulverized pumice. Pumice is plentiful around earth's volcanoes. The volcanic material exposed by Shorty crater was billions of years old, while Shorty itself is only a few million years old.

The earth still as a hot molten core that produces volcanoes every day. The basic difference between earth and lunar volcanoes is when the top blows off a volcano here on earth, the debris doesn't travel as far as it does on the moon. Also, the older volcanoes here on earth tend to erode a lot faster than the ones on the moon.