As volcanoes grow, they become ever heavier. Unlike mountains exhumed by er
osion of rocks that generally were lithified at depth, volcanoes typically
are built of poorly consolidated rocks that may be further weakened by hydr
othermal alteration. The substrates upon which volcanoes rest, moreover, ar
e often sediments lithified by no more than the weight of the volcanic over
burden. It is not surprising, therefore, that volcanic deformation includes
-and in the long term is often dominated by-spreading motions that translat
e subsidence near volcanic summits to outward horizontal displacements arou
nd the flanks and peripheries. We review examples of volcanic spreading and
go on to derive approximate expressions for the time volcanoes require to
deform by spreading on weak substrates. We also demonstrate that shear stre
sses that drive low-angle thrust faulting from beneath volcanic constructs
have maxima at volcanic peripheries, just where such faults are seen to eme
rge. Finally, we establish a theoretical basis for experimentally derived s
calings that delineate volcanoes that spread from those that do not.