A lava spine is a vertically growing monolith of viscous lava that is slowly forced from a volcanic vent, such as those growing on a lava dome

Lava dome

|250px|thumb|right|Image of the [[rhyolitic]] lava dome of [[Chaitén Volcano]] during its 2008–2009 eruption.In volcanology, a lava dome is a roughly circular mound-shaped protrusion resulting from the slow extrusion of viscous lava from a volcano...

 (Bates & Jackson, 1987). It may also be considered a kind of dome called a spiny dome (Fink & Anderson, 2000). In February of 1983, the dome activity of Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens is an active stratovolcano located in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is south of Seattle, Washington and northeast of Portland, Oregon. Mount St. Helens takes its English name from the British diplomat Lord St Helens, a...

 culminated in a spine that reached a height of about 100 ft before collapsing after two weeks. A diatreme

Diatreme

A diatreme is a breccia-filled volcanic pipe that was formed by a gaseous explosion. Diatremes often breach the surface and produce a tuff cone, a filled relatively shallow crater known as a maar, or other volcanic pipes.- Word origin :...

may also be referred to as a lava spine, such as the example of Mount Pelee in 1902.