Again, I thank you for your comments. It's very morale-boosting, especially just after my rather bad exam results...
Near where I live -- a couple of hours drive away or so -- there are a collection of small extinct volcanoes scattered over a plain. They are conical in shape, and are certainly pointy; their points are somewhat rounded, but pointy nonetheless. Now they are very old volcanoes, a lot older than Erebor would be, but still I think the Loneley Mountain was almost definetely a volcano. It was not surrounded by other moutains for a start, which points to this, and it is conical. Slow-erupting volcanoes don't have very big craters anyway, so it wouldn't have taken that long for the crater to erode away (especially after being blasted by Smaug).
*taps fingers impatiently* (Where has that Wight got to...)
The ideas people have posted in this thread are very good as well. They add a lot to the essay; thankyou for them.
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