Hey, guys!
What do you say we play a round of the word association game?
And here's a word for you - Antarctica!
The first things that come to my mind are glaciers, ice, frost, snow, uninhabitable
desert - well, you get it.
But how about a lake of bubbling lava hidden deep under the ice?
An unlikely connection, right?
But that's actually a very real and highly unusual Antarctic phenomenon that was just
recently discovered.
I used to imagine volcanos as huge bowls filled to the brim with bright-orange molten lava.
But it turns out that in the real world, volcanos are far from this image.
What I'm describing is called a lava lake, and until recently, people only knew about
7 such lakes bubbling in different regions of our planet.
But here we go now: in July 2019, scientists discovered one more; the eighth lake of lava
- and not just anywhere, but in Antarctica!
Well, to tell you the truth, this finding wasn't such a big surprise for researchers.
Scientists from University College London and the British Antarctic Survey guessed that
it existed more than 30 years ago, and since then, they've been trying to find this lake.
Already in the 1990s, scientists noticed some weird thermal anomalies occurring around the
crater of the volcano.
Unfortunately, at that time, the resolution of the photos was too bad to prove the existence
of the lava lake.
But with the development of technology, satellites started to make more powerful and precise
images.
And after the researchers studied the images made by Landsat, Sentinel-2, and ASTER satellites,
they made sure their theory was correct.
Antarctica’s lava lake is resting in the crater of the active volcano, Mount Michael,
located on small, remote Saunders Island in the South Atlantic Ocean.
And the thing is both breathtaking and terrifying.
Even though it's not the largest lava lake in the world, it’s still very impressive,
with a diameter varying from 300 to 700 feet.
And the lava lake is hot – REALLY hot.
At times, its temperature can reach a staggering 2,330 degrees F, and that's hot enough to
melt almost any substance on Earth, even iron!
One of the main reasons why the lava lake was only recently discovered is its remote
location.
Saunders Island is one of the South Sandwich volcanic chain (yep, I did say "south sandwich").
To reach this place, you need to make a long and tiring journey full of dangers and hardships
through the icy waters of the South Atlantic - sorry, I got a bit carried away.
You can actually just sign up for an ocean cruise, but it’ll cost you more than $10,000!
Hmm, that might be the reason why so few researchers had gone to see Saunders Island before the
discovery.
On top of that, even though some of them did visit the place, they only made it to the
bottom; no one had ever climbed to the top of the mountain.
Anyway, it would have taken scientists much longer to confirm their lava-lake suspicions
but for the high-resolution satellite images.
Before that, they only knew that a temperature anomaly on Saunders Island did exist.
But then, some images appeared, taken in the wavelengths of light necessary to spot any
geothermal activity.
And voila!
In these photos, you can clearly see a lake of bubbling lava inside the crater.
On the other hand, the researchers still don't know how deep this lake is.
So, what's so unusual about Mount Michael's lava lake?
The thing is that hundreds of volcanoes erupt by spitting out lava, which then gathers into
small lakes and pools of molten rock.
But then, within several weeks, or even days, these lava reservoirs dry into hard, solid
rock.
As for our Antarctic lava lake, it remains liquid no matter what!
And, considering there are only 7 other persistent molten lava lakes in the world, this phenomenon
used to puzzle geologists to no end.
I mean, why does the lava, in more than 1,500 active volcanoes on the planet, turn into
rock so soon after eruptions, but stay liquid in these 8 other locations?
It turns out that it’s the result of volcanic gas activity.
Yes, I can relate to the gas activity.
Sulfur dioxide, steam, and carbon dioxide keep temperatures inside craters so high,
that the lava constantly stays in its liquid state.
No wonder scientists were happy to find another anomaly of this kind.
They say that thanks to this discovery, they’ll be able to understand the volcanic activity
better.
Also, now they know what potential danger Saunders Island may present.
And finally, the exploration of the lake of lava in the remote Mount Michael volcano helped
the researchers develop specific techniques that allow monitoring volcanoes from space.
What's going to be the next step in Mount Michael's lava lake research?
According to scientists, it might be an airplane or a drone flying over the crater of the volcano
and taking pictures of the lava lake.
Unfortunately, it's apparently really hard to organize, and the preparation process can
take years.
And now, how about I tell you about the other 7 persistent lava lakes scattered all over
the planet?
They are Erta Ale in Ethiopia, Mount Erebus in Antarctica, Ambrym Volcano in Vanuatu,
Masaya in Nicaragua, Kilauea in Hawaii, Mount Yasur in Vanuatu, and the largest discovered
lava lake - in the crater of Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
And this last one is worth a separate story!
First of all, since 1882, the Mount Nyiragongo volcano has erupted a whopping 34 times!
What's more, some of these eruptions, in the form of a bubbling lava lake, lasted for years.
The lava lake itself is normally about 820 feet in diameter, and its depth can reach
a mind-blowing 2,000 feet!
If you ever decide to visit this unique place, prepare yourself for a tough trek to a height
of more than 11,400 ft.
On top of that, you'll need to be extra cautious with this treacherous volcano and the lava
lake it contains.
It emits extremely toxic carbon dioxide gas that seeps right up from the ground.
If this gas doesn't get blown away by the wind, its effect on people can be deadly.
On January 10, 1977, a catastrophe struck the villages that surrounded Mount Nyiragongo.
The walls of the crater cracked and broke, and the lava lake drained its content down
the slopes of the volcano in an hour or so.
The speed of the molten lava flow reached 60 miles per hour.
Unfortunately, many inhabitants of the nearby settlements simply didn't have time to escape
the approaching red-hot stream and didn't survive this natural disaster.
And since we're talking about the most unusual lava lakes, I can't help but mention the one
in the crater of Mount Erebus, the most active volcano in Antarctica.
When the lake was found, its exact location was the most puzzling thing for the researchers.
Imagine solid ice, biting frost - and liquid lava with steamy gas clouding over it!
At that time, it was an unprecedented discovery.
Mount Erebus is situated in the coldest place on Earth - and still hosts a lava lake with
the habit of launching lava bombs (which are flying globs of molten rock).
The volcano woke up in the 1970s, and since then, scientists have been continuously monitoring
it with the help of infrared cameras and earthquake monitors perched on the slopes and on the
top of the mountain.
It helped the researchers observe an exciting phenomenon: like a sleeping dragon, lava inside
the crater churns and huffs as if the volcano is breathing.
Interestingly, Mount Erebus follows its own pattern - the volume of its gas plumes falls
and rises every 5 to 18 minutes.
Simultaneously, the surface of the bubbling lava lake moves as well, rising and falling
from 6 to 10 feet during each cycle.
Besides, the lava on the surface of the lake keeps cooling and cracking while new boiling
lava comes up from the bottom, spreading up through the cracks.
And this is a sight to behold!
As for Kilauea in Hawaii, it's one of the world's most active volcanoes, and it used
to host not just one, but two lava lakes!
One of them was sitting in a vent inside the summit crater, while the other filled an east-side
cone vent.
And both of these lakes remained molten and active until they just... disappeared in 2018!
The reason was unusual activity on the volcano's east side.
But the researchers of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory are sure that one day, at least
the bigger lava lake in the summit will return.
The number of lava lakes in the crater of active volcano Erta Ale in Ethiopia varies,
with one persistent lake lying in the crater, and the other appearing there from time to
time.
And occasionally, lava overflows down the slope of the mountain in bright-orange rivulets.
Wasn’t that a hot topic?
I thought so.
Would you set off on a journey to Antarctica to see a lava lake with your own eyes?
Let me know down in the comments!
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