Lava Lake in Antarctica Offers Rare Glimpse Into Erebus Volcano

 The coldest place on Earth is also one of the rare spots where a roiling lava lake offers a window into the heart of a volcano.

At Erebus volcano in Antarctica, a long-lived lava lake puffs steam and launches lava bombs at scientists who scale its slopes, hoping to unravel the mysteries of how volcanoes work. (Lava bombs are flying blobs of molten rock.)

"We think lava lakes are really the top of a magma chamber, so by studying lava lakes we can see what's happening in the guts of the volcano," said Philip Kyle, a volcanologist at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, who has visited Erebus since the late 1960s.

Erebus has been continuously active since as early as the 1970s. For more than 40 years, researchers like Kyle have climbed its 12,450-foot-tall (3,794 meters) peak during the brief summer, installing a battery of monitoring equipment that transforms Erebus into one of the most intensely watched volcanoes in the world.

In the early decades, scientists gathered just a few precious weeks' worth of data each summer at Erebus. Now, despite the harsh climate, everything from earthquake monitors to infrared cameras perch on the volcano year-round. Instruments also track the swelling and sinking of the volcano's surface, snooping on magma pulsing underground; listen to infrasound(sound below the range of human hearing); and sniff gases escaping into the air.

http://www.weather.com/news/science/lava-lake-antarctica-rare-glimpse-erebus-volcano-20140424