Nyiragongo Volcano-4
Mount Nyiragongo is an active stratovolcano located in Virunga mountains in Congo. It is 3470 m high in elevation and it contains the world's largest lava lake. The lake is in the center of 2000 meters vide crater; it is about 220 meters in diameter, 600 meters deep and it contains unusually fluid, low viscosity lava, whose temperature is 1315 C.
The lake is very dynamic, it changes in depth constantly and it overflowed (erupted) 34 times since 1882, the last time in 2002 when it killed 245 people in nearby Goma.
Me and Eric, an Norwegian dude whom I have meet earlier that day, arrived at the top of the volcano at around 3 pm, after 6 hours of hard paced climbing. Since there are hundreds of rebels hiding and operating in this area, we moved fast and were accompanied by dozen of heavily armed rangers.
When we arrived to the summit, the visibility was zero, the whole top quarter of the volcano was covered in cloud. We could hear and feel low frequency rumbling of the churning lava and smell sulphur, by the lake itself was totally hidden.
At about 10 pm the clouds suddenly cleared and the lava lake emerged in all its magnificent beauty.
These photos can't possibly depict the awesome scale, the energy and visual impact that this incredible lava lake has on one's senses. It size is enormous, it has surface area of 7 football fields.
I was sitting there for hours, watching the hypnotizing dance of incandescent molten rock, while black, cooler lava spots constantly evolve and change shape like miniature tectonic plates. Once, as a child, somebody gave me an book about the formation of the Earth, and on its cover there was an artist's depiction of how the Earth must have looked shortly after its formation. It surface looked exactly as the surface of this lava lake.
I never got to see the lake in the day time, because around 4 am the clouds returned and again completely covered the summit. In the morning we had tea and some food and started our descent back to Goma.
Nyiragongo Volcano-4
Mount Nyiragongo is an active stratovolcano located in Virunga mountains in Congo. It is 3470 m high in elevation and it contains the world's largest lava lake. The lake is in the center of 2000 meters vide crater; it is about 220 meters in diameter, 600 meters deep and it contains unusually fluid, low viscosity lava, whose temperature is 1315 C.
The lake is very dynamic, it changes in depth constantly and it overflowed (erupted) 34 times since 1882, the last time in 2002 when it killed 245 people in nearby Goma.
Me and Eric, an Norwegian dude whom I have meet earlier that day, arrived at the top of the volcano at around 3 pm, after 6 hours of hard paced climbing. Since there are hundreds of rebels hiding and operating in this area, we moved fast and were accompanied by dozen of heavily armed rangers.
When we arrived to the summit, the visibility was zero, the whole top quarter of the volcano was covered in cloud. We could hear and feel low frequency rumbling of the churning lava and smell sulphur, by the lake itself was totally hidden.
At about 10 pm the clouds suddenly cleared and the lava lake emerged in all its magnificent beauty.
These photos can't possibly depict the awesome scale, the energy and visual impact that this incredible lava lake has on one's senses. It size is enormous, it has surface area of 7 football fields.
I was sitting there for hours, watching the hypnotizing dance of incandescent molten rock, while black, cooler lava spots constantly evolve and change shape like miniature tectonic plates. Once, as a child, somebody gave me an book about the formation of the Earth, and on its cover there was an artist's depiction of how the Earth must have looked shortly after its formation. It surface looked exactly as the surface of this lava lake.
I never got to see the lake in the day time, because around 4 am the clouds returned and again completely covered the summit. In the morning we had tea and some food and started our descent back to Goma.