Volcano of the Week #13 - Erta Ale

As some people would rather do work than play Ghettopoly (which is a ghetto version of monopoly) my evening's entertainment consisted of asking my housemate Spam/Lewis to choose the volcano of the week from my volcano book. The result was Ethiopia's most active volcano Erta Ale which is a 613m height shield volcano on the border with Eritrea. Erta Ale means smoking mountain- I really wish people would name volcanoes more imaginatively, it would certainly make volcano or nocano more fun. Although one pit of Erta Ale is known as the gateway to hell, which is nicer. Erta Ale is located in the Afar Depression which contains the lowest point in Africa- 155 meters below sea level, the land surrounding the volcano is all below sea level.

 Looks a bit like Piton de la Fournaise

The most remarkable feature of Erta Ale is probably its lava lake which at 90 years is thought to be the oldest (and one of the only) in the world. One of the only other volcanoes with lava lakes is last "weeks" volcano- Mount Erebus which must be truly stunning in the frozen landscape. A lava lake is pretty much what it sounds; a crater filled with hot bubbling lava covered by a thin black crust so kinda like cooking porridge, polenta or old soup. It is when cracks in this skin appear that we see the volcanoes beauty when lava spurts and fissures form. Erta Ale's tends to have fairly non-explosive eruptions, VEI around 2- but it is none the less a beautiful spectacle. The lava lake the cover image for Earth on Fire and has some of the books best images- which is why is this weeks volcano of the week and I believe it's my first Africano. 

Best book ever!