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Earth's eighth persistent lava lake found on remote sub-Antarctic island

87 points by sahin-boydas 7y ago

adwww 7y ago
Something about a lake on a hidden island burried deep beneath the ice is really poetic. Perfect setting for a children's book. Or a bond villain.
- ahje 7y ago
  Or material for a Clive Cussler novel. :)
  - HocusLocus 7y ago
    Dirk Pitt popped up suddenly between pieces of molten crust. "I was just lava lake diving. Do you want to see my antique car collection?"
- empath75 7y ago
  Or an HP Lovecraft story: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx
  - NikkiA 7y ago
    Which is set at Ross Island iirc, with Mt Erebus (one of the other lava lake homes) and Mt Terror.
ericpauley 7y ago
There's a huge amount of open data being made available by the Sentinel program. High-quality imagery is available at 2-3 day periods of nearly every landmass on earth, for free! No need to take the article's word for it, here's an IR satellite view of the lava in question: https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?lat=-57.79698&lng=-26.48563&zoom=13&time=2018-03-29&preset=6-SWIR&datasource=Sentinel-2%20L1C https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?lat=-57.79698&lng=... You can do all sorts of things with this data. Excited to see what the maker community will figure out with it.
- bliteben 7y ago
  What exactly is free? When I create an account it appears to be a paid api?
  - jofer 7y ago
    If you'd prefer: https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus/ https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus/ or https://registry.opendata.aws/sentinel-2/ https://registry.opendata.aws/sentinel-2/ https://www.sentinel-hub.com/ https://www.sentinel-hub.com/ is more for visualizing and playing around with the data in a web app. This study also used historical ASTER data (nice selection of thermal bands), which is available at https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/data.asp https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/data.asp
- ge96 7y ago
  nice site(OSM?) but dang that url history thing wow, had to hit back like 10 times to get back to HN haha
wil421 7y ago
>The seven known persistent lava lakes are Mount Nyiragongo (DR Congo), Erta Ale (Ethiopia), Mount Erebus (Antarctica), Ambrym and Mount Yasur (Vanuatu), Kilauea (Hawaii) and Masaya (Nicaragua). I’ve been to Masaya in Nicaragua twice but didn’t know it was one of only 7 with a free flowing lake. The cabs park facing the exit and keep their engines running. The place smells like fireworks and the second time we went it was really active. As a side note, I can reccommend going to Guanacaste in Costa Rica and crossing the no mans land border to Nicaragua for a fun experience. Granda, Nicaragua is a wonderful town near the Volcano. Be on alert Nicaragua is not safe especially compared to Costa Rica. Spend some time in Guanacaste and visit some towns. Experience the Pura Vida lifestyle!
- arethuza 7y ago
  I used to work at a large industrial company where at a few of the plants you were expected to carefully park your car parking away from the plant just in case a quick exit was required.
sandworm101 7y ago
The list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_lake Also, in geology a "lava lake" can also mean a water lake created by a lava flow, the cooled lava flow acting as a dam. Many of these exist in mountain valleys. They are dangerous as eventually the lava dams/plugs break down, releasing the lake.
mikelockz 7y ago
Hard to believe there is a line of people trying to bag Mt Everest and possibly die trying while there remain places like this that have never seen a human before. Seems like both trips would require substantial financial resources and 3rd party outfitters who would do the planning and heavy lifting for you. What's the fun in doing something that many people have done versus being the first to gaze into one of only eight known persistent lava lakes?

87 points by sahin-boydas 7y ago

Something about a lake on a hidden island burried deep beneath the ice is really poetic. Perfect setting for a children's book. Or a bond villain.

ahje 7y ago
Or material for a Clive Cussler novel. :)
- HocusLocus 7y ago
  Dirk Pitt popped up suddenly between pieces of molten crust. "I was just lava lake diving. Do you want to see my antique car collection?"
empath75 7y ago
Or an HP Lovecraft story: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx
- NikkiA 7y ago
  Which is set at Ross Island iirc, with Mt Erebus (one of the other lava lake homes) and Mt Terror.

ericpauley 7y ago

There's a huge amount of open data being made available by the Sentinel program. High-quality imagery is available at 2-3 day periods of nearly every landmass on earth, for free! No need to take the article's word for it, here's an IR satellite view of the lava in question: https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?lat=-57.79698&lng=-26.48563&zoom=13&time=2018-03-29&preset=6-SWIR&datasource=Sentinel-2%20L1C https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?lat=-57.79698&lng=... You can do all sorts of things with this data. Excited to see what the maker community will figure out with it.

bliteben 7y ago
What exactly is free? When I create an account it appears to be a paid api?
- jofer 7y ago
  If you'd prefer: https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus/ https://scihub.copernicus.eu/dhus/ or https://registry.opendata.aws/sentinel-2/ https://registry.opendata.aws/sentinel-2/ https://www.sentinel-hub.com/ https://www.sentinel-hub.com/ is more for visualizing and playing around with the data in a web app. This study also used historical ASTER data (nice selection of thermal bands), which is available at https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/data.asp https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/data.asp
ge96 7y ago
nice site(OSM?) but dang that url history thing wow, had to hit back like 10 times to get back to HN haha

wil421 7y ago

>The seven known persistent lava lakes are Mount Nyiragongo (DR Congo), Erta Ale (Ethiopia), Mount Erebus (Antarctica), Ambrym and Mount Yasur (Vanuatu), Kilauea (Hawaii) and Masaya (Nicaragua). I’ve been to Masaya in Nicaragua twice but didn’t know it was one of only 7 with a free flowing lake. The cabs park facing the exit and keep their engines running. The place smells like fireworks and the second time we went it was really active. As a side note, I can reccommend going to Guanacaste in Costa Rica and crossing the no mans land border to Nicaragua for a fun experience. Granda, Nicaragua is a wonderful town near the Volcano. Be on alert Nicaragua is not safe especially compared to Costa Rica. Spend some time in Guanacaste and visit some towns. Experience the Pura Vida lifestyle!

arethuza 7y ago
I used to work at a large industrial company where at a few of the plants you were expected to carefully park your car parking away from the plant just in case a quick exit was required.

sandworm101 7y ago

The list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_lake Also, in geology a "lava lake" can also mean a water lake created by a lava flow, the cooled lava flow acting as a dam. Many of these exist in mountain valleys. They are dangerous as eventually the lava dams/plugs break down, releasing the lake.

mikelockz 7y ago

Hard to believe there is a line of people trying to bag Mt Everest and possibly die trying while there remain places like this that have never seen a human before. Seems like both trips would require substantial financial resources and 3rd party outfitters who would do the planning and heavy lifting for you. What's the fun in doing something that many people have done versus being the first to gaze into one of only eight known persistent lava lakes?