Sunday, January 12, 2014

The Great Lava Of My Life

I have known about Ijen volcano in Indonesia since sometime in the 1990's while watching a documentary on television such as NOVA or Savage Earth. What was not revealed to me at that time about this volcano was its odd and spectacular nocturnal fire which I only discovered earlier tonight via an email from my sister-by-another-mother, Linsis, who had posted it on her online geology group. As it turns out this volcano produces sulphurous shimmering violet-blue flames atop the lava's surface giving it an otherworldly appearance. This is hands-down my favorite lava on Earth. Yes, there are more varieties of appearances of it than most people realize. Below are four photographs and two videos of this rare phenomenon that occurs only one other place on Earth. The first is in English at bottom and the second is in French but also well-worth watching. Since it has not embed code you may view it HERE.  

Photo by Olivier Grunewald
Photo by Thorsten Boeckel
Photo by Martin Rietze
Photo by Olivier Grunewald

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