Pressure Ridges and Mt. Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica.In this image you can see buckled sea ice at
Pressure Ridges and Mt. Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica.In this image you can see buckled sea ice at the pressure ridges that form where the sea ice, McMurdo ice shelf and land all meet. As they meet, the ice is warped in all sorts of fascinating formations, forming an icy labyrinth. Looming behind, is Mt. Erebus, the southernmost active volcano in the world. It may not look it as a sense of scale is difficult to achieve in Antarctica, but it rises 3794m above the sea ice that this picture was taken on, higher than any mountain in New Zealand. It is also one of the few volcanoes with a persistent convecting phonolite lava lake. Phonolite (a fine grained ligneous rock) is named appropriately - when it is struck with a hammer it splits into thin plates and gives off a distinct ringing sound. You can see live imagery of the mountain and it’s lava lake as well as access data about seismic activity from the website http://erebus.nmt.edu/index.phpFurther reading:We have covered Mt. Erebus in greater detail in a previous post (http://on.fb.me/1OzBu21).-MJAImage credit: My own http://on.fb.me/1OzBMFX -- source link
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