Mount Erebus Volcano, Antarctica
by Stephen & Donna O'Meara
Title
Mount Erebus Volcano, Antarctica
Artist
Stephen & Donna O'Meara
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Early Morning light on Mount Erebus Volcano, Antarctica. February 22, 2009. Antarctica inside the Antarctic Circle taken from McMurdo Ice Shelf looking towards Mount Erebus. Mount Erebus Volcano, at 12,280 ft (3,743 m) high, is one of Earth's loftiest active volcanoes. It was discovered in 1841 by the British explorer James C. Ross. With 98% of its surface covered with ice it is hard to remember there is a rock underneath all of those tons of frozen ancient water. Mount Erebus erupts about ten times per year and even though it is encased in thick ice a molten red lava lake lies inside its summit crater. Its sides are layered with both glacial ice and old lava flows like a layercake. Strange ice formations are built over fumaroles towering some 1,000 feet tall. Erebus is strange in that its bottom half is a shield volcano and its top half a stratovolcano. Only 2% of Antarctica does not have an ice covering. The thickness of the ice sheet covering Antarctica averages 1.6 Km thick containing 90% of all the ice in the world. Antarctica contains 70% of all the fresh water in the world. Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest place on Earth, but also very beautiful. Antarctica is Earth's most southerly continent and land mass and home to the South Pole. With only about eight inches of rain each year Antarctica is a cold desert.
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April 3rd, 2014
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