Walking the Fire Line

 Cradling one of the world's largest and least studied lava lakes—more than 700 feet across and possibly miles deep—Nyiragongo has twice sent molten rock racing toward residents of Goma

A member of the expedition walks on the caldera's cooled lava floor, turned red by the reflected glow of the lake. 'Down here you feel the volcano,' says photographer Carsten Peter. 'It's a low-frequency rumbling that pulses through your body—like being inside a giant subwoofer.

Constant bubbling sends waves of lava lapping over the rim.
Scientists aren't sure of the lake's depth, though recent lava samples indicate the magma originated in the Earth's mantle more than 46 miles below.


http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/04/nyiragongo-volcano/peter-photography


Nyiragongo is a two-mile-high volcano towering over the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—one of the most active volcanoes on the planet and also one of the least studied. The chief reason for the lack of research is that for the past 20 years the eastern DRC has seen nearly constant warfare, including a spillover of the massacres in neighboring Rwanda.