I live and work on Ross Island in Antarctica. I want to know if
Mt. Erebus has ever erupted and when was the most recent eruption.
Also, we see it steaming all the time, but never see any lave
flow out like in Hawaii's volcanoes, why?
Brady Bautch
Hi Brady,
Why Erebus has ever erupted? Well the tectonics of that area are not too
clearly understood, but as summarized by Tom Simkin and Lee Seibert in
"Volcanoes of the World", there is a large continental rift that
is cutting through the W part of Antarctica (I guess it is this
splitting-apart that has formed the Ross Sea). The most famous continental
rift is the E. African Rift, and it too is associated with volcanism.
There are chapters on Mt. Erebus in "Volcanoes of the Antarctic Plate and
Southern Oceans" by WE LeMasurier and JW Thomson, editors. In the summary
chapter on the Mt. Erebus volcanic province, PR Kyle writes "Mt Erebus is
an active volcano...and contains a persistent convecting lava lake of
anorthoclase phonolite magma. Small Strombolian eruptions occur on a
daily basis...often ejecting anorthoclase phonolite bombs onto the crater
rim. From September to December 1984, larger Strombolian eruptions
occurred more frequently, ejecting bombs up to 2 km from the crater and
sending small eruption columns to over 2 km high.,,"
The lava lake in the summit crater counts as an ongoing eruption but it is
not a particularly active eruption. The fact that the volcano is composed
of layers of lava and ash erupted mainly from the summit means that it
does erupt in a bigger way, it is just that no humans have seen it happen.
Sincerely,
Scott Rowland
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