Mount Erebus: a deep dive into Antarctica's burning summit
Mount Erebus is the strangest active volcano on the planet. It stands on Ross Island in the Antarctic, surrounded by ice that runs to the horizon in every direction, and at its summit a lake of molten lava has been simmering for at least fifty years. Few people have ever seen it in person. The McMurdo research base lies a short helicopter flight away.
The southernmost active volcano
At 3,794 metres, Erebus is the second-highest volcano in Antarctica and by far the most active. It is named for one of the ships of James Clark Ross's 1841 expedition, the first Europeans to record it erupting. Today it is a constant low-level performer rather than an explosive threat.
A persistent phonolite lava lake
The summit crater holds a small lake of phonolite lava — an unusual, alkali-rich magma that allows the lake to remain liquid at the surface without ever fully draining or freezing over. Continuous spattering and small Strombolian explosions throw chunks of fresh lava onto the crater rim.
Ice caves on the flanks
Where volcanic gas escapes through the ice, it carves networks of caves and chimneys with walls of crystalline ice and floors of volcanic rock. Some of the caves contain unusual microbial life adapted to total darkness, mineral-rich air and near-freezing temperatures.
A field laboratory
The Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory has been operating in some form since the 1970s. Researchers tolerate brutal logistics — the field camp sits at 3,400 metres and the season is short — in exchange for the only continuously erupting volcano where you can stare into the vent.
The 1979 Air New Zealand disaster
Erebus carries one painful piece of recent history. In 1979, an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight crashed into the lower flank in whiteout conditions, killing 257 people. A memorial cross stands at Scott Base on Ross Island. The investigation reshaped aviation safety procedures around polar tourism flights.
How magma stays alive at the Pole
How a stratovolcano remains active in the middle of Antarctica is itself a puzzle. The leading idea is a mantle plume — a column of hot rock rising from deep within the Earth that intersects the crust at Ross Island and a few other points in the West Antarctic Rift.
Why Erebus matters
Erebus is a window onto how the deep Earth works in conditions nothing else on land can match. It is also a reminder that Antarctica is not just ice — it is an active continent geologically as well as politically.
On the map
Open the map and zoom to Ross Island in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica. Erebus dominates the island; Mount Terror and Mount Bird are its quieter neighbours.