Φωτογραφίες

Explosion in the lava lake - Nyiragongo

Picture of the lava lake of Mount Nyiragongo (3470m) in June 2010. Picture taken from the crater summit. I did use an old 500 mm f8 (1 kg) as it was not feasible to bring an heavy lens to the summit.

The Nyiragongo is a stratovolcano belonging to the Virunga volcanic region located just at the northern end of lake Kivu.

One of Africa's most notable volcanoes, Nyiragongo contained a lava lake in its deep summit crater that was active for half a century before draining catastrophically through its outer flanks in 1977. In contrast to the low profile of its neighboring shield volcano, Nyamuragira, 3470-m-high Nyiragongo displays the steep slopes of a stratovolcano. Benches in the steep-walled, 1.2-km-wide summit crater mark levels of former lava lakes, which have been observed since the late-19th century. Two older stratovolcanoes, Baruta and Shaheru, are partially overlapped by Nyiragongo on the north and south. About 100 parasitic cones are located primarily along radial fissures south of Shaheru, east of the summit, and along a NE-SW zone extending as far as Lake Kivu. Many cones are buried by voluminous lava flows that extend long distances down the flanks of the volcano, which is characterized by the eruption of foiditic rocks. The extremely fluid 1977 lava flows caused many fatalities, as did lava flows that inundated portions of the major city of Goma in January 2002.

This picture has been published in: Detay M. — Le Nyiragongo : volcan de tous les dangers et maξtrise des risques, in LAVE, revue de l’association de volcanologie europιenne, 153, 16-29 (2011).