Have there been any TV specials on lava lakes?
I was reading about lava lakes and got to wondering: have there been any Discovery or other scientific documentary TV specials about them?
I'm curious to know if there are any real-life examples that get even close to what science fiction usually portrays.
Best Answer
There was a 30-minute documentary called Lava Lake Acid Lake by volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft. The Kraffts were famous for close-up photography of lava flows, and in fact, died in Japan in 1991 (along with 41 other people) when a lava flow suddenly changed direction. Their documentary appears to have been released on disc in 2006 by Learning Media of America (Las Vegas) - that company, which distributed educational films for free, may now be out of business, their former web address (lmofa.com) having been subsumed by someone else. The World Catalog shows a few libraries with the disc, so you could ask your local library to try to get it through interlibrary loan. At most public libraries this is a free service, but sometimes holding libraries won't lend something if they consider it rare.
The BBC's 2008 Earth: the Biography covers volcanoes on the first of 2 discs, and the lava lake in Ethiopia is covered. It is available through Amazon, and many libraries have this one, so you should have no problem getting it.
The Nova program (PBS) produced an episode called Volcano Under the City: Will Mount Nyiragongo Obliterate This Thriving City? Nyiragongo is famous for its lava lake, so it is probably discussed. The same volcano is covered in the 2011 National Geographic Explorer series, Season 1 Episode 13, Man vs Volcano.
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Are lava lakes real?
Lava lakes occur in a variety of volcanic systems, ranging from the basaltic Erta Ale lake in Ethiopia and the basaltic andesite volcano of Villarrica, Chile, to the unique phonolitic lava lake at Mt. Erebus, Antarctica. Lava lakes have been observed to exhibit a range of behaviours.How many lava lakes are there?
Persistent lava lakes are actually quite rare; of Earth's roughly 1,500 volcanoes, only seven are known to have lava lakes.Where are the 8 lava lakes?
There are seven other lava lakes in the world and they can be found in volcanoes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Vanuatu, Hawaii and Nicaragua. A final lava lake can be found in the Mount Erebus volcano in Antarctica.Scientist gets too close to lava lake! - Richard Hammond's Journey to the Centre of the Planet - BBC
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