An Antarctic volcano that has been erupting continuously for at least 1.3 million years, maintaining a persistent lava lake at its summit while the ice sheet surrounds it.
It was named for HMS Erebus, the ship of darkness from Greek mythology — the vessel lost in the search for the Northwest Passage and for which the worst Antarctic fate was also named. The volcano it describes earned that name honestly.
Mount Erebus rises 3,794 metres from Ross Island, visible from McMurdo Station on clear days like a smoking pillar above the ice. At its summit crater, a lava lake has burned continuously for at least 1.3 million years — one of only three persistent lava lakes on Earth, and by far the most remote. The lake is not quiet. It convulses with Strombolian eruptions every few hours, throwing molten rock bombs the size of cars onto the crater rim.
What makes Erebus different from any other active volcano is the extreme juxtaposition. Outside temperatures reach -50°C. The surrounding landscape is white and silent to a degree that registers as a physical pressure. Inside the crater, the lava reaches 900°C. The volcano breathes ice and fire simultaneously. Ice fumaroles rise from the flanks where volcanic heat meets glacier, forming ice towers three metres tall that exhale steam into the polar air.
Scientists who have worked here describe it as the most alien environment on Earth accessible by land. The nearest human settlement is a research station. There are no roads. In winter, no one comes at all. The volcano continues.