volcanic activity


AN AWESOME SUBJECT


While studying for her PhD in Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, Lorraine Greenwood visited the Afar region of Ethiopia in order to research the activity of the Erta Ale volcano.


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AS AN IGNEOUS petrologist, I look at volcanic rocks and study how they’ve been formed. My field area, the Afar desert region of Ethiopia, is one of the world’s hottest places – temperatures can reach 65ºC in the summer! It’s an incredible place, as three of the earth’s tectonic plates – the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Main Ethiopian Rift – are pulling apart. It’s also one of the least accessible,


meaning our trips take a great deal of careful planning. Te research team consists of scientists from five British universities, and also has links with universities in the


US, Ethiopia, France and New Zealand. One of the most remarkable trips we’ve


taken was to the Erta Ale volcano, which lies in the north of the region. Erta Ale means ‘smoking mountain’, and is aptly named as the volcano has a permanent lake of molten lava in a pit about 20 metres below the surface of the crater, which leads to a plume often rising above the volcano. Trips to the region are always an


adventure. Te numerous lava flows make some areas inaccessible even by four- wheel drive, which means one of our main methods of carrying equipment is camel.


bristol.ac.uk


As part of the project I’m working on we have installed a network of seismometers across Afar, which measure earthquakes triggered as the tectonic plates move slowly apart. As the area is too remote to inhabit permanently the equipment is left on location to monitor activity, with a trip to the area every six months to see what’s been happening. It was one of these service trips that I was


part of, going along as a field assistant. On arrival we found the volcano was erupting and the lava lake had risen – I was able to take ‘zero age’ samples from the erupted


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