Standing at the lip of the lava lake you can see why the locals see this as "the gateway to hell", as the incandescent bubbling lava lake hisses like some badly burned porridge cauldron, overturning and occasionally belching molten lava.

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Dr Bodenschatz and his team are now scrutinising video footage of the lava lake in the Kilauea crater in Hawaii, to see if its zig-zags are produced by the same pattern of cooling and plate-spreading that is observed in the wax.

ECONOMIST: Geophysics

The lake reacts with violent lava fountaining activity, presumably in part due to steam produced from the organic matter.

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