Night Tolbachik

Blogger lusika33 writes: “Let's start publishing night photos of the eruption with a story about a small adventure that we had a chance to experience on the very first night of our stay on Tolbachik. For us, the people who first appeared on a real volcanic eruption, it was, of course, pretty dumb.

(Total 22 photos)

Source: Journal/ru-travel

1. We waited for darkness at the exit of the lava tube (daytime photos of this place were in the previous post) and this is how it looked at dusk.

2. There was a full moon and, apparently, this fact somehow affects the activity of the eruption. Perhaps here the same principle as in the case of sea tides - the gravity of the moon.

3. It was getting dark...

4.

5. We stood quietly and drank vodka. slightly lower than the photographer is now

6. Lava quietly flowed its way.

7.

8. At some point, I went behind a camera lying on the edge of this pit (well, so that someone would not step on it by accident) and when I approached the edge, I saw that this entire funnel was filling up very quickly with lava, and the lava flow in the canyon was almost disappeared! To my suggestion to quickly dump or at least think about where to blame (because all this disgrace spilled on the top of the mound above our heads and it was absolutely unclear where to run in case of something), the old volcanologists said: "It will now begin to merge in the other direction. ". This calmed her a little, but only until the slope crackled under her feet.

9. Let me remind you that the lava flow only comes to the surface here, and it also exists above us, but goes under the frozen crust. It became clear that something blocked the drain of the stream and the lava flowing from above simply climbs into all the cracks that it finds or manages to break through (and she can do it easily, it’s checked).

10. That funnel, which we all photographed so much, probably saved us, since the lava climbed all into it, and did not rise to swell the slope, but which we stood on. It also turned out to be fortunate that it was large enough for the stream to exit through it without encountering much resistance on the way. And it was already quite good that the drain into the canyon was not completely blocked and some part of the stream continued to merge there. At some point, the entire pool was filled and lava poured down over the side with the characteristic noise of escaping porridge.

11. Cool volcanologists laughed at our nix exactly until a jet of gas hit from the center of this whole composition, which could easily cause lava flow at any moment and we could most likely be covered with these lumps. That's when the nix became universal. ))

12. And our porridge ran right to the people who took pictures of the canyon below. A small white flame is noticeable in the center - this is the backpack of "Viktor Mikhailovich from the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, who worked on the last Tolbachik eruption, BTTI 1975 and talked a lot about it." (quote from the previous part ???? His (backpack), alas, there was no way to save it - everything happened very quickly.

13. But in this place lay our photo)) Some feeling prompted in time that it was necessary to hide it)))

14. And in this photo, the moment when the lava knocked out the cork at the exit and went through the canyon in such a stream. In the photos at the beginning of the article, you can see that under normal conditions, the lava flow went deep in the canyon, but the splashed out now did not fit into it entirely! And on the right side of the photo, the stream that flowed through the sides. By the way, if the traffic jam had not been knocked out longer, then this stream would cut off the people's way back and they would have to make a rather big detour, bypassing it))

15. Lava wave goes down the channel.

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17. This is what the funnel looked like after draining the lava

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20. In a few minutes, the top layer of lava was covered with brown scale ...

21. ... And the next day this place looked like this

22. And only Tolbachiki calmly looked at the outrages taking place. This eruption has nothing to do with them yet ...