Kawah Ijen’s Mesmerizing Blue Fire
If you gaze upon the
Indonesian Kawah Ijen volcano at night, you’ll encounter a dangerous mix
of beauty and toxicity. Pure molten sulfur that, upon making contact
with air, combusts and smolders, creating a glow reminiscent of blue
fire and spills down the sides of the 8,660 feet tall volcano. The
substance is not lava, as some assume.It’s easy to make that mistake,
though, seeing how the sulfur seeps from the mountains cracks and turns
to liquid as it continues to flow. The event’s combustible nature (the
gases are a forbidding 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit) and noxious gases can create flame bursts up to sixteen feet high.
Source: National Geographic
Most of the amazing images that follow are courtesy of Olivier
Grunewald. Grunewald, a photographer by trade, accompanied a group of
sulfur miners into the volcano to document these brave souls as they
toil away at a job that is likely one of the most dangerous in the
world. For the miners, trekking along a virtual river of sulfuric acid
and retrieving solid pieces of pure sulfur to transport to a weighing
station is all in a day’s work.
And
while Grunewald was able to sport a gas mask during his volcanic
ventures, many of the miners who experience this reality daily are left
with only wet cloths as masks, since the masks they’re given need new
filters that the miners cannot afford to buy themselves. For all the
risk involved, the payout isn’t great; pure sulfur sells for roughly 25
cents per pound. These photos depict the unusual phenomenon occurring at
Kawah Ijen; research geologist Cynthia Werner told National Geographic,
“I’ve never seen this much sulfur flowing at a volcano.”
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