Ol Doinyo Lengai is among the most unearthly volcanoes on planet Earth, possibly even in the entire Sun Device. Whilst it sounds as if standard sufficient from afar, take a peek into its northern crater and you’ll be able to see it oozes with a singular type of black lava that’s reasonably cool and flows like runny motor oil. Situated within the East African Rift of northern Tanzania, Ol Doinyo Lengai is the one energetic volcano recognized to gargle carbon-based lava, referred to as natrocarbonatite lava. There may be some proof that volcanoes on Venus can have as soon as erupted natrocarbonatite lava too, however this African massive is the one recognized manufacturer on Earth (no less than in reasonably fresh occasions).Maximum volcanoes churn out lava wealthy in silicate minerals, making its melting level over 900°C (1,652 levels Fahrenheit). The lava of Ol Doinyo Lengai comprises reasonably little silica, however has an abundance of carbonate minerals, permitting the lava to go into a liquid state at simply 540°C (1,004 levels Fahrenheit).The loss of silica makes the lava extraordinarily viscous. When an eruption happens, it appears extra like a spluttering pot of black motor oil than an oozing path of red-hot lava.Given the viscosity of its lava, scientists are lovely shocked the volcano can erupt so violently. Explosive eruptions frequently happen in different volcanoes as a result of fuel bubbles can transform trapped throughout the gloopy lava. Nonetheless, it’s transparent that Ol Doinyo Lengai can erupt with an intense flurry of liquidy lava, possibly as a result of it is loaded with dissolved carbon dioxide and different gases, making it bubbling like a fizzy soda. Status at a lofty top of two,962 meters (9,718 ft), the volcano is armed with two craters, however most effective its northern one erupts. The newest eruption length started in April 2017 and was once nonetheless effervescent away as of the newest document in March 2024. In 2009, volcanologists accumulated fuel samples from Ol Doinyo Lengai to unearth the rationale at the back of its distinctive carbon-based lavas. Interestingly, they discovered that the make-up of gases was once “indistinguishable” from the ones emitted alongside mid-ocean ridges regardless of the volcano being situated inland, a ways from deep-sea mountain levels.This led the researchers to conclude that the original carbon-rich lava was once being created via the melting of minerals within the Earth’s higher mantle, the chunky layer of rock simply underneath the planet’s crust. “The chemistry and isotopic composition of the gases disclose that the CO2 is immediately sourced from the higher mantle underneath the East African Rift,” David Hilton, professor of geochemistry at Scripps Establishment of Oceanography at UC San Diego and coauthor of the 2009 paper, stated in a commentary.”Those mantle gases let us infer the carbon content material of the higher mantle this is generating the carbonatites to be round 300 portions in keeping with million, a focus this is nearly just like that measured underneath mid-ocean ridges,” added Hilton. 
A hen’s-eye view of Ol Doinyo Lengai taken via an astronaut onboard the World Area Station on October 6, 2020.Symbol credit score: ISS/NASA
The East African Rift device upon which Ol Doinyo Lengai sits has been tectonically energetic for round 25 million years and stays some of the fascinating geologic sizzling spots on the planet. Carving down the jap aspect of Africa, it’s successfully a large tear throughout the African Plate that’s drifting aside via a couple of millimeters in keeping with 12 months. In hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of years, it will in the end break up the African continent in part, growing a brand new ocean between East Africa and the remainder African Plate. This divergent plate boundary is answerable for lots of the towering peaks within the area, together with Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, and – closing however now not least – Ol Doinyo Lengai.
