Screen Scenes Volcanoes 003

Screen Scenes Volcanoes 002

Screen Scenes Volcanoes 001

If You Can't Stand The Heat... Keep Away

If you can't stand the heat... keep away from the volcano: Astonishing picture of scientist just metres from boiling hot lava cauldron

He looks like he's on a journey to the centre of the Earth.

But unlike the professor in Jules Verne's novel of the same name, this scientist could meet a fiery end if he goes any further.

In these stunning pictures, fearless Geoff Mackley looks like a speck of tin foil next to the 1,150C molten pit raging inside the crater of a volcano.

Scroll down to watch the abseil...

Like the surface of the sun: Getting to within just 30m of the molten lava, Geoff Mackley has become the first person ever to get so close to the centre of this volcano

Lava Lake at Nyiragongo Volcano

Mount Nyiragongo is located inside Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 20 km north of the town of Goma and Lake Kivu. It is one of the most active volcanoes in Africa, and one of eight volcanoes in the Virunga Mountains. The main crater is about two km wide and usually contains a lava lake which appear in the summit crater.

Nyiragongo's lava lake has at times been the most voluminous known lava lake in recent history. The depth of the lava lake varies considerably depending on the activity of the volcano. A maximum elevation of the lava lake was recorded at about 3250 m (10,700 ft) prior to the January 1977 eruption - a lake depth of about 600 m (2000 ft). A recent very low elevation of the lava lake was recorded at about 2700 m (8800 ft).

Not much is known about how long the volcano has been erupting, but since 1882, it has erupted at least 34 times, including many periods where activity was continuous for years at a time, often in the form of a churning lava lake in the crater.