Ol Doinyo Lengai Expedition 2004 by Th. Boeckel und Martin Rietze

Lengai expedition II; part II

Gradually the T58 C comes again active, which means to stay the night awake. Night or 24h watches were our live insurances because in the case of a cone break the time of lava flooding can take less than 10 seconds. Fred Belton, made this bad experience 2002. The complete kitchen (tent) was buried under a huge lava flow.

6^th day; „Lava is coming to the camp!“

,If you have lava into the kitchen there is no time for bitching!'

This poem from Fred and Jeff has a truthful sense. During the sleeping time this event would have had catastrophal consequences. So you rest in your tent thinking about what to do if the message comes...

„Lava is coming to the camp!“

Exactly this alarm I mean, and it was the reality. Richard who stood the whole night in connection with Olivier and Fabian by using walky talkys was loudly announcing this volcanic attack. Jumping out of the tent and running like hell I was overwhelmed of the first sight. Two lava streams in precarious speed pushed toward to our tents. However I noticed that the supply from the cone diminished - thus the actual danger was banned. Remarkable was, that in this speed which I ran up to the cones the lava streams lost their glowing luminosity. The flows stopped about 50 m before our tents

Without an announcement the south cone poured over, and in a rapid speed the lava covered completely the steep slope. Stationed on little plateaus the lava flowed around us - in addition you could enjoy still the thermal-visual stereo effect in the centre. This activity repeated itself the whole night and during the day.

Strong activity at the T58 C (South crater)

    tb

The south cone over - flow



        mr

In an distance of 20 meters nearly all photographers were stationed over the whole night close to the happening. Standing with Olivier a little bit beside of the main track of the lava flush Martin, Fabian, Jeff and Richard selected the direct line of fire.

             mr

The estimated speed of the outgoing lava came over 10 m/sec (video)

Without an announcement...

    mr

...the south cone spilt over, and in a rapid speed the lava covered completely the steep slope. Stationed on little plateaus the lava flowed around us - in addition you could enjoy still the thermal-visual stereo effect in the centre. This activity repeated itself the whole night and continued during the next day

The estimated speed of the down flowing lava came over 10 m/sec (video)

        mr    tb Cinema

Ashort but impressive sight was before sunrise. During these special lighting conditions the lava got a strawberry - sorbet similar shining colour (T 58 C). Only in these 10 minutes meaningful photographs were possible at all. On this morning another second surprise with our ‘long faces’ took place. During the second night half when we stood all together at the south cone the most beautiful Pahoehoe lava from the T 49 B/C cone spilled out on the northern side. Without recognising anything we were astonished on the next morning real badly. Without us much volcanic action was going on at this place…!!!.