Lava Lakes

On the Cover: Lava lakes are beautiful, fascinating, and formidable expressions of active volcanism. They, and the volcanoes they top, are portals to Earth’s hot, roiling depths. Nyiragongo volcano, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one of less than a handful of volcanoes on Earth with an active, long-lived lava lake. In January 2006, Tom Pfeiffer took this photo from only 600 meters above Nyiragongo’s lava lake.