Volcanological and Environmental Studies of Mount Erebus, Antarctica

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Antarctic Research Series, Volume 66.In January 1841 Captain James Clark Ross sailed in his two small ships Erebus and Terror into the then unknown southern Ross Sea and discovered and named Mount Erebus.

In his journal Ross noted: ...it proved to be a mountain twelve thousand four hundred feet of elevation above the level of the sea, emitting flame and smoke in great profusion; at first the smoke appeared like snow drift, but as we drew nearer, its true character became manifest.

On January 28, 1841, Ross reported: At 4 P.M. Mount Erebus was observed to emit smoke and flame in unusual quantities, producing a most grand spectacle.

A volume of dense smoke was projected at each successive jet with great force, in a vertical column, to the height of between fifteen hundred and two thousand feet above the mouth of the crater, when condensing first at its upper part, it descended in mist or snow, and gradually dispersed, to be succeeded by another splendid exhibition of the same kind in about half an hour afterwards, although the intervals between eruptions were by no means regular.

The diameter of the columns of smoke was between two and three hundred feet, as near as we could measure it; whenever the smoke cleared away, the bright red flame that filled the mouth of the crater was clearly perceptible; and some of the officers believed they could see streams of lava pouring down its sides until lost beneath the snow...