Acid lake atop ‘Mount Doom’ in striking new image from space
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has snapped a stunning image of a snow-circled hydrothermal lake atop the real-life Mount Doom in New Zealand. Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand’s largest active volcano and the setting used to film Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings movies, sits at the heart of Tongariro National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located at the centre of New Zealand’s North Island. Other locations in the park were also used to portray the evil realm of Mordor in Peter Jackson’s cinematic adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic series. An unidentified astronaut, part of the Expedition 65 crew on board the ISS, snapped the stunning new photo on 23 September 2021 as the station passed over the volcano.
The hydrothermal lake at the summit of Mount Ruapehu, known as Crater Lake, or Te Wai ā-moe in Māori, sits between the mountain’s three main peaks, the tallest of which reaches 2,797 metres above sea level. A magma chamber deep within the volcano heats the lake, and as a result the temperature of the lake fluctuates between 15 and 45 degrees Celsius. The lake is also highly acidic – with a ph of less than one – due to large amounts of volcanic gases that dissolve in the water. Crater Lake is important to geologists who monitor the volcano’s threat level. The hydrothermal lake is the only accessible part of the volcanic system that researchers can study, and rapid temperature fluctuations in the water can reflect changes in the activity below the volcano’s snowy peak.
In June, the alert level for Mount Ruapehu was increased from ‘minor volcanic unrest’ to ‘moderate to heightened volcanic unrest following a mini-swarm of earthquakes underneath the volcano. During this time, the temperature of the water in Crater Lake sharply increased to a peak temperature of 40 degrees Celsius. But the alert level was downgraded in July after the water temperature dropped to 24 degrees Celsius. Based on the temperature changes in the lake, experts believe the spike in activity was the result of a brief magma intrusion in the chamber below the volcano.