blue volcano

 A strange eruption  creates a dazzling light show The night  is  pitch black but the dark slopes of a hill inside the  crater of Kawah Ijen volcano  in Indonesia a country in Asia are lit up like holiday light show. Tourists flock to the volcano  to see what look like glowing blue rives of lava. but they  aren't  rivers of lava. They'er revers of glowing sulfur. Burning blue  Glowing red lava flowing  an eruption an erupting volcano isn't  unusual. Glowing sulfur is. Hot sulfur rich gasses escape constantly from cracks  called fumaroles in Kawah  Ijen's  crater. The gases cool when they hit the air. Some condense  into liquid sulfur which flow down the hillside. When  the sulfur  and leftover gases ignite  they burn bright blue and light  up the  budget sky. Scientists were told sulfur miners on the volcano sometimes  use torches to aging  the sulfur. The blue  flames make Kawah  Ijen  popular with tourists. who watch from a safe distance. Scientists have also confirmed that some of the sulfur and gases also  burn naturally igniting as hot gases  combine with oxygen  in the air. volcano miners  sulfur  is a common volcanic gas and it chemical it chemical properties are used to manufacture  many things such as rubber. But  it's so plentiful in Kawah Injen's crater that miners make a dangerous daily trek into the crater to collect sulfur form a fumarole near and acid like. The local people  pipe the gases from the fumarole through ceramic pipes say John palmister a  retired  geologist with the cascades volcano Observatory in Washington state. He has walled into the crater himself wearing  a gas mask for protection against th clouds of acid  that rise from the lake. They spray the  pipes with water from a spring he says. This cools the gases and causes them to condense into molten sulfur. The  sulfur then cool and hardens into rock using this method miners get more usable rock faster than if  they just collected scattered pieces. They smash collated scattered pieces. They smash up the rock with  metal bars stuff the piece  into baskets  and carry them out of the crater on their backs the loads are heavy  between 100 and  200 pounds apiece. Reading the Danger  Zone miners face another danger a huge eruption Kawah Ijen last big eruption was almost 200 years ago but the volcano is still active. A big eruption could endanger hundreds of miners and tourist. Indonesian scientist what to find a keep everyone safe but deep acid signals that warn of a coming volcanic  eruption. For example  certain gases are usually more abundant  right before they can register on the geologist monitoring equipment as scientists  search for ways to predict this  unusual  volcano's behavior  Kawah Ijen's  blue  fires continue to attract audience who appreciate the volcano's amazing glow. How  kasha  Ijen  Erupts  earth 's outer shell is broken into a jigsaw puzzle of  several tectonic  plates or gigantic slabs of rock that move constantly  in Indonesia  the oceanic Australian plate slips under the  eurasian plate at a subduction zone. As  the Australia plate slides deep down heat  generated in earth 's interior makes the superhot and parts of rises toward  magma earth 's surface. Pressure on the magma lessen as it rises allowing gases inside to expand  which can lead to explosive volcanic  eruptions Indonesia is a grown of more then 17,500 island off the coast of southeast Asia it the largest   country in the region.  when  the volcano  on the tiny Indonesian island Kraaatau erupted in August 1883, it could be hard thousands of miles away. The rafflesia arnoldii the largest single follow  in the world grows in Indonesia the  flower smells like rotting meat can grow three feet across and weighs up to 24 pounds. Nearly 11 million people  live in Jakarta Indonesia  city with largesse  population that 's almost  2.5 million more people  than are living in new York city  more than active volcanos are in Indonesia. from called book national geographic  kids.