Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Google Maps' Street View can now lead you into a bubbling lava lake

Journey into live volcano is a feature, not a bug

Google Maps' Street View can now show you the interior of an active volcano, complete with bubbling lava lake.

This one's a feature, not a bug like Apple Maps' mistake that put a town of 30,000 people in the middle of a desert or Bing Maps' use of bad data from Wikipedia that led it to put a city of four million souls in the wrong hemisphere, and therefore in the middle of an ocean.

Google's decided it is simply fun to offer us all a view of Marum Crater, one of two lava lakes in the volcano that dominates the island of Ambrym in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu.

The Alphabet subsidiary tells us that two chaps rappelled 400 meters down into the crater while schlepping a “Street View Trekker”, Google's backpack-mounted image-recorder.

The results can be viewed here. The Register recommends looking upwards: you'll quickly see the lava lake is a long way down inside the caldera and perhaps imagine the forces unleashed when the steep cliffs were created.

For what it's worth, we tried using Google Maps to plot a route from Vulture South to the crater and it obliged, but not with enough detail for a “Honey, are you sure we should be heading for the lava lake?” moment. ®

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like