Deadly Eruptions of Africa’s Mysterious Exploding Lakes

In Africa, three unique lakes have baffled scientists for years: Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun in Cameroon and Lake Kivu in Rwanda. All three are referred to as 'exploding lakes.' But what could cause a lake to explode? The answer lies beneath the surface. While most bodies of water naturally absorb and release carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without disturbance, these African lakes sit above active volcanic areas where magma below the Earth's crust releases this gas directly into them. This creates layers of supersaturated deep water filled with high concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide. In the case of Lakes Nyos and Monoun precisely, this harmful gas can suddenly escape its watery confinement in a phenomenon known as a limnic eruption. Tragically, such an event happened at Nyos in 1986 when over 1,700 people and thousands of animals were killed by a cloud of suffocating carbon dioxide that emerged from the lake. Lake Kivu is somewhat different as it also contains large amounts of methane due to the decomposition of organic materials. If disturbed substantially — either naturally or due to human activities — a massive outgassing could occur, releasing both gases, which have the potential for catastrophic consequences given the dense local populations. The peculiarity of these three ‘exploding’ lakes is not commonly found globally, making it one unusual scientific fact that is hard to believe yet intriguingly accurate.

For more details on this phenomenon, see Freeth S.J. (1992). Natural Hazards: Lakes That Explode. Nature 356(6369):385-7. DOI: 10.1038/356385a0. - Kling G.W., Clark M.A., Compton H.R. (1987) The 1986 Lake Nyos Gas Disaster in Cameroon, West Africa. Science, New Series, Vol. 236, No. 4798 (Apr. 10, 1987), pp. 169-175.