Mount Erebus
volcano on Ross Island, Antarctica
Mount Erebus () is the southernmost active volcano on Earth, located on Ross Island in the Ross Dependency in Antarctica. With a summit elevation of 3,792 metres (12,441 ft), it is the second most prominent mountain in Antarctica (after Mount Vinson) and the second-highest volcano in Antarctica (after the dormant Mount Sidley). It is the highest point on Ross Island, which is also home to three inactive volcanoes: Mount Terror, Mount Bird, and Mount Terra Nova. It makes Ross Island the sixth-highest island on Earth by highest point.
The mountain was named by Captain James Clark Ross in 1841 for his ship, HMS Erebus. The volcano has been active for around 1.3 million years and has a long-lived lava lake in its inner summit crater that has been present since at least the early 1970s. On 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed on Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.
Geology and volcanology
Mount Erebus is the world's southernmost active volcano. It is the current eruptive centre of the Erebus hotspot. The summit contains a persistent convecting phonolitic lava lake, one of five long-lasting lava lakes on Earth.
The public source identifies “Mount Erebus” as volcano on Ross Island, Antarctica. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mount, Erebus and volcano.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Mount Erebus”, the useful work is to connect “volcano on Ross Island, Antarctica” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q188982. VIAF identifies the subject as 247811450. The Library of Congress control number is sh94008167. Authority coordinates are -77.533, 167.283. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1841 and 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mount Erebus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.