Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble at Hawaii's Halema'uma'u Caldera

It's just amazing that this lake of fire and lava heaves and throbs away for years, venting the energy of some underground inferno.

Here we have two areas of spattering, caused in turn by large bursting gas bubbles, which come to the surface and pop.   They're Pele's burps.

Interestingly, the surface crust tends to flow into the spattering area, where it sinks. This migration can produce rips and tears of the lava lake crust as it approaches the chaotic spattering zone.