Free Republic

Lava. Ash. Horrifying death. All are known and expected outputs from an active volcano. But one volcano deep in the farthest, frozen reaches of our planet marches to the beat of a slightly different drum. On Ross Island in the Ross Sea, a deep bay in Antarctica, Mount Erebus fumes about 1,350 kilometers (840 miles) from the Geographic South Pole. The world's southernmost active volcano, it bubbles with a permanent lake of blazing lava. And in the gas constantly pouring forth from this gate to the underworld, scientists found microscopic particles of crystalline, elemental gold. According to a 1991 research...

<p>The National Science Foundation says two technicians working on a fire-suppression system at an Antarctica scientific station were found unconscious and died.</p> <p>The foundation said Wednesday the two had been working in a building at McMurdo Station, which is on Ross Island. It says they were found on the floor by a helicopter pilot who had landed after spotting what appeared to be smoke from the building.</p>

SCOTTBASE, Antarctica (AP) — Talk about whisky on ice: Three bottles of rare, 19th century Scotch found beneath the floor boards of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackelton's abandoned expedition base were returned to the polar continent Saturday after a distiller flew them to Scotland to recreate the long-lost recipe. But not even New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who personally returned the stash, got a taste of the contents of the bottles of Mackinlay's whisky, which were rediscovered 102 years after the explorer was forced to leave them behind. "I think we're all tempted to crack it open and have a...