June 1998

Jim Webster travels with a team of Museum colleagues to Kawah Ijen Volcano in eastern Java, Indonesia to collect a large boulder of pure sulfur. This sulfur formed from gases released by this active and explosive volcano. Volcanic processes like those at Kawah Ijen play a key role in forming ocean basins, mountains, and continents. A Scientists at Work video featuring Jim and two volcanologists from the Indonesian Volcanological Survey is shot during this expedition.

On this active Indonesian volcano, the expedition team wears gas masks to protect them from the poisonous volcanic gases.

photo credit: Denis Finnin, © American Museum of Natural History