MOSCOW (January 12, 2013)--A volcano was erupting Saturday in Russia's Far East, sending plumes of gas and ash high into the sky and creating a lava lake.
The Plosky Tolbachik volcano is on the Kamchatka peninsula, hundreds of miles from the nearest residential areas.
"There were no lava lakes at Kamchatka volcanoes before now. We have never seen this before," Gennady Karpov, a volcano expert at Russia's Academy of Sciences in the Far East, said,
Plosky Tolbachik has emitted jets of hot lava as high as 650 feet.
Its last eruption occurred in November after the volcano was dormant for almost 40 years.
Russian officials say the current eruptions are not likely to end any time soon, but, the volcano is not forcing any changes in the flight patterns of airlines that pass over that area of Russia, said Karpov and the European air traffic agency Eurocontrol in Belgium.