what was it like working on an active volcano

Question: what was it like working on an active volcano
- Keywords:
  earth,
  volcano,
  work
Asked by Alexander George to Kate, Joe, Jos, Lisa, Pierre on 8 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by mima, Greengiant08.
- Kate Dobson answered on 8 Nov 2014:
  
  Very very exciting. Often very hot, often very smelly.
  
  A lot of the work that goes on at volcano observatories is monitoring, so when the volcano is “happy” and isn’t doing anything dramatic or isn’t changing, then the results from the differet monitoring methods can be the same day after day…. but all you have to do is head out the office door and look at the view to remember quite how amazing, and potentially unpredictable the volcano can be. One of the jobs we had to do every week was map out the area of the new lava flows – by walking along the edge of the flow and recording it’s position. This usually meant that every week the route you did last week has been buried – and will never be walked on again. I found that really quite cool.

Question: what was it like working on an active volcano