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  • WHERE I WORK

Acid test: why the chemistry of this unique crater lake matters

Hanik Humaida monitors the activity of Indonesia’s volcanoes to help protect the public.
  1. James Mitchell Crow

    1. James Mitchell Crow is a freelance writer, based in Melbourne, Australia.

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Hanik Humaida measures the ph of the water in the acidic lake inside the crater of Ijen volcano, East Java, Indonesia. Ijen is home to the biggest acidic lake in the world.

Hanik Humaida is an analytical chemist at the Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Credit: Gaia Squarci for Nature

“I first became intrigued by volcanoes as an undergraduate studying analytical chemistry in Yogyakarta, a city on the Indonesian island of Java. Yogyakarta lies in the shadow of Indonesia’s most famous volcano, Merapi. Every morning, I would see Merapi in the distance, a plume of ash rising from its crater. For my studies, I analysed the metal content of the surrounding volcanic soils.

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Nature 628, 682 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01097-2

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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