Boiling Lake

Okay kiddo, so you know how sometimes when we're cooking, we put a pot of water on the stove and wait for it to get really hot? Sometimes, if that water gets hot enough, it might start to turn into steam, which is just like really hot water that turns into air.

Now, imagine if instead of a little pot on the stove, we had a really REALLY big pot, like big enough to fit an entire lake. And we put that pot on a fire that was hot enough to make the water inside start to turn into steam too.

That's kind of what happens with a boiling lake - it's a really big lake that's so hot, the water inside is turning into steam all the time. But instead of a fire heating things up, it's actually heated by volcanic activity down beneath the surface of the Earth.

And it's called a "boiling" lake because the steam that's constantly rising up from the lake makes it look like it's boiling really fast! But, you should never ever try to swim or touch the water in a boiling lake. Even though it looks cool, it's actually really dangerous because the water is super hot and can burn you or even make you very sick.

So that's what a boiling lake is, it's just a really big lake that's being heated up by a volcano underneath it. Pretty cool, huh?