Super volcanoes like Campi Flegre in Italy pose a greater threat than their more famous neighbors like Mount Vesuvius because they lack visible warning signs—unlike typical volcanoes that build up into cones, super volcanoes are massive underground magma chambers that can erupt catastrophically without the classic mountainous structure, making them particularly dangerous to densely populated areas like Pozzuoli where residents live directly on active fault lines.
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POZZUOLI CRACKS OPEN — Massive Rift Connects Campi Flegrei to VesuviusAñadido:
Day one, a small but powerful tremor is shaking the city of Naples, Italy. The news networks are reporting on the event. The experts believe that Mount Vuvius, the strato volcano on the Gulf of Naples, will explode soon. But when?
It's erupted many times in the past. In fact, that's how it got its shape. It's made of multiple layers of hardened lava, pummus, and ash. Vuvius [music] last erupted in 1944, but a major blast happened there nearly 2,000 years ago.
It buried [music] the Roman towns of Pompei and Herculanium and decimated the surrounding areas. [music] Today, 3 million people live less than 20 m from the volcano [music] and 600,000 live in the danger zone. Large eruptions happen every [music] few thousand years, usually after long periods of calm. And the trouble is Vuvius is long overdue for [music] its next one. This time though, the volcano is being watched by the Vuvius Observatory. It has seismic stations, [music] special GPS arrays, and satellite based radar to help it measure ground movement. They also have [music] special equipment to test the chemicals found in the gases coming from the volcano. All of this helps the [music] experts work out whether it's about to go off. But will it? Right now, the magma is more than 6 mi from the surface. Things seem safe yesterday, but now they're about to take a turn for the worse.
Day three. Another tremor comes in [music] measuring three on the RTOR scale. All the equipment that's installed near the volcano is now going [music] off. The magma is pushing upwards. It's not at the surface yet, but [music] Vuvius is definitely restless. Two more tremors follow in the afternoon. They don't feel like regular earthquakes, and geologists can see the difference in their seismographs.
[music] Volcanic quakes register about four to five less on the RTOR scale. Now, [music] the experts are sure it's just a matter of days or weeks until the volcano erupts. Some volcanoes can be restless for months or even years before they go off, but that's not how it goes with Vuvius.
Day four. The ground starts to crack open as if a giant creature is trapped in the Earth's crust [music] and is trying to desperately get out for some air. Steam escapes from the little cracks in the soil. Certain areas are hotter than others. If you went there, [music] it would feel like you walked straight into an oven and it would be hard to breathe. Some sheep got too close to the mountain and passed out.
When the farmer found them, he almost collapsed, too. Not from the heat, but from the gases. Carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide are being released into the air. The entire area around the volcano smells like rotten eggs, and many of the forest animals are [music] now staying clear. The nearby trees have been absorbing these gases from the soil for days on end now, and they're starting to turn brown. The carbon dioxide levels in the area are skyrocketing, and all the detectors are beeping constantly. Day six.
The tremors are getting more frequent.
Experts at the Vuvius Observatory monitoring the volcano say the quakes are coming from the magma that's being pushed upwards. A few hours later, [music] the National Emergency Alert goes out. Thousands of local people have around 15 days before the volcano erupts, and they need to evacuate their homes. The 600,000 people in the danger zone start to pack their suitcases and leave in cars and trucks. There's chaos everywhere. [music] But in all that disorder, some people are standing still. They look around trying to understand what's really going on. A few of them are taking photos of their homes. Others are streaming all the confusion on [music] social media.
But the senior citizens are just standing outside looking at their houses one last time. They hope this is all just a false alarm. It's happened before, but who really knows?
Day seven. It was a sleepless night.
Plenty of the locals have already left.
Some good people from other towns drive to the area to help the residents evacuate faster. There's a massive traffic jam, but everyone expected it.
This is why the evacuation started early. Fairies, trains, and buses have canled their services to help the evacuees. They're all working on a tight schedule to make sure everyone gets out safe without any delays. Some people refuse to leave, but their neighbors eventually convince them to go. It will take 7 days to evacuate everyone, and these people will spread out to other areas of the country, not just to the nearby [music] safe regions. Day 10.
More than half of the residents have now left the red zone. After the chaos, there's now [music] silence, and it's interrupted by the eerie sounds of the tremors. Animals are being evacuated, too. Many people are now trying to save as many animals from the forest as they can find.
Day 16. All 25 of the towns that were at risk have now been evacuated. The red zone is empty, but the tremors are getting stronger as the volcano is a pressure cooker ready to explode. White smoke rises from the large opening on the mountaintop and the vents on the side. The molten rock moves toward the surface and the pressurized gases form bubbles just like the ones you see when you boil food. Suddenly, there are some loud booms and then an explosion. It's loud enough to be heard thousands of miles away and the shock wave is felt throughout Italy. Volcanic rock is thrown up into the air. A thick black mushroom cloud forms and expands into the sky. The birds abandon their nests and fly away in huge flocks. The red hot lava is now spewing out of the volcano like a fountain. As it flows downward, it obliterates everything in its path.
Then there's a volcanic landslide. Part of the cone-shaped [music] mountain falls off and millions of tons of soil and rock break loose from the volcano's side and tumble down. The lava spreads on the slopes and it slowly slides down into the forest [music] and the farmlands. The plume of ash, pummus, and other kinds of rock has [music] risen so high into the sky that people can see it from Rome. Then the tower of debris [music] starts falling back to Earth.
First comes the ash, then chunks of rock. The ash in the atmosphere is so dense that it's hard to breathe. [music] The lava slowly spreads across the area and pulls down all the trees. All the nearby towns are shrouded in darkness and smoke. Buildings [music] collapse and all around there's a mixture of heated poisonous gas and rock moving faster [music] than a car. Other rocks and more volcanic ash fall miles away from the volcano, [music] hitting cars and destroying roofs. The sky is completely black as the lava keeps on coming. Slowly, all the nearby towns are submerged beneath the molten rock. Some of the lava even reaches the sea.
Gigantic white steam covers the shore where it falls in and the magma turns black. Now a weird neon blue fire appears on the slopes of Vuvius. This is caused by burning sulfuric gases.
They're escaping at high pressure from the cracks in the volcano [music] surface. When they come into contact with the air, they ignite. These blue flames can reach [music] 16 ft into the air. Now all nearby flights are cancelled and many planes have to change course to reach their destination. Ever since the national alert, no planes have been allowed to fly over the volcano.
The clouds of volcanic ash can damage jet engines and other plane components.
The water supply is now contaminated [music] by streams of volcanic ash, and it smells unbelievably bad. In just a short amount of time, all that magma has made entire [music] towns vanish. Only the roofs of taller buildings can be seen. After the big and explosive >> [music] >> eruption, there are some smaller and quieter ones. At this stage, nobody knows if the volcano [music] has stopped erupting yet, and absolutely no one can go anywhere near [music] the area.
10 years later, most parts [music] of the red zone are now hidden under hardened but still warm lava, including the ancient site of Pompei. Some people have started to forget about what happened. Others have begun their new lives elsewhere, and some don't even want to think about what happened to their old homes. But several of them are counting the days until they can [music] go back. 100 years later, you're walking in [music] what appears to be a wasteland of volcanic ash. You suddenly realize that you're standing on top of your greatgrandparents [music] town.
Everything is now submerged under a thick carpet of solidified [music] lava.
But below it all, just about everything is still intact, completely frozen in time.
Oh boy. Scientists predict a volcanic eruption that is likely to [music] be one of the most destructive in the history of our species. There's a 1 in6 chance of it happening in the century, and it could seriously change the climate even more and put millions of lives in danger. Back in January 2022, the Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai volcano erupted in the South Pacific Ocean, creating a huge explosion. It sent tsunamis all the way to Japan, North America, and South America. Tonga itself was hit hard with damage costing nearly 20% of the country's entire economy.
Now, researchers at the Neils Boore Institute in Copenhagen have studied ice samples from Greenland and Antarctica, and their findings are worrying, predicting potential global volcanic disaster. They say there's a real chance of a much bigger eruption, a whopping 10 to 100 times larger than Tongas. In the past, eruptions this size used to change the climate and even cause civilizations to collapse. Despite future volcanic eruption risks, experts say the world isn't prepared at all. Michael Cassidy, a volcanologist from the University of Birmingham, warns that no sufficient effort is made to handle a disaster like this. He says that NASA and other space agencies spend billions on asteroid defense. At the same time, a volcanic super eruption is way more likely than an asteroid impact. And right now, there's no global plan for dealing with a massive eruption, even though it's likely to be far more destructive.
The last magnitude 7 eruption happened in 1815 at Mount Tambora in Indonesia.
Then, thousands of people lost their lives in just a few days. The disaster also disrupted weather and caused food shortages worldwide, affecting millions.
That eruption was the biggest in recorded history. It blasted a massive cloud of particles into the sky. Those particles blocked sunlight, cooled the planet, and caused worldwide chaos. The year after the eruption became known as the year without a summer. Temperatures plummeted, crops failed, famine spread, and a color pandemic broke out, leading to tens of thousands of lost lives. A shocking fact, the eruption may have even inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein while stuck indoors during the unusually cold summer of 1816 [music] in Switzerland. Now, since then, many volcanoes have erupted, but none have matched Tambbora's [music] scale. Now, over 200 years later, scientists warned that there's a new super volcano threat. Another massive eruption could be on the way, and the world might not be ready for it. [music] So, while scientists seriously discuss the likelihood of the next volcanic eruption, experts are calling for urgent action to prepare before it's too late.
So, the thing is, a massive volcanic [music] eruption today could be even more devastating than the year without a summer. Unlike back then, we're already [music] dealing with all kinds of weather changes and a more fragile global system, which [music] could make the effects even worse. Dr. Michael Rampino, a geological scientist, [music] warns that the world is more unstable now, and it means that a modern-day mega [music] eruption could have even more severe consequences. But this time, greenhouse gases [music] from fossil fuels may make the aftermath of such an eruption even colder instead of warmer.
So, we're talking about volcanic activity endangering humanity.
Dr. Thomas Aubrey, a volcanologist, found that in a hotter, more turbulent atmosphere, the sulfur dioxide gas released by a volcanic eruption [music] would spread faster and farther than in the past. This gas forms sulfate aerosols, which reflect sunlight and cause global cooling. Because these tiny particles would be more evenly distributed, they'd have a stronger cooling effect than in 1815. Another atmospheric scientist at Cambridge explains that the size of these airborne particles matters. [music] It affects how they absorb sunlight and in a future warmer climate, an eruption could make the surface cooling stronger by 15%.
At the same time, there are still many unknowns. Scientists from the University of Geneva say that we're only beginning to understand the full impacts of such an event. It's also difficult to precisely estimate future volcanic eruption risks [music] since we have very little data on older eruptions. So to understand past volcanic activity, researchers analyze ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica as well as ancient tree rings. Those act as historical records of weather changes.
These measurements suggest that several eruptions in the past few thousand years temporarily cooled the planet by about [music] 2 to 2 1/2° F.
One of the most catastrophic examples is the [music] 1257 Somalus eruption in Indonesia which was so powerful that it likely triggered the little ice age. It was a period of global cooling that lasted for hundreds of years. More recently, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo [music] eruption in the Philippines slightly cooled Earth for a few years. Because this eruption happened in the satellite era, scientists were able to measure exactly how much sulfur [music] dioxide was released and how it affected the atmosphere.
But even with modern tools like satellites and seismic instruments, scientists still [music] have difficult times forecasting the next big volcanic eruption. Luckily, even though we can't predict the exact timing, we can study worst [music] case scenarios to help authorities prepare. This includes creating evacuation plans and stockpiling food in case of global crop failures [music] caused by volcanic cooling. The changes in weather patterns might make volcanoes more active.
Melting glaciers [music] can reduce pressure on underground magma, which will increase the chances of an eruption. Plus, more extreme rainfall, which is becoming more and more common, can seep into volcanic cracks and cause powerful [music] steamdriven explosions.
It can affect both active and dormant volcanoes.
Because of these risks, researchers are now mapping volcanoes that are the most vulnerable to climate change. Their studies show that the highest super [music] volcano threat comes from such areas as Iceland, Chile, and Indonesia.
Those are places where glaciers are melting quickly or rainfall is increasing dramatically. A 2022 study found that 716 volcanoes worldwide, that's about 58% of all known active above ground volcanoes, could be triggered by extreme rainfall, increasing the likelihood of another mini ice age. Now, let's get back to that Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai eruption that occurred on January 15th, 2022.
[music] Scientists have confirmed that it created the highest plume ever recorded.
The volcano located underwater in the South Pacific sent an ash cloud 187,000 [music] ft high. That's higher than any previously recorded eruption. What makes this eruption even more remarkable is that it was the first to ever reach the meosphere. It's the third layer of Earth's atmosphere. The meosphere begins at about 160,000 [music] ft above Earth, where meteors start burning up and creating shooting stars.
To measure the plume's height, researchers from the University of Oxford and Ralph [music] Space used data from three geostationary weather satellites. Before this, the record for the highest volcanic plume was held by Mount [music] Pinatubo's 1991 eruption in the Philippines, which reached 131,000 ft high. Interestingly, this kind of measurement was only possible [music] thanks to modern satellite technology, and a decade ago, no one would have been able to do this.
Another volcano we should mention in relation to a potential global volcanic disaster is located on Iceland's Rkinus Peninsula. Its latest eruption happened in November of 2024, leading to evacuations in nearby areas. The eruption began just after 11 p.m. with little warning. The volcano released orange lava from a nearly 2-m long fissure. Authorities ordered evacuations for about 50 homes and guests staying at the Blue Lagoon Spa Resort, a popular tourist destination southwest of Reiku.
While air travel was not affected, officials still warned of potentially dangerous gas emissions spreading across parts of the peninsula, including the nearby town of Grindic. Grindic, home to 3,800 residents, [music] has repeatedly witnessed volcanic activity and past eruptions even damaged its infrastructure and forced evacuations.
For example, in August 2024, a 2 and 1/2 mile long crack opened at the Sunu and Kongigar crater near Grindic. It led authorities declaring a state of emergency as lava flowed in multiple directions. Fortunately, Iceland's meteorological office reported that the latest eruption was significantly smaller than the one in August. Geoysics experts conducted aerial surveys and figured out that the situation appeared less intense than the previous eruptions. These days, Grindic is not at risk, but the possibility of further developments cannot be ruled out.
Scientists predict more volcanic eruptions.
You're in Italy. Perfect sun, perfect pizza. But enjoying that view, it might be a fatal mistake. That piece is a total illusion. Literally a few miles beneath your sneakers, the Earth isn't just sleeping, it's taking a deep, nervous breath. And I mean it.
Geologists are sweating right now because this hidden process isn't just happening, it's accelerating fast.
When most people think about volcanoes in Italy, they think about Mount Vuvius and that tragic story of the ancient city of Pompei. Ash falling from the sky, a city frozen in time. A tall volcano standing over the Bay of Naples.
Vuvius [music] looks dangerous and it makes sense that people focus on it. But Vuvius is [music] not the biggest threat in the area. The real danger is harder to see. Just west of Naples is an area called Campy Flegre. The name means burning fields. If you visit, it doesn't look like a volcano at all. There's no mountain, no cone, no rivers of lava.
Instead, you see towns, ports, roads, and neighborhoods. People live their everyday lives there. That's because Campy Flegre is not a normal volcano.
[music] It's a super volcano. Forget the classic pointy mountain. Regular volcanoes build up, but super volcanoes blow down. They leave behind a massive bull-shaped depression called a caldera.
Campy Flegre is so vast you could stand right in the center and never realize you're on top of a volcano. In fact, a huge chunk of Naples is built right inside it. Can you picture this? Homes, schools, and highways sit on ground that is still active. It's like a giant chest taking a [music] breath, rising and falling. Scientists call this Brady sizm. Entire neighborhoods have shifted up or down by feet over the centuries.
But how? That rhythm is changing fast.
Around 2022, scientists started paying much closer attention to the area.
Seismic activity was increasing and new tools [music] made it possible to look at the data in better ways. Researchers gathered records of more than 54,000 earthquakes. Most of them were small.
[music] Many were too weak for people to even feel. When all of that data was put on a map, it looked like chaos.
Thousands of tiny dots spread everywhere with no clear pattern. To the human eye, it was just [music] noise. Too much information to make sense of. So, scientists turned to machine learning.
Instead of looking at each quake one by one, AI models were used to scan the entire data set at once. The goal wasn't to predict an eruption. It was to see how stress was moving underground.
That's when something new showed up.
Hidden inside all that messy data was a large circular fault system, a ring-shaped crack in the Earth's crust that outlined the edge of the caldera.
It had always been there, but it was buried in the noise. Once the AI pulled it out, it changed how scientists understood the whole system. This kind of ring fault matters a lot. It acts like a pathway. Pressure from deep underground, magma, hot water, and volcanic gases can move along it more easily than through solid rock. Instead of pressure spreading out evenly, it gets focused along this ring. That alone would be concerning, but the story doesn't stop there. The new study uncovered something scary under Potui.
The city is sitting on a crossroads of deep cracks in the earth, including the newly discovered ring fault. Scientists used to think this area was low risk, but the new numbers tell a different story. Hatuoli sits on the weakest spot of the whole system. Since the rock is already so broken up underground, the pressure has an easy way out. That means when the magma chamber breathes, this city takes the hardest hit. Residents aren't just neighbors to the volcano.
[music] They're sitting right on top of the exhaust pipe.
Based on this new data, scientists are saying that magnitude 5 earthquakes are not just possible. They're likely. To many people, that number doesn't sound all that scary. We see headlines about magnitude 7s and 8s in the Pacific all the time. But Campy Flare plays a completely different set of rules. The danger here isn't just the size of the quake, it's the location. In places like Tokyo, quakes are usually deep. So by the time the waves reach you, they feel like a rolling motion. But here, earthquakes are incredibly shallow.
Sometimes starting just a few thousand ft below the pavement. That makes a huge difference because the explosion is happening right under your feet. The ground doesn't roll, it jolts hard. It's a violent vertical kick that amplifies the damage. Even a small quake here hits with the intensity of a truck crash. And that kind of force is bad news also because of the buildings. Many structures in this area are old historic treasures, sure, but [music] dangerous.
They were built centuries before modern seismic safety codes were even a concept. We're talking about things that were never designed to move. Thick stone [music] walls, aging water pipes, and rusted gas lines. None of this handles shaking very well. Modern steel bends.
These old stones just crack. All of this destruction is driven by a phenomenon called Bradyism. Think of it as a massive hydraulic system operating deep underground. Miles below the surface, a volatile mix of magma, superheated fluids, and volcanic gases are constantly trapped. Over time, that cocktail builds up immense pressure. As the pressure grows, it pushes against the crust, literally lifting the ground and the entire city upward. When the gas escapes or the pressure drops, the ground sinks back down. It's a slow, relentless cycle of rising and falling.
And this isn't just a scientific theory.
We have clear physical proof. In Potui, there is an ancient Roman building called the Temple of Sarapus. Its stone columns are marked with holes made by sea creatures that only live underwater.
Those holes show that the building once sank below sea level and stayed there for a long time. Later, it rose back up again. The ground didn't move suddenly.
It moved slowly over centuries. The Earth here has always been unstable, slowly breathing in and out. What scares scientists today is how fast the movement is happening now. Since April 2025, the ground has pushed up 6 in every single month. That doesn't sound like much, but in geology, that's fast.
Over a year, it adds up to nearly 7 in.
Buildings are not designed to move like that. As the ground lifts, foundations get stressed, pipes stretch, roads bend.
At the same time, the ring fault is being pulled tighter and tighter.
Systems under stress don't always fail slowly. Sometimes they break all at once. It wouldn't take a huge event to push things over the edge. A small shift in magma, a sudden release of gas.
Something like that could trigger stronger earthquakes. If that scenario plays out, we're not talking about some cracked plaster or a few broken windows.
It hits the panic button for the entire red zone. And let's be real, evacuating Naples isn't just hard. It's a logistical nightmare straight out of a disaster movie. We're talking about a critical red zone holding half a million people from Potsui to western Naples who would have to evacuate the second the alarm sounded. And right next door is the yellow zone where another 800,000 residents are sitting directly in the path of choking volcanic ash. These are narrow, winding ancient streets built for donkeys and carts, not for half a million panic-stricken people trying to leave at the same time. It's a recipe for absolute gridlock. We're talking bumperto-bumper [music] traffic where nobody moves an inch. Then there's the money. The economic hit would be [music] staggering. Overnight, one of the most vibrant places on Earth turns into a ghost town. No tourism, shops boarded up, businesses wiped out. The ripple effect wouldn't stop at the Italian border. It would hit the whole European economy. Now, sure, this isn't ancient Pompei. We have satellites and smartphones. We are totally blind. So, hey, apparently there is absolutely no need to be worried, right?
>> It happened in Iceland on Friday, March 19th, 2021 at 8:45 p.m. about 20 mi southwest of the capital. Molten rock suddenly burst through the surface from below. Bright lava fountains then lit up the night sky. A volcano in this valley finally woke up after almost 800 years of sleeping soundly. We divide volcanoes into three categories: active, dormant, or extinct. Around 1,900 of them around the globe are considered active. That means they've erupted in the recent past [music] and will likely do it again in the possible near future. Dormant volcanoes haven't popped off for a long time, but they still may in the future.
You could say they're sort of sleeping.
As for extinct ones, those guys haven't done anything in more than a million years. The eruption in Iceland wasn't super explosive, and this all happened 6 miles from the nearest town, so everyone was perfectly safe. Many even came to see it up close, while other brave visitors tried to fry eggs and bacon on the lava. Just be careful not to burn your breakfast black. Lava can be over 2,000° F. It burns everything in its path. Yet, it also produces some of the most fertile land for agriculture. This eruption gave a relatively small amount of lava at first, but it's been spreading across the valley in different directions, forming a sort of shield that's constantly growing. You can never really predict how fast a lava flow will be until you see it. It all depends on how thick it is and how steep the mountain slope. Lava can ooze slowly at about 20 ft a minute, a fraction of the average person's walking speed. Or it can flow as fast as 30 mph, which even the fastest person on Earth can't outrun. But the lava isn't even the [music] most dangerous thing about volcanoes. That would be the toxic gases spewing from the eruption, and those spread faster and further than the lava flow. Luckily, in Iceland's case, the wind has been blowing these gases away from residential areas. Scientists weren't surprised this volcano erupted.
They knew it was coming. Increasingly stronger earthquakes had been shaking this area for the past 15 months. There were 50,000 [music] earthquakes within just the 3 weeks leading up to the eruption. That's 100 per hour. The volcano has been active since March. And geologists say this could last for weeks, months, years, or even decades of constant eruptions in the area.
Mount Shasta is in the [music] top five most dangerous volcanoes in the US. So geologists are keeping a close eye on it. The last [music] eruption was in 1250. I wasn't around then. But this volcano [music] erupts every 600 to 800 years, which means tick- tock, we're due any day now. About an hour from Portland, Oregon, there's an active volcano that last erupted in the 19th century. Next time it goes off, scientists think it'll produce larger amounts of ash and dust. This could cause an electrical blackout and make water unsafe to drink in the area.
But the experts pay close attention to Mount Hood. They'll be able [music] to give plenty of warning so people can react in time.
Kilawea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. [music] It's been erupting almost constantly since 1983, making it also one of the longest eruptions known [music] on Earth. It's the youngest land volcano in Hawaii.
Volcanoes can take thousands of years to form, but others can pop up practically overnight.
A volcano in Mexico just erupted in an open field in 1943 and started growing from there. Within a year, it was almost 1,500 ft tall. When the eruptions finally stopped 9 years later, the mount had reached a height of over 9,200 ft.
Mount Fuji is an iconic symbol of Japan.
The last time it erupted was in 1707, and it sent a shower of burning rocks as far as 60 mi away. If a similar eruption happened today, Tokyo would be within that vicinity.
Mount Fuji is right [music] on the Ring of Fire, that horseshoe shaped region in the Pacific Ocean, full of active volcanoes [music] and earthquakes. From one end to the other, it's almost 25,000 m long. It could wrap [music] all the way around the Earth's equator. In January 2020, tall volcano in the Philippines started spewing lava, sending huge plumes of ash half a mile up [music] into the sky. The eruption even triggered a rare phenomenon, a dirty thunderstorm.
That's when the smoke cloud above a volcano produces its own lightning. The chance of [music] volcanic tsunamis was also high. Those are usually caused by tectonic movements that occur because of volcanic activity. Tall has erupted more than 30 times in the last 450 years.
This volcano in Ecuador last [music] erupted in 2016.
Scientists think it might be showing some early warning signs of magma on the move. This is an active strat volcano, a specific cone-shaped type with steep sides. They form from sticky lava that doesn't flow that easily. That lava goes around the vent, cooling and piling on itself to form these steep walls. These types are more likely to produce explosive eruptions like the ones we see in movies.
Rua Peeu is the oldest national park in New Zealand, a volcanic wonderland where you can closely see all those steaming craters, magnificent [music] lakes, and unusual rock formations. It last erupted in 2007 and has had 10 eruptions since the mid 19th century.
But eruptions, lava flows, and toxic gases aren't the only danger coming from volcanoes. [music] There's also a thing called laahar, a kind of volcanic [music] mud flow of debris. In between eruptions, snow melts and a lake forms in the caldera. If the last eruption brought mud, ash, and rocks in the lake, it becomes dangerously full. In that case, only a temporary dam holds it back.
Indonesia has the biggest number of [music] active volcanoes in the world, including one called Anac Krakatoa. It means [music] child of Krakatoa and his famous parent isn't far away. A huge tsunami in 2018 partially woke Junior. A scary thought since Senior had one of the most powerful eruptions ever seen on this planet in 1883.
Crakatoa's boom was the loudest sound ever heard. People over 2,000 m away could hear the explosion. The soundwave circled the globe seven times. [music] And scientists say it's hard to predict this volcano's eruption patterns. Mount Ysur in Vanuatu is one [music] of just a few volcanoes in the world where you can see a lava lake. Tourists [music] even go there to peer over the edge and get a look at the burning bubbling lake below.
Well, except [music] for when the volcanic activity goes to levels three and four out of five. [music] That means there are more intense earthquakes, volcanic tremors, or steam, gas, or ash ejections. Then this place [music] is off limits because, duh, this volcano in the Dr. Congo has the most active and largest leg volcano [music] in the world. And all that lava is unusually fluid, meaning it travels faster and further than the stuff coming out of most volcanoes. It's certainly not amongst the tallest ones, but Ethiopia's Ali is unique in that it has a lava lake almost constantly, which [music] is pretty rare. The locals call it a smoking mountain because its lava lake often causes eruptions. This volcano is near [music] the Danakill depression, one of the hottest places on our planet.
Marupi has been erupting on a regular basis since the mid6th century. [music] This volcano helps scientists do crucial research on how eruptions work and how they can warn people in time. After it was [music] dormant for a while, this volcano in central Mexico sprang back to life in 1994.
Ever since then, it's been producing huge mud flows and strong explosions in unpredictable intervals. In the past, enormous eruptions coming from this giant buried entire cities in pyramids.
Imagine [music] staying in a hotel and waking up to the magnificent view of a massive volcano covered in glowing rivers of lava [music] and clouds of ash. When it lets off heat, visitors to this area in Guatemala take a chance to roast some marshmallows there.
One of the most active volcanoes [music] on Earth is on a small island north of Sicily. Stromboli has regular [music] explosions together with glowing lava coming from vents inside the crater.
Not too [music] far away is Etna, Europe's most active volcano and one of the biggest continental ones in the world. By the way, Earth definitely isn't the only planet with [music] volcanoes. The largest one in our solar system is on Mars. It would cover the [music] entire state of Arizona and it rises nearly three times higher than Mount Everest. Oo, don't look down.
>> The last time this volcano erupted was about 500 years ago, but recently small tremors have grown really frequent to such an extent that scientists have been recording more than a thousand a month.
I'm talking about the Campy Flaggery super volcano in Italy. At one point just a few weeks ago, the area was rattled by a 4.4 magnitude earthquake with 150 tremors in just one night. It was the strongest earthquake in over 40 years. A lot of locals spent the night in their cars. But in the morning, the shakes were followed by another earthquake, a bit weaker, with a magnitude of 3.6.
So, is Italy in danger?
Well, the quake itself wasn't big enough to cause serious damage, but it evoked a lot of panic. At the moment, local authorities are working on grandiose emergency plans. If worse comes to worse, they'll have to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people. One of the reasons is the proximity of this area to Naples with more than 3 million inhabitants. At the moment, they're even considering an option of paying people to leave their homes.
Right now, schools remain closed in the Campy Flagry area. The authorities are allocating more than 500 million euros to ensure the safety of buildings and constructions in the area. A yellow alert is still in place in the region where 80,000 people live. There's the so-called red zone, which is the most dangerous [music] area.
There are 1,250 houses in this red zone, and all of them will be at high seismic risk if an eruption begins. Plus, more than twice as many will be at medium risk.
Italy is a country prone to seismic activity. And Poori is a densely populated area that is located on one of the most dangerous super volcanoes in Europe. Campy Flagry has 24 hidden underground craters and dwarfs the better known Vuvius. Yes, the very volcano that wiped the ancient Roman city of Pompei off the face of the earth in 79 CE.
This city thrived near the base of Mount Vuvius at the Bay of Naples. In the time of the early Roman Empire, 20,000 people lived in Pompei. They were merchants, manufacturers, farmers, and others. The soil in the region was rich and fertile, so there were lots of orchards and vineyards. Strangely, no one knew that this black earth was the legacy of an earlier eruption of Mount Vuvius. The area was a favorite summer destination for rich Romans. Sadly, at noon on August 24th, 79 CE, all this prosperity came to an end. The peak of Mount Vuvius exploded, sending a 10-m high mushroom cloud of ash and pummus into the stratosphere. For the next 12 hours, the eruption was wreaking havoc on the city.
Volcanic ash and a hail of pummus stones, some [music] of which were 3 in in diameter, showered Pompei. It forced the city's occupants to flee in terror.
Around 2,000 people holed up in stone structures and cellars, paralyzed by fear. They hoped to wait out the eruption. Who knows, maybe if they [music] had decided to leave the city immediately after the beginning of the eruption, they would have had some chances to survive.
A westerly wind protected the city from the first stages of the eruption. But soon, a giant cloud of hot ash and gas rushed down the western slope of Vuvius.
It engulfed the city, burning everything in its way. This disastrous cloud was followed by a flood of volcanic mud and rock which completely buried the city.
As if the volcano was making sure no one would survive, a cloud of toxic gas poured onto the city, finishing the lives of a few survivors. On August 25th, a flow of rock and ash followed.
It collapsed roofs and walls and turned the city into a giant cemetery.
When a super volcano erupts, the consequences are usually catastrophic.
Super volcanoes have at least once had an eruption with a volcanic explosivity index of 8, which is the largest recorded number on the index. Super volcanoes are often extremely large with [music] no cone at all. That's because they're typically the remains of gigantic magma [music] chambers that once flared up, leaving behind a caldera.
They're usually located over hot spots and appear when huge volumes of magma are trying to escape from deep underground. Eventually, they burst through Earth's surface. Sometimes all this magma gets stuck, unable to break through the planet's crust. And then massive pools of pressurized magma gather at a depth of several miles. The pressure [music] keeps growing because more and more magma is trying to get to the surface. At one point, a super eruption goes off.
The most recent super eruption happened in New Zealand. Well, when I say recent, I meant around 26,500 [music] years ago. That's when a super volcano beneath [music] the surface of Lake Tapo spewed into the air more than 300 cubic miles of ash and pummus. Imagine 500,000 great pyramids of Giza flying up into the air at the same time. That's how incredibly powerful that eruption was.
But the most exciting and [music] confusing thing about the eruption was that the Talpo volcano didn't simply go off like many others. At first, everything was going as usual. Tons and tons of pressurized magma had built up under the surface, and the [music] pressure was getting higher and higher.
But after the rock cracked and the first portion of lava rushed out of the crater, something went wrong and the super volcano took a break. Only several months later, the disastrous eruption shook the ground. Thousands of tons of lava, rocks, and ash flew high into the atmosphere. The unusual pattern of Topo still confuses scientists.
The Indonesian eruption at Toba Caldera 75,000 years ago was the largest eruption in the last 2 million years.
Experts estimate that the eruption could have released hundreds of thousands of tons of sulfuric acid, which might have even caused a several degree cooling of the planet's surface. But nowadays, the [music] impact is hard to detect because of glaciers that covered the ground afterward. There are also several so-called super volcanoes that haven't lived up to this name yet because they've never produced any super eruptions. For example, in 1883, Indonesian volcano Crakatoa [music] went off. The power of the eruption tore the volcano's walls open and cold seaater rushed into its molten insides. The difference in temperatures made the volcano blow up with a deafening boom.
It was clearly [music] heard 3,000 m away in Australia. It earned the blast the title of the loudest sound in history. But even though the consequences of [music] this event were truly catastrophic, it still turned out not powerful enough to be called a super eruption. It only had a volcanic explosivity index [music] of six. Then there's also Mount Aloa. It's a shield volcano, which means it won't produce [music] explosive eruptions, but its sheer size makes this monster of a volcano extremely dangerous. At the moment, the volcano seems to be at peace with its surroundings. Research equipment doesn't show any signs of activity on Monaloa. But if Monaloa did suddenly erupt, lava flows could reach the ocean and the most populated and touristy places like Captain Cook very fast in a matter of hours.
The last time the volcano erupted, lava got as far as the outskirts of Hilo on the other side of the island. That's where the University of Hawaii is located. Luckily, people had a few weeks warning to get ready for the disaster.
Over its recorded [music] history, Monaloa has been erupting pretty regularly, almost every 6 years. On the bright side, big island volcanoes, including Monaloa, aren't really very volatile. That's because they're shield volcanoes. These volcanoes got such a name because they aren't really very high and resemble a warrior shield placed flat on the ground. Shield volcanoes are formed by very [music] fluid lava. It travels way farther and forms much thinner flows than the lava erupted [music] from a strat volcano which is conically shaped and tall like the infamous Krakatoa in [music] Indonesia.
So if Monaloa erupts, there probably won't be ash clouds or tons of debris.
The most dangerous thing will be lava.
Since Monaloa is a shield [music] volcano, its lava is extremely fluid and voluminous, which allows it to flow far and fast.
Get ready because one of the Pacific Ocean's most active volcanoes might blow any minute now. Scientists monitoring Axial Sea Melt, a gigantic underwater lava factory just [music] off the coast of Oregon, say it could erupt literally any time between today and early 2026 at the latest. Yes, it's underwater, but don't get tricked by the ocean's cover.
This beast is [music] almost three times taller than the Empire State Building.
This volcano is inflating like a sule at a Michelin starred [music] restaurant, and scientists are so excited they will live stream it. Seriously. So, here's the thing. This volcano will explode at any moment now because, well, it's inflating fast. Over the past few months, [music] researchers have noticed that the seafloor is literally rising.
It's like axial is doing its best impression [music] of a water bed filled with molten rock. Scientists call this inflation, [music] which sounds like something you'd complain about after Thanksgiving dinner. But in volcano terms, it means magma [music] is piling up underground, causing the seafloor to bulge like a sule that's this close to collapsing. Now, an underwater volcanic eruption might not sound so exotic.
After all, most volcanic activity on Earth happens under the sea. Believe it or not, there are more than a million submarine volcanoes quietly churning lava beneath [music] the waves as you watch this. The ocean floor is Earth's biggest volcanic hot spot. What makes Axial [music] Seamount so thrilling is that it's under intense scientific surveillance unlike any other underwater volcano. It's like the star player in a volcanic reality show with a network of ocean bottom instruments giving researchers realtime updates on magma movements, seismic tremors, and crust deformation.
In fact, Axial Seamount hosts the world's first ever [music] underwater volcanic laboratory. Scientists have been keeping a constant eye on it since the 1990s when they installed sensors that now relay live data straight from the seafloor. This kind of monitoring is unheard of elsewhere and has turned Axial into a geological celebrity, [music] one whose behavior we can track with remarkable precision. Besides, Axial is hilariously predictable. It erupts roughly every [music] decade. And right on Q, it's gearing up for another performance. By mid 2024, it had inflated to nearly the same level as before its [music] last eruption, which means the countdown is on. Scientists are so confident in its schedule that they've set up a volcanic advent calendar waiting for the day when Axial decides [music] to pop. But hold on, Axial Seamount isn't just your average underwater volcano. It's got style, [music] personality, and a geological identity of its own. Now, most underwater volcanoes called [music] seammounts tend to look like cones or flattened domes.
Axial laughs in the face of tradition with its [music] unfashionably rectangular caldera, a 2x5 mile crater that looks like it was designed by a geologist with a ruler and a grudge against [music] curves. Most volcanoes opt for the classic circular look, but axial it went full aventgard.
This caldera is punctuated [music] by fissures, vents, lava channels, and mysterious dome-like structures that rise hundreds of feet high. It's like the volcanoes wearing a funky geometrical crown instead of [music] the usual rounded hat. What's more, Axial's location is like prime real estate for geological fireworks. It sits right where two major forces collide, literally. First, it's on the Wand Defuca Ridge, an [music] underwater mountain range formed where two tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart like a zipper being undone. Second, it's purge [music] at top the Cobb hot spot, a deep mantle plume that acts like Earth's sneaky magma espresso machine, pumping molten rock from deep inside the planet and fueling a whole chain of seamounts.
To put it plainly, it's like the tectonic [music] plates are reluctant dance partners, sliding away from each other, while the Cobb hot spot acts as the DJ, turning up the heat and keeping the magma party going. This dual influence creates a complex plumbing system inside the volcano with magma chambers filling, draining, and shifting in ways scientists are still trying to decode. The competition between the [music] spreading plates and upwelling magma is what gives Axial its unique geological fingerprint. [music] And it's also why this volcano keeps surprising us. Now, we said that Axial Summit isn't just a crater. The truth is [music] that inside the action gets even weirder and cooler. Well, hotter, but you get it. Axial hosts black smoker [music] hydrothermal vents, which blast superheated water at temperatures exceeding 700° [music] F. This is no ordinary underwater hot tub. These vents create one of Earth's most extreme environments where bizarre creatures thrive [music] in total darkness and scalding heat. Giant tubeworms, crabs, colonies of bacteria, and even octopuses live off the mineralrich plumes that gush from these vents, [music] forming ecosystems completely independent from sunlight and photosynthesis. It's like an alien world beneath the waves, thriving [music] off the volcano's fiery breath. These vent communities are crucial to science, not just because they're [music] strange, but because they may resemble the earliest ecosystems on Earth. Some researchers believe life on our planet may have originated in similar deep sea hydrothermal environments billions of years ago. Studying them could also help us search for life on icy moons like Europa and Encettilus where similar events might exist beneath their frozen surfaces.
When axial erupts, it's like a natural reset button for these communities. The lava whites everything out, but within months, life comes roaring back. Proof that even in the most hostile environments, real estate is always in demand.
For those worrying about tsunamis or coastal disasters, relax. Axial's eruptions are the underwater equivalent of a slow cooker. The immense water pressure keeps things chill. Well, scalding, but not explosive. So, the worst thing that happens is some lava decorates the seafloor and a few crabs have to find new vents to squat in. This means no massive ash clouds or explosive blasts that could reach the surface.
Instead, lava oozes out and spreads across the seafloor, sometimes traveling for miles. But for scientists, this eruption is the golden [music] ticket.
Understanding Axial's patterns could help predict eruptions elsewhere, even on land. Plus, its bizarre ecosystems offer clues about how life might survive on other planets. Not bad for a volcano that mostly just sits around looking rectangular. [music] Still, the volcano's activity can be heard in the form of thousands of small earthquakes every day. Thousands, as if the volcano itself was groaning [music] and creaking, preparing to burst open.
Again, we won't feel a thing. But at least they'll help scientists track the magma's movements and the volcano's eruptive cycle. [music] Now, one of the coolest parts of this story is that scientists are preparing to live stream Axial's [music] next eruption for the first time ever.
Imagine watching an undersea volcano in action live as it's painting the ocean floor with fresh lava. It's like a front row seat to a natural fireworks display thousands of feet beneath the waves. The live stream will come courtesy of the Ocean Observatory's Initiative, which maintains [music] a series of fiber optic cables linking Axial's instruments directly to shore. It's the Wi-Fi of the deep sea, and it's about to broadcast Molten Rock in HD. And there's another twist. Scientists have noticed a curious pattern in Axial's eruptions. All three of its most recent eruptions in 1998, 2011, and 2015 happened between January and April, the months when Earth starts moving away from the sun. So why? Well, it might have something to do with the moon's gravitational pole. The moon's orbit causes ocean tides to rise and fall, which changes the pressure on the seafloor and could help nudge the magma chamber to its breaking point. I guess the moon isn't just a romantic light in the night sky. It might be the ultimate volcanic whisperer.
So, one thing's for sure, when Axial goes, it'll be the best documented underwater eruption in history. So, keep your eyes peeled. This is one natural spectacle you won't want to miss. And who knows, if we're lucky, we might even get deep sea eruption ASMR out of the deal. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be refreshing the live feed like it's a Taylor Swift ticket sale.
This is not some hypothetical situation [music] or fairy tale. The Vuvius super volcano that erased the city of Pompei may wake up again and destroy many other towns built near the mountain.
And to understand what consequences humanity would face if it wakens [music] this time, it's smart to note what the eruption did 2,000 years ago with the ancient city.
So Pompei was a thriving city in the Roman Empire. Located just 5 miles from Vuvius on the west coast of Italy, it was a resort where the noblest and richest [music] people rested. They walked along cozy streets, lived in beautiful villas, and had fun beside fountains.
The soil in this region was fertile since the ground around the volcano [music] had a lot of useful elements.
Olives and grapes from Pompei were sold throughout the empire.
About 12,000 people lived in Pompei by the time of the eruption. It seems not so much compared to [music] modern standards, but it was considered a big city in those days.
The catastrophe began unexpectedly in 79 CE. At first, everyone felt the ground tremble. Birds flew away from the volcano as far as possible. There was tension in the air because of the impending catastrophe.
The volcano started to release thick smoke, soot, and ash. There was so much of it that soon it obscured the sky over the city with a heavy gray cloud.
Vubvius spat out gases, rocks, and dirt.
Hot ash polluted the air and made it difficult for people to breathe. Locals couldn't see inside this gray haze. And then it started raining heavily. The water mixed with ash and soot and fell on Pompei. Roofs of houses broke under the heavy weight of mud. Streets, fountains, alleys, and squares were hidden under millions of tons of soot.
The next day, the destruction continued with renewed force.
There was an explosion of hot gas and crushed rock at the top of the mountain.
A devastating blast wave at a speed of 100 mph dispersed in all directions and vaporized all the trees in its path.
When the wave reached Pompei, it turned the city into ruins. On the second day, the eruption stopped.
By this time, the great town had been lying under a thick blanket of ash.
By the way, this type of eruption is called an explosive one. But when lava flows out of a volcano and causes a fire, this is a quiet eruption. The last time Vuvius erupted was in 1944, but even today, it's still one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.
But nobody's afraid of it. 3 million people live around the mountain about 20 miles from the crater. If the volcano wakes up, it could be one of the most enormous cataclysms in the modern world.
Pompei was destroyed almost 2,000 years ago. Since then, science and technology have advanced a lot. We're planning to colonize Mars someday. We've created a metaverse. But so far, we're still powerless before the forces of nature.
An erupting super volcano can destroy nature around it and cause technogenic catastrophes in big cities. The phone lines would be overloaded and people wouldn't be able to call their loved ones or the rescue service.
There would be [music] big traffic jams on the roads. Panic would spread throughout the streets. Fires would start because of falling hot soot. All flights would be cancelled and locals would have to hide in airports, supermarkets, and the subway. A large gray cloud would obscure the sun [music] and make the air hot. The only thing that can help us in such a situation is a preliminary warning about the upcoming eruption and good preparation. [music] So, if the disaster starts while walking on the streets, you should take shelter in a car or building. It's better to buy a dusk mask in advance that allows you to breathe freely. If there's no mask, cover your nose and mouth with any cloth. If you stay at home, close all doors and windows so volcanic ash can't get into your apartment or home. These incandescent particles can easily set fire to a carpet or curtains.
Put wet towels under the door sills. If you need to go outside for some reason, wear a suit covering your body completely. Don't forget about the protection for your eyes. Put on special glasses that have a dustproof function.
And remember about the mask.
If you have a house, you need to disconnect the downpipes from the gutters to avoid clogging the drains. If your house has a rainwater collection system, you need to disconnect the pipes from the tank. Rain with ashes is a hot, dense mess that can easily break the water supply system. Fill the tub and sink to have water for washing and cleaning in case the central water supply is turned off. Set the lowest temperature on the fridge and freezer.
Your food will be stored much longer if electricity is shut down in the city. Go to a room without windows above ground level and wait for a message from authorities on the radio or TV.
Keep the receiver close to you so you don't miss anything important. The device must have a full charge, a strong body, and a powerful antenna. Here's an excellent option for survival in the ash apocalypse.
The eruption is intensifying, and you hear on the radio about the evacuation.
At this point, you need to calm down and follow the instructions from rescuers.
Collect a bag at home with food, water, and medical supplies. Your emergency kit should include flares, maps, a first aid kit, sleeping bags, flashlights, a fire extinguisher, a portable phone charger, car tools, and a few charged batteries.
You should always have a filled gasoline canister if you live near an active volcano.
Going to the gas station is not a good idea during the evacuation. You can get into a long traffic jam and spend too much time in it. If you don't have a car, ask your friends for help or pay someone for a ride. It's possible the city administration would organize buses for evacuation.
You would find out about it through the radio. In any case, before leaving the house, don't forget to turn off the gas and electrical devices and shut off the valve with the water supply to prevent your home from a gas leak or flooding.
>> Government officials.
>> So, you're driving a car. The authorities must announce the plans for evacuation. Don't go off the route because some roads can be blocked.
Perhaps they will say the eruption is over and you can return home. Maybe the eruption will be so strong that it will destroy the city. Anyway, if you're prepared, you'll have fewer things to worry about. Modern seismic sensors monitor the fluctuations of tectonic plates and the volcano's activity, so the eruption won't be a [music] surprise.
Pompei is far from the only city destroyed by the eruption.
In 1785, a similar disaster occurred in the Japanese town of Alushima.
It was located right in the crater of an active volcano. And one day, it woke up.
It was sunny weather and no one suspected a disaster was coming. At some point, the birds rose in the air and flew away. Then the ground began to shake.
A heavy low sound came from the depths of the island and thick streams of smoke and ash erupted from the volcano. The volcano threw dirt and big red hot stones into the sky. It looked like a meteor shower. People evacuated and the mountain continued to erupt for several weeks. When the ashes settled, the volcano fell asleep again and people began to return to their city. Despite the risk of a new eruption, they continue to live and work there today.
Since then, more than 200 years have passed, and the volcano never woke up.
Meteorological and seismological services monitor the situation and seismic activity.
After all the horrors and devastation that a volcanic eruption leads to, Harmony and Nature eventually comes.
Decades and centuries later, volcanic ash, rich in helpful food elements, settles on the soil and makes it fertile. Then life will rise from the ashes like a phoenix.
Our planet's biggest and meanest super volcanoes are waking up. When they erupt, you'll surely notice it, even if you live thousands of miles away from the epicenter. Scientists are worried we might not have enough time to prepare and deal with the consequences of a super eruption.
There's some volcanic activity close to the Italian city of Naples. And no, it has nothing to do with the famous Mount Vuvius, but with another volcano. This one is harder to see as it doesn't have a tall peak like Vuvius. But don't let this bad guy trick you. It could be way more dangerous than it giant neighbor.
It does have a huge crater that's about 8 mi wide. This volcano is called Copy Flee and it's actually one of the largest volcanoes in Europe sitting under the town of Poali. So Ky Fleg Gray erupted 39,000 years ago with a bang so massive it spread ash across the whole Mediterranean region. It also caused the temperature to drop by over 16° F across Eastern Europe. It was the biggest volcanic eruption in Europe in 200,000 years. Since then, Copy Flee has had smaller eruptions, and the last one happened in 1538.
Now, the area is full of small craters, hot springs, and bubbling pools. And they're all proof that this volcano is still very much alive and brewing something. Since the early 2000s, the ground in the giant crater and the town nearby have been slowly rising by about 1 to 1/2 in every year. There were at least 150 earthquakes that shook this super volcano lately. In May 2024, there was a 4.4 magnitude in the area, the biggest in the last 40 years. Residents had to leave their homes and camp outside, fearing there would be more earthquakes. No one knows how Flegre is going to behave in the following months or years, but the authorities are organizing evacuation exercises to prepare the population just in case.
The Italian volcano looks like an innocent kitten compared to the real giants like Yellowstone. For a volcano to deserve the title of a super one, it must be able to produce catastrophic scale eruptions and eject huge amounts of magma, ash, and volcanic gases. The Yellowstone giant meets these criteria.
Even though it moves from time to time, the Yellowstone super volcano hasn't erupted for 640,000 years. But when it does wake up, it might erupt with incredible power. About the same amount as 10 huge nuclear power stations can produce. Under the ground beneath Yellowstone, there's a super hot area full of molten rock called magma. As more magma moves into a big space called a magma chamber. The ground above starts to swell or rise. When the magma cools down, the ground falls. Between 2004 and 2009, the ground at Yellowstone rose by almost 10 in, but then it started to slowly go back down in 2010. Scientists aren't sure if it's going to erupt anytime soon. There's also another big volcano called Long Valley in California that has been active since 1980, and it can be a really big threat. Scientists studying this super volcano found out that before its biggest eruption 760,000 years ago, the buildup may have taken less than a year.
Now, that's bad news because a super volcano eruption can have a huge effect on [music] the world. Like the eruption of the Toba volcano in Somatra around 74,000 years ago, it became the biggest volcanic eruption the earth had seen in 28 million years. It covered parts of Indonesia, India, and the Indian Ocean with a thick >> [music] >> layer of volcanic debris, almost like a 6-in blanket. The amount of rock it spewed out was like stacking nearly 3 million Empire State buildings. The giant crater it left behind can still be seen from space. All the ash and gases shot up into the air and blocked some of the sunlight. It caused a volcanic winter that lasted about 6 to 10 years.
Some scientists think this eruption might have even affected early humans.
Around the time Toba erupted, the human population took a sharp dip and there were far fewer people. Some say this is why all modern humans come from a small group of survivors. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, most early humans in Europe and Asia didn't survive the cold and harsh climate after the eruption, but a lucky group lived through all that in Africa. Not all scientists agree with this idea, and some archaeological and climate records show a different story.
Another volcano that changed the world in a big way was Mount Tambbora in 1815.
The next year went down in history as [music] the year without a summer. It was cold and rainy, and there was snow and frost even in the middle of summer, especially in Europe and North America.
This happened because the volcano sent out a lot of sulfur dioxide into the sky, which spread all over the world and made the planet colder. When Tambbora erupted, it caused huge tsunamis that smashed homes and took the lives of around 10,000 people. Afterward, about 80,000 more people passed away because of the consequences the eruption had caused in the world. The cold weather ruined crops, [music] so food became really expensive. And because horses were the main way people traveled, the cost of oats that they ate went way up, too. Some people even think this led to the invention of the [music] bicycle in 1817 as a new way to get around. The eruption made the earth colder [music] for about 3 years. Now, even though the Tambbora eruption was so powerful, Crakatoa, another volcano in Indonesia, stole the show when it erupted in 1883.
It was just easier to spread information about it through telegrams and photos.
Its final blast was the loudest recorded sound in history, and people could hear it on 10% of the entire Earth's surface.
The eruption started a tsunami with waves about half as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
Now, if we only had 12 months to prepare for a super volcano eruption, [music] it would be really hard to store enough food and get ready. But don't panic just yet. Super volcano eruptions are very rare, and the last one happened 26,500 years ago in New Zealand. Scientists think that a super eruption happens once every 100,000 years on average. But the sad part here is that the Earth doesn't follow a perfect timeline. There could be clusters of super eruptions with shorter gaps between them and then longer quiet periods. Since there have already been two super eruptions in the last 100,000 years, there's always a chance one could happen again sooner than we expect.
Plus, although there are places like Yellowstone and Long Valley where [music] we expect volcanoes to erupt, there are less obvious possible hot spots. In Chile, there's a volcano called Lagona del Mau that has erupted in the past and left behind a huge crater. Over the last 20 years, the ground there has been swelling really fast, rising up to almost 1 foot a year.
Some people are worried that this could be a sign of a big eruption coming. But scientists say [music] there's not enough magma yet to cause a super eruption. In Bolivia, the Juancu volcano is also acting up. It's part of a group of volcanoes that have caused super eruptions in the past. Since the 1960s, the ground around Judu Rancu has been lifting. But the last eruption was 250,000 years ago. Even though the magma might be rising, it's not enough to worry about just yet. The chances of a super eruption happening during our lifetime are 1 in 1,400, which is pretty low. So, you don't need to worry too much. But just like [music] someone wins the lottery every week with very small chances, a super eruption could happen sometime in the future. And when it does, we'll need to be prepared.
Wow. Earth's surface is shaking. Long cracks split the ground open. Lava rivers are rapidly flowing down the slopes. Deafening noise is filling the air. Rocks and other debris are flying high up. Clouds of volcanic gas and ash cover the sky. Now, this is not a plot of a blockbuster disaster movie. It's what happens when super volcanoes decide to erupt. But this is likely not the scenario that will take place when the world's largest volcano, Monoloa, decides to finish its long, long nap. In 2021, scientists were sure it would happen soon. But so far, nothing. The volcano's seismicity keeps increasing and then going back to normal. But you never know when this giant will finally come back to life. That's why experts have been monitoring geological activity on Hawaii's largest island for quite some time. The big island of Hawaii is made up of five volcanoes, including the most active on the planet, Kilawea, and the largest, Monoloa. This gigantic thing makes up almost half the land mass of the island. and what lava Kiloa emits in one day, Monoloa could spew out [music] within 20 minutes. That's what it did in 1984.
While Monoloa's smaller sibling has been throwing tantrums for a while, the giant has been slumbering ever since its last eruption. But very recently, the Hawaii Volcano Observatory has recorded more than 200 many earthquakes below Monoa.
[music] It likely means an increased flow of magma down there. Good morning.
the volcano might be waking up or not.
If Monaloa did suddenly erupt, lava flows could reach the ocean and the most populated and touristy places like Captain Cook very, very quickly in a matter of hours. In 1984, the last time the volcano erupted, lava got as far as the outskirts of Hilo on the other side of the island. That's where a campus of the University of Hawaii is found.
Luckily, people had a few weeks warning to get ready for the disaster. These days, locals have special go bags ready with the most important stuff, including documents and money. Such precautions can come in handy in case of an emergency evacuation. Even though most Monaloa eruptions have so far only affected the summit area, several of them sent lava all the way down to the ocean. And you never know how powerful the next eruption will be. Now, what is the highest mountain on Earth? Mount Everest, you say? Well, it depends. From seafloor to the summit, Monoloa, is 1,000 ft taller than the famous Himalayan peak. The volcano is so big, it makes the Pacific plate it's sitting on literally slump under its weight.
Scientists say that when this monster of a volcano erupts, the volume of lava coming out per unit will be life-threatening. Over its recorded history, Monaloa has been erupting regularly, almost every 6 years. And even though the last eruption of the volcano occurred about 40 years ago, scientists are certain it'll happen again.
Now, remember the scene I showed you at the beginning? Well, you can relax. It's not likely to happen with Monaloa. The thing is, big island volcanoes, including Monaloa, aren't very volatile.
That's because they're shield volcanoes.
These volcanoes got such a name because they aren't really very high and resemble a warrior's shield placed flat on the ground. Shield volcanoes get formed by very fluid lava. It travels farther and forms much thinner flows than lava erupted from a strat volcano which is conically shaped and tall like the infamous Krakatoa in Indonesia. So if or should I say when Monoa erupts, there probably won't be ash clouds and tons of debris. The most dangerous thing will be lava. Since Monaloa is a shield volcano, its lava is extremely fluid and voluminous, which allows it to flow far and fast.
Using theoretical vent maps, [music] experts from the Hawaii Volcano Observatory have made charts of possible lava flows. They're kind of worried about earthquakes clustering at high rates. It likely means that lava is on the move under the surface. 500 to 600 earthquakes per day are a serious reason to be on high alert. On the other hand, it doesn't necessarily mean a disaster or inevitable eruption. Around a decade ago, several [music] earthquakes that happened at the same time signal that something was happening under Monoa. But an eruption [music] didn't occur.
Instead, half the volcano shifted a bit to the south. This way, it probably gave more room to magma [music] so that it had enough space to stay beneath the surface. Now, let's get back to the catastrophic eruption we saw at the beginning of the video. That's what often happens when a super volcano erupts. Those are volcanoes that have at least once had an eruption with a volcanic explosivity index of 8, which is the largest recorded number on the index. Super volcanoes are often extremely large with no cone at all.
That's because they're typically [music] the remains of gigantic magma chambers that once flared up, leaving behind a calgura. They're usually found over hot spots. Super volcanoes can produce super eruptions. And when they do, they blow more than 240 [music] cubic miles of ash, molten rock, and hot gases up into the air. In other words, four super eruptions could fill the Grand Canyon to the brim. Super volcanoes get formed when gigantic volumes of scorching hot magma are trying to escape from deep underground. This magma rises close to the surface, but can't break through Earth's crust. That's why a huge pressurized pool of bubbling magma gathers at a depth of only several miles. The pressure keeps growing because more magma is trying to get to the surface until bam, a super eruption occurs.
The most recent super eruption happened in New Zealand. Well, when I say recent, I mean around 26,500 years ago. Nah, I wasn't around then.
That's when a super volcano beneath the surface of Lake Tabo spewed into the air more than 300 cubic miles of ash and pummus. Imagine 500,000 great pyramids of Giza [music] flying up at the same time. That's how incredibly powerful that eruption was.
But the most exciting and confusing thing about the eruption was that the Tabo volcano simply didn't go off like many others. At first, everything was going as usual. More than 200 square miles of magma had built up under the surface and the pressure was getting higher and higher. But after the rock crashed and the first part of lava rushed out of the crater, something went wrong and the super volcano took a break. Only several months later, the disastrous eruption shook the ground and thousands of tons of lava, rocks, and ash flew high into the atmosphere. But the age of super volcanoes isn't over.
The most infamous of them all is probably the one in Yellowstone National Park. This giant handles at least three mega powerful eruptions, and who knows how many smaller ones. If this monster erupted anywhere as strongly as it did 2.1 [music] million years ago, it would spit out more than 588 cubic miles of red hot material. You can probably picture it more vividly if I tell you that this volume is comparable to 65 million capital retundas in Washington DC piled together. Wow. Anyway, scientists are sure that Yellowstone doesn't present any danger these days. For an eruption to happen, magma inside must be at least 50% molten. With the Yellowstone caldera, this number is just 5 to 15%.
But of course, Yellowstone isn't the only super volcano on our planet.
There's also New Zealand's Tabo. You already know about Japan's Eric Cauldra, California's Long Valley, Indonesia's Toba. Any of them can one day produce a super eruption. There are also several so-called super volcanoes that haven't lived up to this name yet because they've never produced anything like a super eruption. For example, in 1883, Indonesian volcano Crakatoa went off.
The power of the eruption tore the volcano's walls open and cold seawater rushed into its molten insides. The difference in temperature made the volcano blow up with a deafening boom.
It was clearly heard 2,000 mi away in Australia. It earned the blast the title of the loudest sound in history. But even though the consequences of this event were truly catastrophic, it still turned out not powerful enough to be called a super eruption.
The story of Pompei is complete chaos as is. But to add a little fuel to this fire, we dug up some groundbreaking facts. And I mean that quite literally.
Hear me out. What if it wasn't the scorching sea of lava that destroyed the city of Pompei, but rather an earthquake that happened during the volcano's eruption?
Rewind to over 2,000 years ago. The year is 79 B.CE. It was around 1:00 in the afternoon when Mount Vuvius decided to erupt. Pompeians were going on with their normal daily routines when lava started taking over. The flow of lava was so quick that most people didn't have anywhere to run. The disaster took the lives of around 2,000 people. The lava covered most of the city, which then turned everything to ashes. Pompei was only discovered during the 16th century of our common era when an architect commended a dig to divert a river. It's a very wellstudied site nowadays. But something unusual recently caught the researchers attention.
Scientists were excavating a site called the House of Painters at work. They were examining a couple of skeletons when they saw something weird. The skeletons probably belonged to two men around the age of 50. The analysis showed these men had survived the first surge of lava in the city, but they didn't make it out due to this second unexpected part, the earthquake.
The men probably took shelter at the house of painters at work, but the walls crumbled down when the earthquake hit.
The men were found in a protective posture, like they were trying to shield themselves from something that was going to fall above their heads. Plus, these skeletons were not found under the layer of volcanic ash, but on top of it, proving that they really did survive Vuvius's sea of lava. It turns out this is not as rare as it seems. A volcanologist explained that the seismic activity during the eruption really made things worse in Pompei. He said that this seismic chaos probably influenced the desperate [music] choices of a lot of Pompeans in their final moments. This is not the first time the world heard of a possible earthquake in Pompei. A guy named Plenny the Younger, who escaped the disaster and witnessed the whole thing, beat these scientists to it in his famous letters. Plenny the Younger was a lawyer and an important person back in ancient Rome. He was an eyewitness to the whole Pompei disaster and he wrote in one of his letters that the eruption was followed by a trembling of the earth.
Researchers do agree that something never added up. Pompei is known to have really wellpreserved skeletons since the ashes kind of played an important role in preserving them. But the buildings were in horrible shape, making it hard to reconstruct the entire city as it once was.
Pompei was indeed one of a kind. It was one of the most vibrant and lively cities of the ancient Roman Empire. The city was huge. It could have been home to as many as 30,000 people in its heyday. The House of Fawn, for example, was a clear example of how rich Romans lived their lives in Pompei. It was a huge house that even had two gardens inside taking up the entire block. They looked like they were made of white marble, but it was actually painted stucco. [music] It was clear to researchers that only aristocrats lived there. Then there was this famous forum.
This is where most of the administrative part of the city life happened. It was made up of a lot of different buildings like the Basilica, a hot spot for political and civil meetings, the McKelum, which was a market, and several temples.
If we were visiting this back in the day, we'd see a [music] bunch of men dressed in tunics. A few select ones would wear togas, those heavy white pieces of draped cloth that look like bed linen wrapped over the body. Toggas were mainly used on special occasions since [music] they were costly, hard to wash, and considered a traditional costume. Representatives running for office would use it during their campaign run so that commoners would identify them as candidates.
One can't forget about the Villa of the Mysteries. Cool name, huh? It was called that way because of some mysterious fresco found inside of it. Modern-day archaeologists still haven't figured out what the scenes painted are trying to depict. probably some type of ritual or ceremony.
By the way, a villa is simply a large suburban Roman style house. It's not necessarily a super posh place where the rich and beautiful live. [music] It's usually located on the outskirts of town near the city's walls. The Villa of the Mysteries one in particular [music] was found astoundingly well preserved in modern archaeological excavations. It even had a manufacturing area inside of it like its own little industry. It was common for richer Romans to own [music] big farmlands like olive gardens for example. So they would also build a processing station inside their villas to extract the oil and package the whole thing. The amphitheater was where some of the richer men paid to [music] put on gladiator fights for the rest of the town. It was built around 70 B.CE and it was one of the oldest amphitheaters of the world. It was even older than the coliseum in Rome. This huge building could fit around 20,000 spectators at once. The seating was arranged by social class, so you could easily spot who was a member of the nobility. Ah, and in case you're wondering why it was shaped like a weird egg, it's because that was the shape that allowed for an unobstructed view wherever you were in the crowd.
As every other Roman city, Pompei also had some famous [music] baths. Since not every house had access to plumbing back in the day, most people didn't shower in their homes. That's why so many Romans would use public baths, usually at the end of the day, to clean themselves. But make no mistake, this wasn't just a place for bathing. It [music] was a cultural hot spot.
The baths were made up of many different rooms. The first one was like a locker room where people would keep their clothes and personal belongings. This is where the upper and lower classes mingled together. Someone's class could easily be identified by their clothes and jewelry. The amount of gold and silver worn back in those days is nothing compared to what most people wear [music] today. Usually, the rich folks would leave someone to take care of their belongings while they went and took their bath because yes, it could happen that stuff went missing while chilling and relaxing. The big focus on self-care nowadays was already a thing for ancient Romans. It was common that before taking a bath, olive oil was rubbed all over the skin. They would scrape off the dirty skin with a stridel. That may sound weird, but also extremely pleasing. The baths had rooms for massages. Some of them had reading rooms and even courtyards for some healthy exercise. Oh, there was even a natio or swimming pool if you're not fluent in Latin. After all, it was the Romans that said, "A healthy body is a healthy mind.
The bakeries. Bread was one of the main components of Pompean diet. So much so that there were around 30 bakeries in the city. Bread was freshly made from scratch every day. In a special area of the shop, the corn or wheat was ground and mules would circle around to keep the mills going. The funny thing about Pompeans is that they like to cover the exterior walls of buildings with paintings, [music] much like graffiti nowadays. Their paintings, usually fresco, used to depict what daily life was like in the city. Ancient Romans were very outdoorsy people, so coloring their walls seemed like a good option for them. A lot of houses had fresco inside of them, too, [music] to make up for the lack of windows. The paintings gave the house owners the illusion of more space if the painting was of, let's say, a garden, for example.
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