Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Wow, hey, guys, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Alison Madermillick at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: Science editor, and this is Robert Lamb, science writer for
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Today we're talking about excluding lakes. Robert, Yes,
Speaker 1: do you have this talent of making yourself out talent?
Speaker 1: But this this ability to make yourself burp? Yes, I
Speaker 1: I do have this ability. You've never done it at
Speaker 1: work there, Um, I haven't burped in years. I just
Speaker 1: I just try and keep just practice manners as much
Speaker 1: as possible. I do have have the ability to make
Speaker 1: myself burp, although I will not do it on on
Speaker 1: the microphone, and I'm not necessarily very proud of it.
Speaker 1: But lakes, as it turns out, can also release some
Speaker 1: pretty massive burps. These exploding lakes in particular that we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about today and on the evening of
Speaker 1: August one, when such burp happened. That's right, Lake NEOs
Speaker 1: Uh in western Cameroon, in the very crook of Africa. There,
Speaker 1: it's like nine thirty at night. Um, you know, villagers
Speaker 1: are tending to their cattle and then their livestock in
Speaker 1: the area, and suddenly there's this monstrous rumbling from the
Speaker 1: lake and they look out there and there's just this
Speaker 1: gas frothing up out of the lake like like like
Speaker 1: somebody's open a champagne bottle, just rising up into the air.
Speaker 1: And this column and then just beginning to expand outward
Speaker 1: from the lake. It's like a bat out of hell
Speaker 1: just moving out across the valley. Yeah, and uh, and
Speaker 1: then you know, these guys see this in there, confused,
Speaker 1: they're they're frightened, they're going to check it out. Oh no,
Speaker 1: don't go out to check it out, because we have
Speaker 1: always in a horror movie. Yeah, never never walk into
Speaker 1: the mist. Just tight, hide in the closet, hide in
Speaker 1: your No, that's not gonna work. That the mist is
Speaker 1: going to come for you. And it did. It did.
Speaker 1: Like the guys who went in to check on it
Speaker 1: didn't come out in the miskept spreading. Livestock keels over,
Speaker 1: people are stumbling to the ground, people are collapsing in
Speaker 1: their tracks pretty much wherever they were, whether it was
Speaker 1: in the closet or outside or by the lakeside. But
Speaker 1: it's spread throughout the whole canyon there. Yeah, the valley
Speaker 1: it was about I think it. I think it's spread
Speaker 1: to Um fifteen point five miles from from the source
Speaker 1: of that original eruption, if you will. And in the
Speaker 1: first two towns, the first two closest towns, NEOs and Cam.
Speaker 1: I believe everyone but four people died. And I mean
Speaker 1: that that accounts for the massive scale. About sevent people
Speaker 1: died with the eruption of this, with this Limnic eruption
Speaker 1: or this Lake eruption. I had no idea what happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like thirty six hours later, some of the people wake up,
Speaker 1: right and find that most of the people are un dead.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine how horrifying that is? I can't even
Speaker 1: even manage. I mean, you just have to think it
Speaker 1: was the end of the world. Yeah, totally. When you
Speaker 1: wake up, you look around, your family members are dead,
Speaker 1: drew neighbors, your livelihood, and in the form of live stock,
Speaker 1: they're all keeled over. It's pretty terrible to think about.
Speaker 1: So um the cloud. The cloud's gone. About thirty six
Speaker 1: hours later, right, and people are asking questions, just you know,
Speaker 1: what what happened here? You know, they had no idea.
Speaker 1: I mean there, you know it could have been a
Speaker 1: lake spirit. It could have been any number of things.
Speaker 1: They weren't really sure. Yeah, so they do what most
Speaker 1: people would do in this situation. You call in scientists
Speaker 1: to examine the hard facts and figure out what in
Speaker 1: the world happened. And the sciences is pretty pretty quickly
Speaker 1: figured out that CEO two had a carbon dioxide had
Speaker 1: a big role to play. Right. Basically, this cloud was
Speaker 1: a mixture of c O two and air just that
Speaker 1: rose up out of the depths of the lake and
Speaker 1: expanded outward um and everybody breathed in in either lost
Speaker 1: consciousness or died. Those people who breathe in more than
Speaker 1: carbon diactside died and those who were like enough quote
Speaker 1: unquote lucky enough to breathe in less lost consciousness and
Speaker 1: revived you know about it and off later roughly right.
Speaker 1: So the big question then becomes, how did this CEO
Speaker 1: two come to apparently be at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: lake or come up from the bottom of the lake.
Speaker 1: Where to come from? What source? A lot of CEO two?
Speaker 1: There are two theories were two theories arose, each one
Speaker 1: related to magma, liquid rock. Okay. One theory is that
Speaker 1: this is basically a volcanic eruption underneath the lake. We
Speaker 1: just had a geologic upheaval where magma comes surging up,
Speaker 1: releases c O two. C O two explodes out of
Speaker 1: the out of the water, and then the other The
Speaker 1: other theory was more of a gradual time frame. And
Speaker 1: if they basically said that, well, listen, TU two has
Speaker 1: been gradually seeping into the bottom of the lake from
Speaker 1: for for a long time. And the way it might
Speaker 1: have done that is if you think about how a
Speaker 1: volcanic lake is formed, as as Lake NEOs is and
Speaker 1: and was at that time. It's formed because you have
Speaker 1: this you know, hot liquid magna in the earth and
Speaker 1: there's weak spots the Earth's crust, and the magma all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you know, just busts up and blasts
Speaker 1: this giant hole in the ground and forms this hole,
Speaker 1: and eventually rain water fills it and makes a nice lake.
Speaker 1: What was once the crater of an active volcano is
Speaker 1: now a peaceful, serene lake, right like NEOs. Anyhow, the
Speaker 1: tube that the magma uses to blast up through the
Speaker 1: surface is actually still in existence, and what happens then
Speaker 1: is that the CEO two takes advantage of this existing
Speaker 1: tube and it just kind of keeps coming up, kind
Speaker 1: of keeps chiling up the you know, three to six
Speaker 1: miles because you have a lot of pressure down there,
Speaker 1: and the pressure actually pretty much squeezes the CEO two
Speaker 1: out of the magma, and uh that's that's that's how
Speaker 1: it rises to the surf, well, to the bottom of
Speaker 1: the lake, right, and then it just sits because right
Speaker 1: CEO two is uh is pretty heavy and it likes
Speaker 1: to sit. And you know this this dense water and
Speaker 1: of water on top of it. So when we're talking
Speaker 1: about a pretty thick layer there. Well, so they had
Speaker 1: to fgure out which of these hypotheses was right. And
Speaker 1: they figured out that, you know, the first one maybe
Speaker 1: wasn't such a good one. Why why wasn't it a
Speaker 1: good one? Well, because we sent some guys out or
Speaker 1: we uh some guys went out to Cameronian government government,
Speaker 1: some scientists out there, and uh they ended up bringing
Speaker 1: in some seismologists. These guys are used to you know,
Speaker 1: encountering like, you know, really shaky conditions, you know, the
Speaker 1: near the summits of volcanoes or you know, high highly
Speaker 1: active earthquake zones, and uh, they come here and there's
Speaker 1: nothing happening. There's like little or no seismic activity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're probably just sunning themselves lakeside and drinking Guinness the
Speaker 1: whole time, because Guinness is the the beer of Western cameraon.
Speaker 1: But but then there was another another tail tale son
Speaker 1: who this was not a volcano, right, oh right. They
Speaker 1: didn't find any sulfur or I believe chloride in the lake,
Speaker 1: and that would have been indicative of a full volcanic eruption.
Speaker 1: But they found neither of those um so that led
Speaker 1: them to their second theory, which was the C O
Speaker 1: two had gradually been seeping into the bottom of the lake.
Speaker 1: But C two in and of itself is really not
Speaker 1: enough to cause one of these massive lake eruptions. You
Speaker 1: need a couple other things. Basically, you need to have
Speaker 1: it needs to be pretty deep, which this is six
Speaker 1: two ft because if there's if there's only a small
Speaker 1: amount of water between that bubble of gas and the surface,
Speaker 1: then like a stiff wind or or you know fish
Speaker 1: or you know, a tree falling into the water and
Speaker 1: anything like that, nessy you know, monsters could set it
Speaker 1: off as well, but it would not take much for
Speaker 1: that gas to be released. But if you have a
Speaker 1: lot of water. You know, the more water you have
Speaker 1: between the surface and that gas, the more of a
Speaker 1: disturbance it is going to take. And then you're also
Speaker 1: going to need to, uh to be in a pretty
Speaker 1: stable climate, like a tropical zone where you're not experiencing
Speaker 1: summer and winter and freezes and and and summer heat.
Speaker 1: You know, you're just keeping it more or less a
Speaker 1: constant temperature. With constant temperatures, I mean, lakes tend to
Speaker 1: hold their position more. And what you mean position is
Speaker 1: that you know, the cold, denser water stays on the
Speaker 1: bottom and the warmer water stays on top near the surface.
Speaker 1: And when they trade spots that cold and the cold
Speaker 1: and warm water, that's caused an exhalation or that's when
Speaker 1: the lake turns over. And that's what happens. Where with
Speaker 1: climates that experience season will change, you know, like in
Speaker 1: the natural release valve. Sure sure, sure, so you really
Speaker 1: I mean this lake exhalation is a good thing, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't tend to happen in UH in the tropical
Speaker 1: climates like a Cameroon for example. And then you have
Speaker 1: I mean that you need a trigger as well, right, yea,
Speaker 1: In this case, they're they're thinking that there was there
Speaker 1: was apparently a rock slide around the same time, so
Speaker 1: they think that enough rock may have collapsed into the lake,
Speaker 1: disturb that gas on the bottom and send it rising
Speaker 1: up to the top, kind of like if you've ever
Speaker 1: had a mixed drink where you can you can look
Speaker 1: at the side of the glass and see a distinct
Speaker 1: difference between the layer of alcohol and the air of
Speaker 1: nixer throw an ice cube and then everything moving. So
Speaker 1: that's that's may be that maybe what had happened here, right,
Speaker 1: and then I mean there's also scientists like to think
Speaker 1: that or some signs just like to think that CEO
Speaker 1: two is inherently unstable in a in a freshwater environment,
Speaker 1: so that it really wouldn't even require a trigger. It's
Speaker 1: just generally a bad situation if you have those first
Speaker 1: three factors that we talked about already set up, so
Speaker 1: it just kind of builds up to it until it
Speaker 1: reaches a natural breaking point. Sure, So are there other
Speaker 1: lakes that face this situation? There are, There's at least
Speaker 1: one in the in pretty much the same area, Lake Monoun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it happened it had already exploded two years earlier
Speaker 1: in see actually sixty two miles in southeast of NEOs,
Speaker 1: killing thirty seven people. Then there's a lake kivu Um
Speaker 1: it's also in the African Rift Valley. And then there's
Speaker 1: a lake Quilitoa. S a picture of this, right, they
Speaker 1: really really beautiful looking place um tourists trekking into, you know,
Speaker 1: relaxed by the water. But imagine after this explosion, though,
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a very beautiful lake because like NEOs changed color.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was this beautiful, deep, still blue lake
Speaker 1: and then after the explosion it kicked up all this
Speaker 1: iron rich bottom water and so like the color of
Speaker 1: blood or something. Yeah, so how do you keep like
Speaker 1: that's that becomes a challenge. How do you keep a
Speaker 1: potentially explosive lake from exploding or exploding again? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean it kind of makes sense if you think about it.
Speaker 1: You stick a giant straw down there, and you suck
Speaker 1: up all the CEO two and release it in the
Speaker 1: controlled fashion. And that is in fact what scientists did
Speaker 1: at Nios and uh and Minuon, although and the case
Speaker 1: of like NEOs, it took them like fifteen years to
Speaker 1: get those darned straws in the ground, so it's such
Speaker 1: a safe environment for for for a while. Although they
Speaker 1: did take some other measures, right, Oh yeah, they also
Speaker 1: put up c O two monitors in the area to
Speaker 1: keep been eye on two levels as well as just
Speaker 1: just keeping an eye on the conditions. Yeah. So, I
Speaker 1: mean without work, just like a one of your carbon
Speaker 1: man accident. Pretty much pretty much just ye, just CEO
Speaker 1: two rises to a certain point, it's going to set
Speaker 1: off alarms and they're just gonna try and get the
Speaker 1: heck out of dodge. Yeah. Although I have seen this before,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I'm not sure that people could
Speaker 1: outrun it. It's in the case of Lake News, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know that people could have escaped it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it seems to have spread pretty quickly, and it,
Speaker 1: you know, sure claimed a lot of lives, so it
Speaker 1: may have been a foregune conclusion at the time that rumbling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now that we've contributed to your fear of swimming
Speaker 1: in lakes, now do we have to worry about this
Speaker 1: around here? Though? Not so much. I mean take Lake Lanier.
Speaker 1: Have you been to Lake Lanier. It's frightening, and that
Speaker 1: our pretty matter producer has grew up around there and
Speaker 1: probably swimming its murky depths, although there are there are
Speaker 1: so many depths these days to la here anywhere, so
Speaker 1: that's one factor. It's not really that deep. Probably that's
Speaker 1: a strike against it, strike against it, and the fact
Speaker 1: that it's man made it's probably another strike against it.
Speaker 1: Another that's another strike. And I I'm not really sure
Speaker 1: what the level of volcanic activity beneath Lake Cleaner is either,
Speaker 1: so so we probably don't have to worry about it
Speaker 1: in these parts. But I mean we're also not a
Speaker 1: tropical area, so even if it's right snow this year, yeah, yeah, first,
Speaker 1: but it was the first for me since I moved
Speaker 1: down here. So Camearonians perhaps have more to worry about
Speaker 1: than than people and colder climates, fluctuating climates. So now
Speaker 1: that we've contributed to everybody's fear, I know, if there
Speaker 1: wasn't enough to be afraid of anyway, you know, they're
Speaker 1: la monsters, exploding lakes, snakes, lake disappearing lakes, yes, nibbling fish,
Speaker 1: submarines with ghosts in them. So you can read all
Speaker 1: about these crazy lake happenings at Houston works dot com
Speaker 1: and you can always check out our our science stuff
Speaker 1: flog at blogs dot how stuff works dot com. All right,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening, guys, and a happy swimming at the lake.
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