WEBVTT - Death By Volcano 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.720 Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:16.280 works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.520 This is Alison Anom like the Science or how stuff 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:20.959 works dot com. This is Robert Lamb Signs, writer at 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.880 how stuffworks dot com. And this week we're talking about 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:28.440 death by Volcano, which which kind of takes me back 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:31.080 because when I was a kid. Um, I think everybody 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:33.120 had a variation on this game, but me and my 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:35.320 sisters should played this. This game where would be like 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:37.680 in the living room and suddenly somebody would yell out 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.159 everything but the couch is is lava and we'd all 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.080 have to jump on the couch because if you were 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.600 stuck on the floor, then you were burned alive by lava. 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:47.800 Sometimes it was never ending pit, but most of the 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.600 time I think it was law. Do you guys do that? Um? Yeah, 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.840 occasionally it wasn't. One of our central games were more 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.160 like Ghost in the Graveyard type of crew. I don't 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.360 know that one. Oh really goes to the graveyard where 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.400 you uh, you're outside, takes place at night and there's 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.360 like somebody who is I guess the ghost and anyway, 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.720 you have to make a lap around a prescribed circuit 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.560 and make it back safely. Well that sounds fun. It's 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:12.759 actually really fun. Yeah, it's a really good summer game. 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.919 But I did we did play the volcano game as well. Okay, well, um, 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.160 well yeah, so basically we're talking about ways since you 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.160 wouldn't you're not actually going to have your living room 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.800 suddenly turned into lava and burn you alive. Um, but still, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.520 volcanoes can be pretty deadly. So we're gonna we're gonna 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:30.039 talk about him a little bit here today. If you 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.200 have if you have any personal experience with volcanoes, yeah, 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.280 not so much. Um, I've seen some. But the story 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.080 that stuck out to me when we've decided on this 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:42.520 podcast topic was that there was this story in winter 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.240 two thousand and ten about this climber who fell into 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.880 the crater at Mount St Allan's. Did you hear about that? No? 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:51.640 I don't. Yeah, he was a he's a pretty expert climber. 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:53.520 I think he climbed Mount Saint Helen's like to the 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.600 tain of almost seventy times, and so you know, he 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.200 was up at the heat, he was at the summit 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:01.960 and here have just backpack and he took up his 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:03.720 jacket and he was going to pose for a picture. 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.640 Why not? Yeah, and he fell into the volcano. Yeah yeah, 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:09.640 Cornis gave away the great way to go. I mean 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.880 that's like, that's like the manliest death ever. Oh I 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.200 don't know. I mean I I got to debate that 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.680 because you know, what if you're still living and you know, 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.280 he's at the bottom wherever he fell, and he's wondering 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.320 if somebody's going to get to him, or maybe he's 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:24.760 kind of dying, you know, slowly, and he sees help 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.600 because they did actually recover his body. Yeah, but I'm 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.320 just thinking, like you know, it's like later, it's like 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.919 they're talking about mountaineers and mountain climbers and they're like, oh, yeah, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.040 there was old Carl and he h he died in 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.720 the old folks home up there, and uh in uh 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.440 in Coffee County. You know. How about about Doug Oh 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.200 he uh he sprained his leg real bad. He's still 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.239 around Medda and do much. Well. How about what's his 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:47.800 name is that? Oh? He fell into a volcano. Like 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.880 that's the most awesome death ever. Like people were probably 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.200 thinking when I'm premated, I want my nevs, like I 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:55.239 want my ashes to go into a volcano. Like, that's 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.000 just so epic. And this guy that's how he died 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.480 and that's I mean, if you have to tick away, 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.560 it's pretty fantastic. Right, So that's one way to uh, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.000 to die by way of a volcano. Um. And what 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.120 are volcanoes again? In case you guys need a quick review, 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.680 I'm happy to provide such review to you. Yeah. Well, 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.280 you know, most of the time we do think about 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:17.160 like Mountain St. Helm's we think of or we think 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.760 of a big fiery mountain, you know, like the kind 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.239 of place where a dark lord might board some sort 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.360 of horribly powerful ring to enslave the population of a 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.880 fantasy world. But but but they can be a little 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.959 more than that. Um. Generally speaking, a volcano was any 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.640 place on a planet where some material from the inside 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.760 of the planet makes its way through to the planet's surface. Um. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:41.480 And you know, it's like, you know, sort of like 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.400 a pimple or something, you know, except more geologic terms, right. 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.320 And the geologic terms would be lava, ash and gases 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.760 right right. And the layers wouldn't be skin, muscle, et cetera. 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.680 They would be core, mantle, and outer crust. So magma 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.560 can rise where two plates meet. That's right, right. So 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.320 you remember the crust of the Earth is about it 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.280 into you know, about twelve different plates, right yeah, and right, 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:06.680 like you were saying, Robert doing a fun job, magma 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:08.600 can rise up for the two places. It's like the 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.280 ring of fire all that stuff. You know, It's like 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.800 wherever they meet. Um, you basically have this this rift 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:18.160 where magma can rise. Um. But it can. Magma can 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:20.640 also push up, push up under the middle of a plate. 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:26.120 It's much less common, but this is the interplate interplate 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:30.039 volcanic activity is casban an unusually hot mantel material forming 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.680 in the lower mantle, then pushing up into the upper mantle, right, 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.760 and then this uh, this wells up and uh and 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.320 it basically creates a hot spot, okay, And it's not 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.240 just some tiny hot spot. It's a hot spot that's 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.599 you know, hundreds to maybe even a thousand kilometers wide. 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:47.720 We're talking a huge hot spot. And due to the 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.799 unusual heat of the mantel material, it melts, forming magma 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.640 just under the Earth's crust, all right, and then that 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.000 burst up and you have a volcano. Um. But it 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:58.880 is a since the this is kind of interesting though, 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.520 Since a continental plate move is over this spot, the 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.719 magma will create a string of volcanoes which die out 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:06.800 once the plate moves past the hot spot. So you 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.279 have situations like the volcanoes in a white uh, which 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.320 which were created by the spot forming this volcano. And 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:18.160 then this is like an assembly line of of geologic strife, 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.240 if you will. Yeah, I mean speaking of geologic strife, 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:23.960 I mean the ring of fire has to take the kick. 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:29.320 And incidentally Indonesia has the most oh yeah yeah in 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.360 the US. I feel like Mount St. Helens gets a 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:33.640 gets a lot of credit, gets a lot of volcanic credit. 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.560 But really they're a hundred sixty nine active volcanoes in 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:38.479 the US. Did you know that, Robert I did not 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.360 have that figure of floating around my head. Of course, 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:43.120 we have Haaii too, and they have they have they 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.840 have some awesome volcanic activity there as well, which I 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.440 got to see firsthand several years back. Did you know 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:53.120 you've been yeah no, no, uh no, we did not 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.960 did my honeymoon to Mexico. But this was like during 0:05:58.000 --> 0:05:59.280 a time when I didn't know what I was doing. 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.679 But a friend of mine and uh J P. Collen 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.640 if he's listening. Um. Moved out to Honolulu. He had 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.280 an architect job out there, so he's like, Hey, everybody 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.160 wants to come visit me. You got a fruit place 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:11.680 to stay in? Why So I went out there and 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.320 visited him for as long as he put up with 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.880 me to see it was awesome, got to see the 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.080 volcano is a beautiful place. Yeah. I was a big 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.440 fan of Hawaii. Only been to twice though. Oh yeah, 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.960 well you can pretty much any of those islands are great, 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.800 even the leaper ones so or the Leopard one, it's 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.919 just the one. So death by lava. Yeah, while I 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:33.440 was in a way, I saw a guy get hit 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:35.479 by a bus, But I did not see anybody killed 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.600 by a lava flow. Um, and that's what we're gonna 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:40.320 talk about here. Did you really see a guy hit 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:41.920 by a bus? Well, I didn't see it happened, but 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:43.360 I like, I went in to get a coffee and 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.480 came out and I'm like, huh, what are they doing 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:46.840 over there in front of that bus as parked in 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:48.440 the middle of the road, and it's like some guy 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:55.000 with a lay on had been hit by a bus. Yea. Anyway, 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.880 back to the back to the lava. All right, so 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.800 lava flows or streams of malt and rock that poor 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.240 oo's out of an erupting vent, all right. Now, this 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.760 can come out explosively, uh, you know, like an eruption 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.240 lava fountains, like you know we're used to seeing, well, 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.480 we're used to seeing images of anyway. Um, but it 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.400 can also occur non explosively, where it just seeps out 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.160 a slower rate. Um. The speed that at which lava 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.640 moves depends on several different factors. It depends on the 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:29.200 type of lava erupted. It's viscosity, uh, the steepness of 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:31.600 the ground over over which it travels. You know, like 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:33.720 you know, if you're uphill from the lava, you know, 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:35.880 you're a lot safer than you are if you're you know, 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.320 if you're looking up at it on a mountain peak. Um. Also, 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.480 whether the lava flows in a broadsheet or it's confined 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.600 to a channel down a lava tube, et cetera. It's 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:46.720 kind of the difference between putting a kink in the hose. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.240 You know, water moves faster through the kink. Lava is 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.840 going to move faster through a confined space fluid The 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.920 salt flows can extend tens of kilometers from an erupting vent. 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.040 All right, the leading edges of these flows can travel 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.240 it's mass fast, six miles per hour, ten kilometers per 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.120 hour on steep slopes. Um, when they're confined to a 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.000 channel or something, they can they can hit like nineteen 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.400 miles per hour. Okay. So I wasn't really thinking that 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.200 death by lava flow was Um, it was a real 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:14.960 certainty for a lot of us who can who can 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.400 move quickly. But now that you're getting into some of 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.520 these faster speeds than you know, it seems like it's 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.440 posing more of an issue. Yeah, one of the one 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.480 one of the things is reading them. Basically, it's still 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.040 moves slow enough that most of the time the lava 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.920 itself is not a risk because generally you're gonna see 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.360 you know, you can Hey, oh the mountain is now 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.080 spewing fire and ash into the air and it just 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.720 became like pitch dark. You know, So maybe I should 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:41.400 run away, right, But maybe you're in the middle of 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.920 a very you know, serious text, you know, to your 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:49.920 to your partner, girlfriend, boyfriend. You're not paying attention, You're texting, Hey, Um, 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.040 I don't know what the the shortcuts for this would 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.160 be like, hey, volcano just erupted, I'm gonna go get 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.400 a picture of it and send you Gonna get a 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.000 picture of my iPhone and send you a picture. So 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:00.400 they run out to the law going to get a 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.559 picture of it and then get burned alive. UM. That 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.160 that is actually the more the more common form of 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.679 people getting killed by lava or like getting out around 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:12.840 it and sudding suddenly getting cut off from their escape 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.040 by the flow of lava or UM one thing that 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.160 they have to be real careful with. UM. On the 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.040 Big Highland in Hawaii, UM at the Volcanic National Park, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:23.880 we actually when I was there, I got to actually 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:25.480 go down and walk on the lava flows and get 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.040 really close to lava where people were being really disrespectful, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.080 like like like I don't know, I thought it was 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.079 disrespectful to bring marshmallows so you could get your picture 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.000 made with a marshmallow over the lava flow. The marshmallows 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.160 were tasty. I don't know, but it's like likezz so people, 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.319 you know, you get tourists down there around lava and 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.760 it's a wonder they don't lose. Just people every day 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.000 because one of the things about this particular area this 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:49.960 is that where it's flowing out towards the water and 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.720 you can walk on where it's you know, it's it's 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.600 become rock. But a lot of times there's there's lava. 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:59.120 I mean, there's a you know, there's there's molten rock 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.800 right underneath there. So if you don't know what you're doing, 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.600 you could easily walk out into an area where there's 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.520 not all that much rock. It's like walking out into 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.600 thin ice um. You killed that way. So so yeah, 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.120 generally you're you're gonna be pretty safe from the lava 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:20.040 unless you're you're stupid or slow. So the next method 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.160 is perhaps not as exciting as a lava flow. It's 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.280 a vogue And no, I did not say fog, I 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:29.480 said vogue. Yeah, so let's take you. Let's take you 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:34.960 into the vogue um. In June of New Zealand's Mount Ruapa, 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:41.480 who erupted violently. It had an ash cloud blotting out 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:45.000 the sun for miles, and that ash cloud climbed almost 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:49.720 about th fet into the atmosphere. It is a classic 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.000 example of the erupting volcano fire mountain ash all the 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.440 all the bells and whistles you'd expect. Yeah, we're talking 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.960 seven million tons of rock and ash rejected. But good news. 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.600 Nobody was killed, at least initially, and at least not 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.360 within sixty miles of the volcano. In the cities of 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.400 Auckland and Hamilton's, however, which I located hundreds of miles 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:12.440 from Ruape, who something strange started to happen. There are 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.320 no warnings sounded, and the skies mostly appeared normal. But um, 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.480 a lot of people started showing up at hospitals, and 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.160 a lot of them started dying of aggravated respiratory diseases. 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.080 In fact, about sixty nine people in the two cities 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:31.000 died from unexplained respiratory illness that July, according to public 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.920 health statistics. So you could have surmised that perhaps it 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.800 was undiagnosed flu or something else, But a bunch of 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.840 researchers that just published a study in the journal Atmospheric 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.679 Environment I think no. They think it was invisible particles 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.560 of acid coated volcanic ash wafting into the cities. I mean, 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.680 you don't want that stuff in your lungs. Over in Hawaii, 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.880 Kilauea has been erupting since nineteen eighty three, using streams 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.120 of lava in you know, relatively peaceful volcanic way. And 0:11:58.160 --> 0:11:59.880 this is where we get this is where we get 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:03.880 the term vog, right, because it's volcanic fog or fog. 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:08.079 Little portmanteau going on there, right. I wonder how Hawaiians 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.400 feel about their vog versus you know, the Los Angeles 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.480 folks with their fog. Which would you rather have Los 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:21.439 Angeles fog smog? Oh? Right, right, right? Los Angeles have smog. 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.520 San Franciscans have fog, and Hawaiians have vog. Yeah, I 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.679 think vog is definitely more exciting. Yeah, vog is pretty 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.640 much more exciting. So, like I said, Kilauea has been 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.720 erupting since but these are, you know, pretty mellow eruptions 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.680 as far as eruptions go, and the gas from the 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.040 eruption is rich and sulfur. Diack said. What happens is 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.120 that trade winds regularly waffed it towards small communities on 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.360 the southern part of the island. Along the way, some 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.760 of the gas can morph into these hazy sulfate particles, 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.440 and together this is what makes up Hawaii's much maligned 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:02.360 volcanic smock a k talk and they looked at they 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.520 started looking at it was affecting people. Between two thousand 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.000 and four and two thousand nine, they found that the 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.200 high exposure to VOG nearly doubled the risk of coming 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.760 down with sore throat or asthma attack. Uh. And it 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:17.960 also elevated bronchitis risk and adults by actually yeah, and 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.400 of course children proved pretty susceptible to VOG related diseases, 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:25.360 with risks of upper respiratory infections nearly doubling, and the 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.079 likelihood of an asthma attack rose by a factor of five. 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.599 And also bronchitis, as you just were talking about, the 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.160 risk for bronchitis was six times higher. So vo poses 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.960 a serious public health threat. Yeah, and they've started, they've 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:40.640 gotten to where they're they're doing a lot more real 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.160 time air quality monitoring. Just make sure that they're on 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.600 top of it. And yeah, they're aware of this situation. Yeah. 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.839 And it's a sparsely populated area by the name of 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:54.560 Ku that's by far the most grievously affected. Yeah, I guess, 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.120 I guess. We drove through Ku when we were when 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.160 we were there, did you did you know that? Um who? 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.319 I also boast the niest place on Earth. I seem 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:04.720 like I have hear that. Well, that's why the they 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.120 have so many rainbows and thens. You know they have 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.679 the rainbow and the license plate at all. M Yeah, 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.240 it's amazing. You go to vote the Volcano National Parking. 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.520 You can see complete rainbows inside a crater. Like I 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:18.520 walked under a rainbow and then look back and saw it. 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.440 And at one point we're on top looking down into 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:24.360 a crater looking down complete rainbow underneath this. It's crazy. 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.480 I didn't even think it's possible. Um. So yeah, our 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.960 next method that a volcano might use to a tempera 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.400 kill you. Um, it's actually this is a kind of 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:38.880 a double pyrocrasts pyroclastic flows and lahars. All right, these 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.920 are pretty pretty awesome unless you're, you know, in their path. 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.200 A pyroclastic flow is a cloud of hot volcanic gas, ash, 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.800 and volcanic bombs that sweet down the volcano sides and 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.800 other steep hills. It speeds approaching a hundred miles. That's fast. 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.520 That's a heck of a lot faster in this one 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:00.360 is really more of a far are more of a 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.600 killer than than just lava flows. When a volcano erupts finolently, 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.480 it's coming for large volumes of rock to just pulverize 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.240 in the explosion, and they were reduced to these tiny particles, 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.600 and these mixed with high temperature gases ash larger pieces 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.160 of rock and it all forms together into this big 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.560 hot cloud. Um. Like imagine like opening your you know, 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:20.640 when you open your oven, check on the cookies or whatever, 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:23.680 and that blast comes out, like you just imagine that 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.320 just a huge blasts like that, except just intensely hot um. 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:29.440 And it doesn't smell like cookies, right, does not smell 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.320 like cookies though, and none of your cooking pork. I 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.880 guess you know that might be accurate because of all 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:39.880 the burning flesh. Because this is a great example. Well 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.040 we're talking about ways it would kill you. Um. So 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.280 like the classic example is this is when Mount Vesuvius 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:51.680 erupted in Italy back August seventy nine. It was on 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.520 the twenty five though, that the pyroclastic flow came down 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.880 and hit Pompeii. So it damaged the walls of the buildings, 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.640 it ripped roofs off, and it killed every in their path. 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.120 They found about two thousand bodies UM in the in 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.280 the later when they were excavated the site. And and 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.480 this is what's really weird and grotesque is that they 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:17.280 discovered all these fractured skulls among the Pompeian dead signs 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:21.200 of basically the pyroclastic flow like heated them up so 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.040 fast that it boiled their brains and their skull and 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.760 shattered their heads like eggshells. Again a very nice image. 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.920 The the other um thing to worry about is the lahar, 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.240 all right, and this is this is actually caused by 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.960 the pyroclastic flow. UM. When the pyroclastic flow mixes with water, 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.720 then the ashtional water mix can form into a type 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.200 of mud. It sets like concrete. The incident stops, so 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.000 think of it as like a pyroclastic mud flow. Really, 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.520 this happened with Mountain St. Helen's pyroclastic flow melted the 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.640 snow and the ice and the upper slopes and it 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.160 formed this All this fast flowing mud swept down the 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.840 mountain uh into the river and UH and and instantly 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:06.159 heated the river up. The mud flows UM and you 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.000 ended up going through houses, picked up trucks, cars, et cetera. 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.119 And they once it settled into into into place, it 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.160 just sets. Yeah, it's like a moment in time of destruction, 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.080 just frozen forever. Like when when Mount Vesuvius went off, 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.480 the town of Herculaneum was hit by the lahar and 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.359 so they've been digging around in that for for a 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.639 while now. It's just you know, everything was just sealed 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.080 up in it, in this concrete. So this is one 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.320 of those ways to die that if you're looking to 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.159 die fast stuff, I would think that this would be 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.800 the way to go. Yeah. The pyroclastic flows definitely gonna 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.879 hit you hard. Um, just instant death. Yeah. So the 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.640 next one is a volcanic winter. Do you've ever sat 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:49.640 the campfire, and I know you guys probably have. Um, 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.119 you've probably noticed the smoke and the bits of ash 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.280 that are rising from the flames. These are the product 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.040 of combustion. The smoke you see it sending out of 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.280 an erupting volcano, on the other hand, and consists mostly 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.480 of these tiny mineral particles formed by the explosive release 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:09.840 of gases. One's volcanic ashes airborne. Three factors determine how 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.000 far it will travel before falling back to the Earth. 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.000 Can you guess one of the factors particles, right, The 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.080 larger the particle, the closer it's going to fall to 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.399 the volcano. Smaller the particle, the farther the winds are 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.080 gonna be able to carry it and drift it into 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.760 a town near you. Another factor that determines how far 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:27.280 it's going to fall from the volcano is the wind 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:29.359 speed in direction you know, I mean, what kind of 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.000 winds do we have blowing. If if it's just a 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.520 strong direct wind, then it's just the volcanic ash is 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.000 going to blow in a relatively straight line. But for 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:39.199 some storm type winds into the mix, and they're going 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.600 to be much more effective at distributing volcanic ash in 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.359 many different directions. Eruption type also determines how far away 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:47.320 the ash is going to fall um and there are 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.160 several different kinds of volcanic eruptions, and their severity plays 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.520 into both of the above factors. So if you have 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.040 um a particularly powerful eruption, then that's going to be 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.840 able to blast particles perhaps into the upper levels of 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:03.400 the planet's atmosphere. If you have kind of a nondescript 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.680 front of the mill explosion, then you know, the volcanic 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.000 ash won't be blasted quite as high into the atmosphere. 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:11.879 So once in the air, the volcanic ash kind of 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.679 mills around and it joins other dush particles, and UH, 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.320 it forms what's called condensation nuclei, which water vapor condenses 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.040 around form clouds. Some violent eruptions can even add volcanic 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.800 ash cloud cover to the atmosphere to drop global temperatures 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:28.679 by several degrees. So this is sort of like your 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:33.760 nuclear winter. UM. So back in three the eruption of 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.840 Krakatoa lowered global temperatures by two point two degrees fahrenheit. 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.080 And in fact, some of these are cases that scientists 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:45.800 point to UM when making arguments and calculations about nuclear winter. 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.640 So there's one theory called the Turba catastrophe theory UM 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:55.800 so named for Lake Tobin, Indonesia. And according to this theory, UM, 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.320 modern human evolution was affected by a recent large volcanic event. 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.159 That's the thought, and by recently means seventy to seventy 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:07.000 five thousand years ago, but it's still pretty recent geologic terms. UH, 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.080 and the event that they point to they think there's 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.120 a category eight or what's called the Mega colossal eruption 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:16.640 on the Volcanic Explicitty Index. Yeah, this was a six 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.679 year A six year long volcanic winner followed this, and 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:23.600 that was followed by an estimated thousand year long instant 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.600 ice age. Yeah, and of course also followed by a 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.120 decimation of humanity. Yeah. And by recent we mean seventy 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.520 to seventy five thousand years ago. Yeah, the Toba Caldera 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.439 in Indonesia underwent a category eight UM eruption on the 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.080 Volcanic Explicity Index. So this is the mega the mega colossal, 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.760