Episode 1 Volcano Live

At this very minute, there are volcanoes erupting all over the

world - in Colombia, Tanzania, chilly, Italy, the Canary Islands.

Why we're here is because that is the most active volcano on the

planet. So join us on an explosive journey as we take you right to the

centre of the earth. This is Welcome to Hawaii. Good morning. I

know it is 8.00pm in the evening with you. It is 9.00am in the

morning here. We are standing at 4,000 feet above sea level. It's a

little blustery. It's a little - well, kind of cloudy and a little

drizzly, but it is truly spectacular here, and over the next

four nights, we are going to take you on an incredible journey and

introduce you to the surprising and incredibly dynamic geological

phenomenon that shapes and continues to shape our world, and

that is, of course, volcanoes. Because we're standing on one of

the best. This is Mount Kilauea, one of the - the most active

volcano in the world. 500 years ago a huge eruption blew out this huge

crater. It's hard to see all the way around the cloud there, but

what you can see is a plume of steam coming out of that smaller

crater. That is the wonderfully named Halema'uma'u Crater. Then

there is the lovely - the thing is five years ago that plume of cloud

wasn't there because in 2008, this This incredible explosion that

rocked the crater created that lava lake. See big plumes, that red

stuff just creating... It must have been the most amazing thing to

witness. A little later in the programme we'll be talking to a

scientist who did indeed witness the birth of that lava lake, but

the great thing is that we have been working over the weeks leading

up to this series with the scientists that are based here at

the Hawaii Volcano Observatory. This is one of the best studied

volcanoes in the world. They have been here for a hundred years. They

have provided us with all sorts of expertise and experience, but also

some fantastic footage, and they sent us this footage of the lava

lake just to give you a sense of what's going on under that plume.

Look at that. These things are really rare. It's one of only four

lava lakes in the world. It's a sort of witch's caldron. I want to

dive in there. Don't do that yet! We can't get any closer to it

because, sadly, the gases coming off that lake are highly poisonous,

but we do have technology on our side, and there is a webcam right

down there. It's updated roughly every 15-20 minutes, so let's have

a look at the latest image from that webcam which gives you a sense

- it is just black and white, but the cracks presumably - that is

molten rock at hundreds if not thousands... Nearly a thousand

degrees. It's constantly moving. You don't really get a sense in

that black-and-white one. What we need is a thermal camera. Do we

have one? Of course we do. That's it in action. You can see the lava

breakup and moving across. Every now and then you get these gas

piston explosions. What's great is it goes in the opposite direction,

so it's hugely turbulent - a lot of turmoil going on there. That is a

strange really because you think of a lake as being a rather sort of

still and placid place, so why is that lava moving so much? Well,

what's happening is the Magma from deep underneath our feet, as we

will learn much more, is constantly coming up keeping that thing going.

We're not just looking at Hawaii because our planet is far more

dynamic than you might have guessed, so here's a little look at what

we've got in store. Over the next four nights, we'll take you some of

the world's most spectacular volcanic landscapes from dazzling

lava flows above the ground... here, here. Here's the red stuff.

That's what we have come for. volcanic chambers hundreds of feet

below it. It's just a riot of every colour you can think of. And we'll

discover what it is that makes our planet so dynamic and exciting.

Tonight, I report from Iceland to find out how a volcanic eruption

there caused chaos in the UK. Armed with fizzy pop and chewy

mints, Ed Byrne recreates a volcanic eruption in a garden in

Bristol. That's a reasonable height of spirit we've got there. Kicking

off a series of global expeditions our cameras head to the Democratic

Republic of Congo and the breath- taking lava lake of Mount Niragongo.

So there is plenty to look forward to over the next four nights, but

before we go any further, let's have a little look at where we are

because we are about as far from the UK as is possible to be. You

can see that we are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There is the

Hawaiian archipelago. It's a chain of islands. We're on the big one

there at the bottom known locally as Big Island, and those islands

only exist because of volcanic activity. Yeah, it's hard to

believe it - we're standing above a huge plume of hot rock that's

coming up now. What that does is produces Kilauea, which is behind

us now, which isn't your classic volcanic, the classic cone shape,

but as we'll discover over the coming days, volcanoes come in all

shapes and sizes. Further over that way we have fissures in a lava

field that is active, spewing out. We have some wonderful images of

that. Let's have a look at this. So this is about ten miles from us.

This is happening as we speak. This area has been erupting since 1983,

and it's that that makes Kilauea the world's most active volcano -

absolutely. I mean, it's mesmerising stuff to watch. Great,

that red stuff - it's something about the red stuff, isn't it? It's

not just that. Just over here is Mauna Loa beside us here. That

looks like a nice, gentle hill but it's actually the biggest volcano

on earth - the second biggest - nearly - the second biggest on the

entire solar system, which is just unbelievable. It is unbelievable

because it looks so innocuous. It looks like a gentle Welsh hill.

does, but that one has an eruptor cycle that goes every eight years

on average, but hasn't gone since 1984. That's one we'll definitely

be keeping an eye on. Scientist here are definitely keeping an eye

on it too. The more we discover about volcanoes, the more questions

seem to arise, not just from the scientific community, but from all

of us who have been working on the series. Every day we wake up with a

would like to get questions into us, we'll try to answer them throughout

the programme. To do that, you need to go to bbc.co.uk/volcanolive. You

can also Tweet questions at hashtag #volcanolive.

At the moment, we have a live web chat going on via our website with

Dr Marianne Cook -- Dr Clive Opneheimer from Cambridge

University. If we fail to answer your questions, he certainly should

be able to. So given volcanoes are erupting all over the world, why is

Holiday shows, Hawaii 5-0, yeah, we all know Hawaii is a holiday

tropical paradise of crashing surf and bronzed bodies, but scratch

beneath the layer of sun cream, and you discover that Hawaii is alive.

Big Island is made up of five volcanoes that fuse it together.

Over the last 700,000 years, their eruptions and outpourings have

pushed new land above the waves of the Pacific. For volcanologists

it's about the most exciting place to be on planet. Exactly a hundred

years ago the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, or HVO, was founded to

try to understand how these volcanoes work - a task it still

performs to this day. Our first order of mission is to issue time

warnings of volcano and earthquake activity in the state of Hawaii. In

order to do that of course, we have to establish and maintain 24/7

monitoring of the physical parameters around volcanoes and

earthquakes. Although it seems simple to be issuing warnings,

there's lot of background that has to be done, a lot of history that

has to be acquired and interpreted and reinterpreted. Every time we

learn something new, we have to go back to the old records and think,

did we see that back in 1950? It is in the park, a vast area which is

vast whose landscaping is ever changing. This is the edge of

Kilauea. This park has the most active volcanoes in the entire

world. Here we can see the eruption of Kilauea at its summit, and so

here people can come - very accessible from all over the world,

and they can actually see in our lifetimes rocks being formed, and

typically, we think about rocks being formed in millions and

millions of years, and here, it's in a human timescale - in minutes,

seconds, hours, days, months - you can actually see rock form, so this

is an incredible laboratory where you can feel and see the awesome

power of this planet. The volcanoes haven't just shaped

the land. They've helped form one of the world's most vibrant

ecosystems, home to unique plants, birds and animals.

And they have had a profound effect on the people who live here, giving

birth to a rich culture. SINGING

In Hawaii and in our culture, our ancestors came here to the edge of

the crater to Kilauea, and they came to honour and respect Pele,

the goddess of the volcano. And still today we show that kind of

respect by coming here, and giving (Indiscernible) The voice that

That just makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck every single

time I hear it. We have come down from the crater room which is just

up there. This is our little technical hub. We're very small and

neat. That is a horse Bob, but at the moment it contains our

producers and all sorts of screens, satellites beaming live to you.

This is the most important member of Volcano Live. We call her Minnie

Winnie. She may look like a campervan to you, but my goodness,

she's got a secret in here. Minnie Winnie is the only mobile volcanic

hub that we know of throughout the entire world, and here we are

plugged into not just what's happening in Hawaii, but all over

the world. This will give you a little sense of geography of where

we are. So we are about here at the -- this crater. Here is the

enormous Mauna Loa, so it gives you a sense of scale of just how big

this volcano is. The lava flows that you saw, happening down here,

so we are in, we hope, the right place. So this is a volcano control

room, and what we're going to have - we can get maps and things like -

access what the latest volcanic activity is. So this is map of all

of the known volcanoes on the planet. All of these - there is

about 1,400 we know of have erupted in the last million years or so,

but not all of these are active on a daily basis. There is about 60

that is active. This is what is active right now - 25 volcanoes

today active in this. The most active places around the Pacific -

this is the Pacific ring of fire, so volcanoes all the way around

there, and right in the middle, right in Hawaii - that's where we

are. The great thing about modern science, modern volcanology, if you

like, is that webcams give all of us a great view of what is going on.

We saw the webcam earlier in the bottom of the crater here. These -

many of these volcanoes have webcams on. We know that there is a

volcano in Guatemala that is active at the moment, so that's that one

here, and let's go up to the webcam there - actually, not terribly

active by the looks of things. it's a beautiful volcano, a lovely,

lovely shape. You can just see a little bit of activity. We get

these daily reports from the Smithsonian, which is the place

that summarises all the activity. We'll keep an eye on this but the

other one is in Mexico. So just here. Let's go to the webcam of

that. Two weeks ago this started kicking off, producing ash plumes.

The worry is Mexico City is down here, huge connurbations, so

definitely keeping our eye on that one. You too can keep your eye on

all the webcams attached to these volcanoes by going to our website,

bbc.co.uk/volcanolive. But what is it about these

volcanoes that makes them happen? One of the things is - what all

volcanoes have in common is they give off heat, but one of the big

questions is where does that heat Heat is everywhere in Hawaii, if

not beaming down from above it is buoying up from below. If you want

to get a sense of the heat caused by Hawaii's volcanoes, you have to

As far as I can see, it is all lava. It is almost like a different

planet, like you have landed on Mars. This whole landscape is a

hardened crust of lava that spewed out of the crater 15 miles from

Kilauea summit. With the naked eye, you get the audience of the

tremendous heat that lies beneath. -- the odd glimpse. That whole

landscape transforms with one of these cameras. Those red areas are

around 500 Celsius. The white parts are even hotter, over 1,000. The

tremendous heat that is inside the Earth is what has melted the rock

that fuels all the world's cocaine nose. -- Be wolds volcanoes. The

question is, where did this come from? To answer that question, you

have to travel back four-and-a-half billion years, to the formation of

the planet itself. Our world began life as a little more than a jumble

of rocks, colliding with each other as they circled the sun. These

impacts were so violent, they generated a huge amount of heat,

some of which remains trapped inside the planet to this day. The

violent collisions are only half the story, because the rocks

themselves contain radioactive material, and that material also

became trapped inside the earth. It is hard to believe, but we live on

a radioactive planet. You get a sense of that from this, this is a

Geiger counter, which measures natural decay in the rocks around

me. Decay from radioactive elements that are in trapped inside the

rocks, since the planet was formed. The point is the decay of those

radioactive elements generates heat. So if I take a rock like this, this

is rich in uranium. If I put that to the Geiger counter, look at that.

It is off the scale. Although that is rich in radioactive elements, it

doesn't cause any harm, it doesn't generate much heat. These rocks,

they have even less radioactive elements in them. You just get the

odd click. Because we have got so much rock, or all those tiny

amounts add up, so that if you take the planet as a whole, it is a huge

amount of rock that it produces a huge amount of heat. Half the heat

that is trapped inside the Earth comes from radioactive elements.

When combined with heat from other sources, like the violent

collisions that formed our world, there is enough to heat the core of

our planet to 5,500 Celsius. That is as hot as the surface of the Sun.

Incredibly, most of us live our whole lives without even noticing

the inferno beneath our feet. That is because the Earth's thick rocky

crust acts like a blanket, keeping the heat inside. It can't contain

it for ever. Although it is blistering hot down there, up there

in space, it is freezing. If Planet Earth is this hot rock hurtling

through the frozen depths of space, like any hot object surrounded by

cold space, our world is cooling. It means that he that is trapped

down there wants to get out. -- the heat that is trapped. That is what

causes all of the volcanic activity on the planet. Heat is transported

as molten rock, magma. Its seats up through the ocean floor, it burns

through weak spots in the ground and forces its way through cracks

and rock, erupting in spectacular explosions. From humble defence to

dramatic fiery mountains, volcanic activity is all caused by the same

process. Heat from the inferno beneath our feet escape into the

surface. It is wrong to think of volcanoes as great offence in the

earth, they are white hot windows into the inner workings of our

You can see the Halema'uma'u' crater in all of its glory. Beneath

the sun it -- the solid ground we are no, there is not a ocean of mac

my. If you slice through the planet -- there is not an ocean of magma.

It is like a pineapple. The pineapple has a hard core, the

dense core of the planet. Around that is the Earth's mantle, and

then we have the soft and took -- outer skin. The mantle and the

Cross are both solid rock. While the crust is cool and rigid and

brittle, this rock is plastic and flows like Plasticine. The question

is, where does the modern stuff come from? Down here, the

temperatures are easily enough to melt rocks that should be Morton.

Star What stops it is the pressure. Deep beneath us, we have a plume of

hot rock that rises up from the call, like a blowtorch and melts

through the ocean crust. Because it rises up close to the surface,

there is less pressure holding it in so it is able to turn from solid

to liquid, and then rise up, make its way through the crust.

Underneath our feet is just a huge chamber, maybe one mile down and

several hundred feet across. Eventually the pressure from the

magma chamber built up and bursts out as volcanoes. It is complicated,

does it make sense? It made perfect sense, it is amazing what a

geologist can do with a bit of tropical fruit. That magma chamber

creates volcanoes. This was created in 2008. One of the people lucky

enough to witness the Ver -- the birth was Jeff Sutton who works at

the Hawaiian volcanoes observatory. You have possibly the best office

in the world? That is really nice, especially on a morning like this.

Can you talk us through the birth of this lava like and what happened,

what did you see? It took about five months for it to become

apparent that something was going to be happening. In late 2070, in

November, we started seeing sighs Mr T increase. In December, gas

emissions went up and they became very high. Those gas emissions

going through the roof told you something would happen? That is

right. By mid-January of 2008, the gas that is being emitted around

the rim of Halema'uma'u' were what we call an eruptive gas composition.

We knew something was up at that point. Then what happened? By the

next month, the sulphur dioxide emissions were high enough that

park visitors were having to be driven out by emergency vehicles,

because the sulphur dioxide concentrations were so high. The

park decided to close down that half. About a month later, this new

event opened up on March 12th. He a few days after that, at night time,

the fuming area began to glow red. From the observatory, it looked

like a camp fire of glowing embers. How long did it take before you

realised what was going on was the formation of a lava like? That came

a bit later. We knew something was going on but it wasn't until a week

or so later that there were two of us in the observatory. One of us

was just getting to work. The rest of us had not gone home yet. Over

the course of a couple of minutes, the glowing amber of the camp fire

collapsed, it got dark. The next thing we knew, the visitor fence

had caught on fire. Everything else was dark. Then we noticed a further

crust, a saw furious area, a Salford deposit had caught on fire.

Sulphur burns with this eerie glow. It might have been an unforgettable

moment. So far, yes. The role of scientists like Jeff at the HVO is

to constantly monitor this volcano. There is always things going on

here. One of the things that give scientists a clue as to what might

happen next and when is the lava in that lake, as Matt Patrick explains.

The I am Mathiot -- I am Matt Patrick, I am a geologist at the

HVO and my job is to observe and understand the volcano. My mission

is to gain a better understanding of how the volcano works, so we

have a better sense of what the hazards might be. Taking a simple

photo or making an observation can be a powerful tool, but we go a

step beyond that and we deploy a number of cameras, visual and

thermal. We put them in the field so that they run continuously and

make 247 observation. It also gives views into areas that are much more

dangerous to access. The plume is very thick and obscures the view in

the vent to the naked eye. The firm or camera is useful because it can

see through that and gives you an image -- the thermal camera. It has

revealed a number of things that we would not be able to see with the

naked eye. A year ago, we had a spectacular eruption. The effects

were felt at the summit. The result was that the summit lava Lake drain

catastrophically and we were able to capture that with a thermal

camera. Another important part is monitoring the flows and finding

out where they are. He with the helicopter, we can get broad views

on the activity on the lava flower- filled. Tracking these is important

-- the lava flow field. It is an important part of our job to get a

precise location on where those flows are. During my time here, we

have used camera systems to capture spectacular processes. Things like

crater collapses, lava Lake draining events, Delta collapses, a

whole host of activities. The spectacular processes are happening

on a daily basis. And we get to see them as part of our daily routine.

What is clear from Jeff and that is that we are on a living, breathing

volcano and one that occasionally has its volcanoes -- has its

tantrums. Thousands of people visit here every day so the

responsibility of keeping them safe is with Park Rangers like Jim Gale.

It is a hell of responsibility. Absolutely. We tried to let people

get as close as possible, so it is approachable, a place where people

can have a first-hand experience of the volcano. I was surprised, you

can come right up to the edge. Everyone is getting nervous, but

there is a huge crack here. At some point, it will... Isn't it a worry

that people can come to these edges and fall off? We had a campaign

about how to view lava safely. When people come to the park, they know

what to bring an what to wear. is the relationship that the

visitors would have with this wonderful volcano? It is that they

are right here when it is erupting. So they can see it and have a safe

experience. It has an incredible safety experience -- safety record

and everyone these -- everybody leaves with an incredible

experience. Sorry if you are experiencing a few sound problems.

We are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We may not have any active

volcanoes in Britain but we have a lot of active volcanologists. We

have taken terrible advantage of them. We have given cameras to some

of those who are going to the remotest parts of the world on

their ongoing quest to try to understand how volcanoes work. And

one of them has taken a camera to possibly the most volatile place on

earth, a very long way from where Before becoming a volcanologist I

used to work in mobile telecom, and I decided that I'd really like to

do something more interesting, so when I got made redundant, I

decided this was an opportunity and made the decision to go back to

university to study geology. I went and did a Ph.D at Bristol, so I

spent the last four years having an amazing time studying volcanic

rocks and working out how a volcano works. I was just coming to the end

of my Ph.D, and I really wanted a holiday to celebrate the end of

studying. I'd always wanted to see a lava lake, and the largest one is

in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unfortunately, this isn't the

safest place in the world. For the past 20 years, there's been nearly

constant fighting, and one of the largest United Nations' forces in

the world is there to try to maintain peace. I travelled with a

company who have visited that area of the Congo very regularly over

the last three or four years, so I was happy that, provided I took

various precautions, that it would be perfectly safe go. I left for

Congo's mountains - a chain of eight volcanoes. They stretch for

around 50 miles across part of the African Rift Valley.

We're just about to set off for Goma and the National Park, where

we're hoping to see two volcanoes, Nyiramuragira, which has a large

volcanic lake and another. We had no idea what we were going

to see when we got there because nobody had visited the volcanoes

since the beginning of December. We were driving along in a car. We

looked out of the window, and there were these very strange clouds, and

I looked at it, and I thought, I'm sure that's a volcanic plume. The

clouds were just a different shape and slightly different colour to

the background clouds, and we could hear faint noises in the distance,

like thunder, so we just couldn't wait to get to the site.

We had an eight-kilometre hike through the rain forest.

-- before we'd find out whether or not it was erupting. We came out of

the rain forest, and there in front of us was this hundred-metre high

cloud with this amazing fire It was just an incredible sight,

and the noise was unbelievable. So although we ended up over 500

metres away from the actual eruption, you could still feel the

heat from the volcano. Normally, when you see geology, it's happened

over hundreds, thousands, millions of years, but this was geology in

action. This was live. This was rocks being born right in front of

It was an amazing day, and as it got dark, the show was even more

spectacular. As night faul, you get the incandescence from the lava,

which you don't see in the day. So it really brings the fire

fountaining and the whole volcano Just a little bit jealous. I mean,

that is an incredible, incredible thing to witness, and we have

another part of Lorraine's extraordinary journey to the Congo

a little bit later on in the programme. I think what's nice is

it just shows there that volcanoes work in different kind of ways.

That's a spectacular eruption, but one of the things about Hawaii

that's interesting is it tends to have kind mild, gentle - what we

call a fuse of eruptions. Basically, what happens is fissures open up,

and you get runny lava that flows - this is going quite fast. Here is a

bit slower, about walking pace, but it's just beautiful. So these are

the lava fields just basically over the mountain from us here.

Absolutely. Isn't that gorgeous? basically, what we're seeing is

more a kind of seeping rather than spiriting. Exactly. But Hawaiian

volcanoes are also capable of throwing their toy of us the

program. You can get fire eruptions, fire or fissures that throw jets.

This happened at Kilauea Iki just down the road. What that did was it

went up nearly 2,000 feet - nearly 2,000 feet, huge fire fountains.

What Lorraine was seeing was smaller versions of that the irony

is that's still called a fuser because it's chucking out Magna.

Some get so explosive, they rip apart the volcano and throw ash

thousands of feet up into the atmosphere. We'll see those later

in the programme. That is what you would call an explosive eruption as

opposed the an effusive eruption. Is that when you get your more

classic cone shape of volcano? Absolutely. In Hawaii, you can see

how low it is. It just seeps out, produces those very low volcano,

but others are your classic ones. We set Ed Byrne a little challenge.

We said, "We'd like you to be able to demonstrate to us the difference

between effusive and explosive eruptions," so he did it, but he

I'm in Bristol, a city which contains a surprisingly high

concentration of some of the world's leading volcanologists.

Shortly I'll be meeting one such volcanologist, but before I do, he

has given me a shopping list of things to pick up - golden syrup -

I would be ashamed to show up with just six bottles and him to say, "I

said lots", sugar - six bags, just to be on the safe side. There we go.

Diet Coke - it does seem strange to buy this much sugar, then buying

diet drinks, and Mentos - presumably, these volcanologists

don't like bad breath. There ain't no party like a volcanologist's

party! Up at the University of Bristol I am meeting up with the

man who sent me shopping, Dr Jeremy Phillips. Apparently he can use

these to find out how and why volcanoes erupt. Good to meet you.

Excellent. I see you have everything I asked for. That looks

great. Just in case you think I am being

paid to say diet Coke and Mentos, I'm not. Volcanologists have proved

they're the best for showing how a volcano erupts.

It's the bubbles that result from the dissolved gass that are the

main driving force behind volcanic eruptions. In this experiment the

bottle represents the volcano. The diet Coke represents the Magna,

which is a liquid that has dissolved gases like a volcano.

the Mentos represents any catalyst that makes bubbles form. I'll screw

up the top. Five, four, three, two, one.

LAUGHTER I'd say that's a reasonable height

of spirit we've got -- spurt we have there. Magna is filled with

dissolved gases. Just like our Diet Coke, it needs a surface to allow

it to result. As magma drives towards the surface, it causes

pressure in which bubbles flow. This is called nuke Leeation. It

Here's the thing - not all eruptions are the same. Some fire

out lava fountains and Flos like in Hawaii, while others explode out

ash and pumas. What makes the two types different? Apparently it's

how easily the gas bubbles can travel through the Magma, which is

where the golden syrup comes in. We know how bubbles create eruptions.

We have seen that already with the Mentos and the Coke, so this is how

bubbles in different levels of viscosity of Magma create different

kinds of eruptions? In this experiment we have two tubes that

contain golden syrup. That is a sticky liquid, a viscous liquid,

and it represents Magma in these experiments. OK. So I'll start the

experiment. I'll just turn on the gas. This just contains the golden

syrup, and from what we can see, because the bubbles can pass easily

through the Mag Marx there is no opportunity for pressure to build

up in this system. So we're having a quite happy, bubbling volcano,

like the guys are sitting watching in Hawaii right now? Exactly right.

But not all Magmas are the same. Some are stickier than other, which

is why we have added sugar to the tube. I am going to turn the gas on

in this tube, and what we can see is the surface raises up to a much

greater height. That's showing there is more pressure in tube as a

result of the fact that the gas finds it much more difficult to

pass through this more viscous Magma. Some volcanoes have lava

which isn't particularly viscous, so bubbles can escape relatively

easy and their eruptions tend to be less violent. They're known as

effusive eruptions. However, with the stickier, more viscous Magma,

bubbles can't escape. Pressure build, and you get explosive

eruptions, but the thing is when you have an explosive eruption it's

not molten lava thrown into the air but billowing ash clouds, so

where's all this stuff coming from? The answer lies with the massive

drop in pressure which viscous Magmas experience as they erupt to

the surface. In this tube we have our very vig counsel gas-rich Magma

represented here by a mix of acetone and pine.

By releasing this pressure, we should see what happens to Magma

when the volcano erupts and is suddenly exposed to the much lower

pressure of the atmosphere. I'll open the valves.

There she blows. Cool. What is this? This is solidified

resin... Yes, what you can see what's on the inside of the tube is

the pine resin with the acetone removed preserving the texture of

the bubbles that were there as it accelerated and flowed up the tube.

In explosive eruptions the pressure drops rapidly. That means the

volatile gas inside the Magma can expand and accelerate the mixture

up through the volcano as we saw in the experiment, and then what we're

left with is a material called a pumus. Pumuses get generated during

large explosive eruptions, then they get ground up to form the ash.

As they form up through the volcano, they collide with each other and

they collide with the sides of the pipe they flow through. They get

ground up and that ground up pumus becomes the ash. They get exploded

out of the top. So there you have it. Some volcanoes just bubble away.

Some pour molten lava out all over the place, and some explode,

shooting rock and gas and ash out into the atmosphere. It's all to do

with the composition of Magma, crystals, viscosity, pressure

changes and - Mentos. What were the Mentos again?

Yeah, I have to say I'm still a little confused about the chewy

mints. What do they represent in real life The gases attaches itself

in the Coke and grow. The pressure builds up and explodes to the

surface. That's what it's trying to get at. What fun. Who knew you

could have so much fun with fizzy pop and mints? Your questions are

coming in. This is one of my favourite questions. It's from

Joseph Jones, who is eight from Rugby. He wants to know the

difference between lava and Magma because he needs to explain it to

his teacher. Basically, Magma is the liquid rock that rises up, and

Magma is what produced when it comes out of the surface. Perfect.

There you go. I hope that'll explain that to your teacher. Lee

contacted us via Twitter. He wants to know - thanks, Lee - what would

happen if all five of the Hawaiian volcanoes went off at the same

time? Is that technically possible? More or less unlikely. The once in

the north are not active. The ones that are active - this is Mauna Loa

- it is active. It has big lava flows. It could come down here and

take out the main town. That is a worry. Kilauea, the one right on

our doorstep - if that goes, I guess we go off air. So we do. Keep

your questions coming in. As I say, we'll try and answer some more as

the programme goes on and throughout the series, but for

those of us in Britain, we tend to think of volcanoes as being

something rather exotic, but they happen elsewhere, so when a volcano

erupted a thousand miles away in Iceland in 2010, obviously most of

us thought it would have no impact on our lives whatsoever. How wrong

we were. In April 2010, we experienced the biggest disruption

to air travel since the Second World War. Travel chaos after more

than half of all flights in Europe Hundreds of thousands of passengers

were left stranded. One of the world's busiest hubs has been

brought to a complete standstill. The source of the problems was the

Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull, and it continued to blast huge

volumes of ash into the atmosphere for over a month.

Today, the scene here couldn't be This is it, this is the culprit,

Eyjafjallajokull. This is the volcano that caused all that chaos

back in Europe two years ago. And it looks so benign and beautiful

now, a great shining, pure white Gleision. The end it is strange. --

white Gleision. By thought there would be more evidence that --

white glacier. I thought there would be more evidence that the

landscape would be blackened. There was untold amounts of ash that

poured out of this crater and now there is so little sign of it up

here. Most of the Ash has now been buried under two years' worth of

fresh snow, returning much of the summit of the volcano to a pristine

whiteness. We are flying directly around the crater, now. You can

smell the sulphur in the air. It is a quite extraordinary contrast

between the thick Plasil ice and the exposed steaming rock --

glacial ice. The steaming rock is the very heart of this volcano. It

is just an incredible sight. Immediately after the eruption, the

glacier was turned back. A huge volume of ash had caused disruption

for much longer than expected, and it all came from what is a

relatively small volcano. So where did all that - come from? To find

out, earth I head for the summit of the volcano itself -- where did all

that - come from. -- that ash. We climbed 1500 metres over Plasil

eyes, finally arriving at the craters edge. -- over Plasil eyes.

With -- over glacial ice. This man is part of the team to look at why

there was such long-lasting disruption. We have come as close

to the edge of the crater as we dare. Beyond this, the icy walls

are extremely unstable, tumbling down to the steaming vent below.

Why did this volcano generate sh so much ash? It is due to it happening

under ice. The interaction between rock and ice creates - and

disperses as planes in the atmosphere -- creates ash. Because

it happened under ice, you had this reaction that you describe, and it

turned not into solid lava, but this powdery Ash? Yes, if it

happened on a dry land, we would see lava around and it would mostly

be effusive. But when we Wicks -- when we mix of water and Amanda

Ursell it turns explosive. -- water Long-lasting high eighth pressure

over the Atlantic created strong northerly winds which carried the

ash towards continental Europe and forced the cancellation of

To explain why, to be on has brought some ash from the 2010

eruption with him. Service is the very ash that came out of this

volcano in 2010? Yes. It was this fine-grained ash, it is a little

bit muddy. It gets highest in the atmosphere and is carried furthest

from the volcano. This would have been what caused all the disruption

in Europe? Yes. It might look harmless, but this strange muggy

substance has the potential to inflict real damage on aeroplane

engines. But it is mostly volcanic glass. When it gets into the jet,

it melts and when it cools, it covers the jet engine inside and

produces a breakdown. It is this the fine-grained glass. Fine-

grained ash like this is often produced at the ice covered craters

but most eruptions only produce a dash for a few days. So why did

Eyjafjallajokull continued to pump out ash for well over a month? As

the team have discovered, the reason relates to something that

had been lurking inside the volcano since well before the 2010.

seems like the magma from the last eruption has been resting under the

New evidence shows that an old pocket of magma got stuck within

the volcano nearly 200 years ago and it has been lying in wait ever

since. When Eyjafjallajokull came to life once more in 2000 and tent,

the old magma was stirred up and it emerged from the crater -- once

more in 2010. Adding to the volume of ash and extending the eruption

for much longer than expected. So the legacy of a 19th century

eruption was enough to bring modern-day Europe to its knees. We

may not have seen the last of Eyjafjallajokull. History tells us

that we could be entering a period where I slammed's volcanoes play an

ever increasing period -- Iceland's volcanoes play an ever increasing

role in our lives. The eruption of Eyjafjallajokull has proved once

again that we can't take any volcano for granted, even a small

one in a country thousands of miles away. Events here had showed that

all volcanoes have the ability to teach us something new. Valuable

lessons which could help us to better understand the next big

It was amazing that a volcano that had lane apparently dormant for 200

years cause so much chaos, which brings us to another question from

one of our viewers, Hillary Keats wants to know, white and a volcano

like Eyjafjallajokull lie apparently dormant for so long and

suddenly spring back to life? key thing is that it takes a time

for those magma chambers to fill up with magma, to get the pressure to

blow. You can get times when the magma is cut off completely. The

real difficult thing for volcano scientists is knowing when a

volcano is dormant or extinct. Most of the big volcanic disasters

happen from volcanoes that we think have finished. It is the question

of waiting for the magma Chamber to refill and that is when it will

blow. Thank you very much. As you have seen, there is still a lot

that volcano scientists don't know about these amazing geological

phenomenon so. Lorraine Field is one of those scientists who is

trying to uncover a bit more information about them. Let's go

back to her report from the Congo and another extraordinary volcanic

After a few hours' sleep, we were up early for another look at the

eruption site. Before we packed up Next, we headed to Nyiragongo, at

two miles high one of the most famous of volcanoes in Africa and

The trek up Mount Nyiragongo was exceedingly tough. Those are the

hearts at the summit that we are aiming for. When we finally reached

the summit, you are a belated, because you have reached the top.

You rush to the top and you look down, and all that you can see is

fog. The lava Lake should be down there, somewhere. You have this

vision in your head, you have seen the pictures. You get there and

think, yes. You look over the edge As time went on you got these tiny

glimpses of a pink incandescence below the fog, where it was just

beginning to clear and think, yes, yes. And eventually, the whole

thing players and you have this amazing view. -- the whole thing

clears. You have this incredible feeling of being on the edge of the

Earth and you look over, and you have this thigh deep pit. And there

is a laugh a lake at the bottom. Which Enoh is connected to the

magma in the earth -- wish you know is connected. You are almost

looking into the centre of the Earth, it is quite magical. I knew

that as night fell, it would look The whole crater is filled with

pink. It is quite an unreal colour, if you are standing below the

crater rim. The Holt sky lights up with this pink coloration -- the

whole sky. It was way more than I expected, it lived up to beyond my

expectations. It was really interesting because it brings

everything that you study to life. You realise that there are so many

interacting forces. It has given me a lot of insight into how an

eruption happens, which I can apply to work going forward. Studying

volcanoes has completely changed my life. I have a better understanding

of the Earth that we live on, for a start. Also, it has completely

changed the job that I do. I can't wait to get up in the morning and

coming to work, now. 10 years ago, Monday morning, I had the Monday

morning feeling, I didn't want to go into work. And now, this is such

a large part of my life. And I have... I get excited about

That footage is beautiful. It is poetry. Would you have to remember,

this lava Lake is 160 ft across, an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Lorraine's one was five times bigger. Whether it is in the Congo

what it is here or in Ethiopia, it is the same process -- the Congo or

it is here. Volcanologists go around the world looking at

different volcanoes, the ferment -- fundamental process of how

volcanoes work and how the planet works. That is the thing to

remember. It is an incredibly dynamic planet that we live on, and

we hope to really be celebrating that over the next three nights.

Sadly, we are almost at the end of our first show. Don't forget you

can still send in your questions on our website. You can keep an eye on

those volcano web cams and the web chat with Dr Clive Oppenheimer is

continuing. And you can tweet us. Apparently we are trending! What

does that mean? I don't know. What comes up tomorrow. We go to Chile

for an incredible eruption that is still going on and turns the forest

a ghostly white. Incredible. I am back in Iceland telling the

remarkable story of a community that took on a volcano. And we

eighth move to a different part of the same volcano, where we will