Episode 2 Volcano Live

If he had been standing on this very spot in 1969, this is what you

would have seen, great fiery Fountains of lock-up reaching up

into the sky. Today, we discovered the incredible power of volcanoes

and the influence they have over our planet. This is volcano Live

Look at this incredible landscape. Good morning from Hawaii. Where

broadcasting live from the Big Island. It is a place simply here

because although the volcanoes that created it. Yesterday, we came to

you live from the summit of this volcano, Kilauea, and it is the

most active volcano in the world. Look at this crater, known as

Halem'uma'u. You can see a great plume of gas coming from that

greater. Beneath it is a lake of lava. You cannot appreciate its

power or its beauty in daylight but at night, it is completely

different. This is a time-lapse photographs taken from Albeniz

crabbed researcher, Tom, showing not just the glory of the lake, but

look at the Milky Way. You can see the pulses of magma

coming out, fantastic. This landscape is so apocalyptic but it

used to be lush rainforest until May 1969 when that eruption

happened. The magma that fed that started beneath the lake of lava,

and some of it came along tunnels underground, along the rift zone,

and burst out there, producing that crater. It covered this area in 17

cubic miles of lava. It is enough to cover Oxford. Or Cambridge, and

we like to be democratic. Tonight we will be looking at the

destructive power of volcanoes, but also the surprising role that they

have to play in creating new land and your life. Here is what is

coming up. -- new life. Tonight at visit an Icelandic town which

fought back against a volcano and one.

In Chile, a group of volcanologists hike through the landscape, turned

white and closely by an extraordinary ongoing eruption.

Ed Byrne gets his rocks off in the lab.

And in or why's rainforest, I discovered a unique ecosystem that

could not exist without the volcano. -- and here in Hawaii's rainforest.

We are standing in an area of the Kilauea volcano, and it is not an

easy landscape to navigate. I will do my best to meet Don Swanson, in

research -- researcher from the Hawaiian volcano observatory on the

Big Island. You had the privilege, I think, of being here in 1969 when

the eruption went off, but before you tell us about that, can you

give us an idea of what this landscape was like before? This

landscape was smooth and forested with only a few bare areas from

previous eruptions. It was vastly different from this. And in 1969,

what happened? What did the scientists notice was going on?

noticed that earthquakes were beginning so we rushed down here

just after the eruption had started. There were fountains in the air, 20

of 30 metres high. We have some dramatic pictures. Later on, the

Fountains of higher than that, as the summer progressed. -- Fountains

got higher. By the end of the year, it was completely mature. I think

that is the thing that we do not appreciate. You think of an

eruption being something that happens and then ends quite quickly.

You're saying it went on for months. It lasted for four years with a

little recess in between. The most exciting time was during the first

nine months when it had the highest Fountains. Four geologists -- for a

geologist to witness something like this must be incredibly important

and exciting. It is, both exciting and important. We have a chance to

see repeatedly fountains being erupted and various things that we

do not normally get a chance to see. This was a very stimulating

eruption frost. I cannot believe that not only did you have the

presence of mind to rush down and study what was going on but you

brought your camera. We have some lovely photographs taken. This one

gives us a sense of the scale of those fountains. That is about as

tall as the Empire State Building. We had Fountains even taller. They

start slowly, build up and play for several hours and then they just go

off. It is like someone has just turned the tap off. I love this one

because it shows you again the tremendous scale, and puts us in a

period of time, with the '60s cars. That was the observatory's car. A

few minutes after right at that photograph, it was the only car

left. And then there was a high fountain, continuing, and the

fountain material was blown to the car. The car needed a new paint job.

The more spectacular sight from that time, if I could call it a

waterfall, a lava fall, is perhaps a better description. I think that

is the most spectacular sight I have ever seen. It is bigger than

Niagara Falls, would you believe it? It fell into the crater for

several hours before the crater was almost full. Absolutely beautiful.

I'm going to take advantage of unify May, because we have been

having questions sent in by our viewers. One was sent in from mini-

me, and she wanted to know how close you get to love but because

your face melts. -- close to lava. Another viewer wants to know what

would happen to your hand if you touched Malton lava. Well, you can

get pretty close if there is only a little bit. You can use your arm or

your jacket as a shield, and you can touch it if you're wearing

gloves but not for very long. With a big fountain, there is so much

heat coming off that you have to stand back quite a long way. Or you

would get burned. We went out to the lava field just out there which

you will see it in tomorrow's programme and the heat is just

extraordinary. I felt like my face might melt if I got closer. When it

gets that hot, you want to get out. Thank you very much for your time.

We will be joining Don later in the programme. We have been in Hawaii

for about a week, preparing for the series. One of the first things we

wanted to do was go out and explore these extraordinary surroundings.

We set off down the chain of craters road. On all sides, it was

lush, green rainforest, but then the vegetation started thinning out,

and it was like being on a completely different planet. It is

like an ocean of lava. That is extraordinary. It almost looks like,

and he will make me feel like I am from the great British a cough, it

looks like a well-cooked a Brownie. -- Bake-off. That is as far as the

eye can see. I have never seen anything on this scale. And then

there was a final surprise. Does it go right across the road? I just on

the road would bend around but it has completely stopped. Shelvey get

out? Yes. -- shall we get out. That is great, that is the end of the

road absolutely. Quite literally. One of the things we're doing this

week in our volcanic control hobbit is keeping a track on the eruptive

activity around the world. The Smithsonian are sending us daily

updates on what has been happening and we had a map showing those

volcanoes that have an alert going on. These are active volcanoes,

typically to between 20 and 30 a day. They are spread around the

whole planet. Yesterday we told you about a volcano in Guatemala a,

called Fuego, that was erupting, but we have had the latest news

from the Smithsonian, that this volcano, Santa Maria, has also been

showing signs of erupting, and apparently triggering avalanches. I

think we have some footage. It is one of these special satellite

images. It is his saddle a light that travels around the planet and

images at night time, picking out hot spots, fires or volcanoes. This

is Santa Maria, and here is the volcano. This is a thermal hot spot,

where magma is getting close enough to the surface to be seen from

space. I expect that as it comes up, the volcano was becoming unstable.

There is a small town near that volcano, and I have actually been

there, it is rather beautiful. Quite a small population, just

200,000 people. Do we know what sort of alert has been put on the

volcano? There is no evacuation. These things happen all the time

and sometimes they go to nothing. There is another one causing

concern in Japan. You know this volcano quite well. I went there

are few years ago and it is a volcano on an island with

communities immediately below it. Across the bay, there is a big town.

If we go to the webcam, the other day the plumes were a 1000 feet. --

8000 feet. It is still active but it has not accelerated or

intensified. With an eruption like that, can it go in ate and flows?

Can you get huge plumes and then it comes down? -- ebbs and flows.

will see this repeated over the next few days. They are really

unpredictable, volcanoes. It could go to nothing or it could become a

big eruption. You can keep an eye on all of the active volcanoes on

our map, many of them have webcams. Access them on our website: Also,

send your questions in. We will be asking a few more of

those later. Now, we have seen how lava can transform the landscape.

But so can volcanic ash. In June of last year, a volcano called Puyehue

started erupting. Earlier this year, with that eruption still ongoing,

Hugh Tuffen from Lancaster University joined an expedition to

go and see the eruption for himself. I wanted to be a vulcanologist

because I love mountains and a love the idea that mountains can be

alive, they are not just static and in the background, they are

actually almost living things, changing the scenery in front of us.

My specialism is rile lytic magma. It is this kiss and rich in cellar

Cup. We almost never watch eruptions like this taking place.

They are very rare and there have only ever been two worldwide in my

lifetime. In June of last year, a volcano called Puyehue erupted for

the first time in 50 years. The plume was 40 kilometres in altitude,

disrupting flights in the southern hemisphere for some time. By the

following January, it had calmed down. I had to get out there. It

was an epic journey to get there, as the volcano is in a remote

location. Five -- 500 miles south of the capital.

The rainforest are normally green and lush, and full hummingbirds, it

is beautiful. But we found it to be desolate and quiet, stifled and

covered in ash. Do what up was tough, continuous

uphill, carrying 25 kilograms. -- the walk up. John Castro and Ian

Skipper joined me. John is an expert in this type of volcano.

to Sheikh! Tell me about it. Ian is an expert on vent processes. We are

two-thirds of the way up. We are hearing persistent rumblings.

booming sound got louder and louder but we still could not see anything

through the trees. But there was one point when there was a clearing

and suddenly we could see this billowing ash rising up from the

My hairs stood on end. I was look, Duff, Duff, Duff. It's fantastic.

We had to find somewhere to camp. We needed water and far enough from

the vents that we were out of range of any of the large blocks of lava

that were being blasted out. Being so close to the vent felt

exhilarating. It's just incredibly exciting to see the vent on one of

the volcanoes that we've been studying for so many years. It's

live right in front of us. Wow. Textbook. One of the unsolved

mysteries of rhyolites is how the gas escapes. There has to be some

way of how the gas gets out. It seems as though they were valves

through which gas and ash was able to escape very rapidly, but then

these were blocking up and then a new valve was opening up right next

to it. Wow, look. It's just cleared itself there. This really helped us

to think about the way that gas is able to escape from this very thick

rhyolitic magma. It gradually got darker and darker and as it did so,

the vents came to life. I then realised that I had a switch on the

camera, which meant we could go to watch in infrared light and we

could suddenly see bombs of lava that were being ejected on the long,

lazy paths before they landed on the ground. It was a beautiful

thing to watch, but also very useful as we can then work out how

fast the bombs are moving and this all links in to how the gas is able

to escape from the magma at the vent. It's very exciting for us

indeed, because we are rhyolite experts and we've been studying it

for years. To actually see all the secrets being revealed by Puyehue

was quite something. Great tough from hue. We'll be joining him

again for the other part of his expedition later in the programme.

What struck me about that eruption, was it was turning a landscape

white and yet, you think of col vanic eruptions turning land black,

so why was that? -- volcanic ejupgss turning the land black, so

where -- eruptions turning the land black, so why is that? There is

hardly any silicone, so that's why they are grey and black, but

although there is no change in chemistry, threw -- there is a

change in texture. This is a smooth, polished. Pahoehoe is very runy and

it flows and then it kind of freezes and cools quickly, so it

has the glaze on top of it. Often, the other magma, you can see, it

flows underneath, but on the surface you get a feeling of the

motion and flow that goes on. This would have been seeping up out of

the ground as we saw in some of the footage yesterday? That's the red

rivers of lava. It would run quite quickly and almost be like a sort

of treacle or something? Yeah. Creeping across. Look just next

door to this. Same chemistry and similarly erupted from just over

there and look at it. It is rubble here. This stuff is from a much

more slow-moving lava. It's stickier and so when it cools it

starts to cool and slow down. does it get sticky, why from the

same col vain know? Temperature. When it's lower it get stickier and

it's harder to move. Think of oil. The point is, this is horrible to

walk on and you'll lacerate yourself and the people called this

A'a, and they tell me this is because it hurts when you stand on

it. As we have seen, volcanoes can cause devastation not just on land,

but unfortunately on human populations as well. Since records

began, it's believed that about 250,000 people have lost their

lives as a result of volcanoes. In disaster movies, it's often this

stuff, the lava, that is seen as the culprit, but how accurate is

that? Ed Byrne discovers. classic 1997 disaster movie,

volcano. It's got Tommy Lee Jones in it. A volcano has gone off in LA

and lava is incinerating all in its path. How much of this is science

fact and how much Hollywood fiction? Dr Alison is one of the

country's leading experts. She wants to explode some lava myths.

Alison, this was once lava and presumably if you heat it up hot

enough it can be lava again? Probably have to heat it to 1100

degrees or so. I see a torch here. Can we do that? Yes, we can. Don't

try this at home, kids. Wow. It's pretty quick. You can see the gas

bubbles are growing. Yes. It melted really quickly, but it flows very,

very slowly, doesn't it? Yeah. have to be pretty low-moving to get

killed by a lava flow? You can generally outrun one. That's quite

cool. I just made lava. You did. Pretty sweet! What about these

things? Lava bombs? How dangerous are they in the real world? Lava

bombs form in explosive eruptions. Lava flows are when the advice kus

fluid comes out and pours out the top and -- viscous fluid comes out

and pours out and bombs are relatively big pieces. The bombs,

when they come out of the vent, often they go on a trajectory like

a Canon ball. This one is like one and surprisingly light for a rock.

There are a lot of bubbles in there, so they are gases that are driving

the eruptions. This is what they look like in real life. How far

from a volcano do they generally fly? It depends on how explosive

the eruption is, but generally, no more than a kilometre or something

like that. What is the major killer then from a volcano? The main

killers during eruptions and shortly after are pyroclastic flows.

They go further away from the volcano than a bomb would go.

an explosive volcano erupts it throws enormous columns of hot ash

particles and gases into the atmosphere. Gravity can cause an

ash column to collapse and when it does it can turn into what is known

as a pyroclastic flow. These can travel dozens of miles, moving at

hundreds of miles an hour, at temperatures of up to 1,000 C and

they destroy everything in their path and since 1600 more than

40,000 people have been killed by such flows. More than any other

immediate volcanic hazard. Alison, explain to me how this tank can be

used to recreate the flow? As you can probably tell, there is water

in here. We are going to pretend this water is actually the

atmosphere. This will be gas and we'll make our pyroclastic flow in

here. This will be the volcanic ash and we'll be simulating an ash

column above a volcano that becomes unstable and collapses. Then when I

open this gate that's the volcano collapsing. Exactly. Here it goes.

Typically in a volcano it's going downhill and it might hit a flat

area, but because it's gravity driving it, it wants to go down, so

it tends to stay in valleys and goes downhill. The flows can travel

over land, over hills and even over water. When crack toia erupted, the

flows killed throws of people across the sea. How could this have

happened? Not even the scientists are sure, but Alison has a theory.

We have got some ash heated to 600 degrees Celsius. We are going to

pour it into the water and you can see the ash bouncing off. That's

because we are having a little steam explosion. This all becomes

clear when filmed with a high-speed camera. As the superhot ash hits

the water the steam throws the ash back up into the air. Could this be

what happened in Indonesia? steam explosions are adding energy

and pressure and it's like a bit of a cushion and reduces the friction

at the base and also keeping that ash in the pyroclastic flows that

are sinking. That's why it just goes so much further over water

then? That's part of the reason. There's another idea and that is

that pummice has a lot of bubbles and it floats and you often get

rafts on the sea and it might be that the flows are also making use

of that raft to help them travel. Skimming on the rafts as well?

Right. The fit many brings home it's not the flows, but the

pyroclastic flows that kill. Later this week I'll really investigate

those more carefully when I go to Vesuvius in Italy. We have looked

at flows and lava and ash, but something that you may not think is

a volcanic distructive force is mud. But, believe me, it can be. If you

have an ash eruption, followed by heavy rainfall or the ash mixes

with melted ice, you can get mud and that can often change into

mudflows known as lahas. That happened in 1985 in Colombia. It's

a volcano called Nevado Del Ruiz. These scenes are shocking to this

day. It caused the death of 23,000 people. It was the deadliest

volcanic eruption in south American history. Why was it, Iain, or why

did it, I suppose, cause such a great loss of life? I think there

was no monitoring. This mudflow started way up the valley. People

could have had 30 minutes' warning if there had been an instrument

telling them there was a flow on the way and people could have found

high ground or something. One of the ironies of these disasters is

they kickstart changes in technology and practice that make

us forecast and study them much better. It's a sad testiment, but

it's true. What is interesting is just it week, though, Nevado Del

Ruiz has restarted again and if we can go to see where it is. It's

just over here. If we have a look at the footage that has just come

back in the last week from the webcams there, you can see plume

activity and ash cloud coming out of the crater. Here it is in the

background. This is the modern town there. What is really interesting -

there, it's a much more active scene. That's one that we will be

keeping an eye open on. Do we think that - are they starting an

evacuation? Is there a class of warnings as far as they are

concerned? They've raised the warn to 11-2, which means it's likely in

days or weeks and evacuation has started. Even if it's as bad as

1985 the death toll won't be as near. That is a testiment as to how

far we have come in 30 years. can keep an eye on the webcams of

that and all the activity ones by going to the website: It seems they

are our ultimate adversities and there's nothing we can do to stop

them erupting, but there's an amazing story, which I discovered

in Iceland of a community that fought against a volcano to stop

what seemed to be an inevitable Five miles off the southern coast

of Iceland lies a small volcanic island. This is Heimaey and the

approach to the harbour is protected by looming cliffs of

black rock, a clue to events which rocked this place to its

At 2am on the morning of January 23rd, 1973, a fissure in my long

opened up and split this part of the island in two. -- a mile long.

Today, the evidence of the eruption is easy to find. This was the stuff

that was coming out of that volcano. It is actually a sort of ash, but

it is more like gravel. It was literally raining down. Of course,

it was not in her stuff like this, it was that about 1000 degrees

Celsius. -- inert. So to be here when that happened

must have felt like being in a living hell. To the 5000

inhabitants of this tiny island, it felt like the end. The volcano

threatens to engulf everything, and although it was a heart-wrenching

decision, they knew immediately that they had to leave. It was pure

luck that the night the volcano erupted, the harbour was full of

fishing boats. On a normal night, all of the men and all of the boats

would have been out to sea. But there had been a huge storm the

night before or, that had kept men and boats at home. When the volcano

erupted, suddenly there was a means of escape from what must have

seemed at the time an inescapable fate.

During the first night of the eruption, almost the entire

population was evacuated by boat to the mainland. 100 or so people,

mostly young men, stayed behind to try and save as many homes as they

could. At first, they concentrated on Clearing ash, hoping to stop

roofs collapsing. But the ash kept falling and many houses were soon

completely buried. Just this single chimney now emerges where a whole

community once thrived. Worse was to come, as a huge laugh off low

advance towards the town, consuming everything in its path. -- lava

flow. And when the lava finally reached the coast, but began to

threaten the most valuable part of the island. -- it began to threaten.

The harbour entrance was just a few hundred metres wide. As lava added

new vans to the coast, there was the chance that the gap might be

closed forever. For those who had stayed behind,

like this local welder, that was the moment when the real fightback

began. TRANSLATION: We knew we had to save the harbour because our

livelihood depends on our ability to be able to sail out to sea. If

we're going to live here, we have to be able to fish. Our way of life

would not last long without the fishing industry, that is how it is.

It seemed unthinkable that anything could be done, but one

volcanologists have an idea. -- one a vulcanologist had an idea.

Several years earlier, he had seen how a lava flow near the coast had

changed direction when it came into contact with sea water. He wondered

if the same thing can be achieved deliberately this time in Nevado

Del Ruiz. -- in Heimaey. whispered to work welding pipes. As

soon as we began spraying sea water on the lava, it starts and to

harden. We noticed that the laughter was losing ground and

actually being diverted. -- the lava. Everyone was saying, it is

working, spray more, spray more! The team worked around the clock. A

huge network of pipes was put together, and extra pumps were

shipped in to get water right into the heart of the lava flow.

TRANSLATION: An unbelievable amount of sea water was sprayed onto the

lava to stop the advance. Huge amounts. Constantly. I had a no

idea how much, but it would be fun to know.

Incredibly, cooled by the water, a huge barrier of solidified lava was

built up alongside the harbour. This new wall of rock stopped the

lava flow 200 metre short of the cliffs on the far side. Today, the

gap remains and access to the harbour has been preserved.

By standing up to the volcano, the people of Heimaey had maintained

their livelihood and to this day, they continued to harvest the rich

fishing grounds of the northern Atlantic.

It must have been a really fantastic feeling, that somehow,

against all odds, you were doing it. TRANSLATION: A volcano was not

exactly an ordinary type of adversity, not a tall, so it was

amazing to see the plan actually working. It is incredible that we

were able to stop the lava and save our town and are -- and a harbour.

It was miraculous. It just worked. In 1973, the people of Heimaey had

the audacity to stand up to the worst that nature could throw at

them. It was an amazing display of resilience. For Iceland, it was a

rare victory for the people in their long battle against the

volcanoes in their midst. Iceland's Prime Minister told me that it was

5000 years since the last volcano here and perhaps it will be another

5000 years until the next. As he put it, the people of Iceland live

with fire beneath their feet. An incredible story. Perhaps just

as incredible is the fact that 20% of the world's population live

within 100 kilometres of a volcano. This is bigger island, and we are

just down chain of craters road. That is the greater were we were

last night, the Halem'uma'u crater. And this is the volcano that

everyone has turned their attention to, the biggest volcano and the

world. The lava flows, in 1984, flowed down the side here towards

the main town on Big Island, Hilo. When this blows, it throws out an

enormous amount of lava. It pours down the mountainside, as you can

see. In that last eruption, the lava. Within four miles off Hilo.

It is a fairly terrifying fact. It could happen and it is already

happening down here. There are lava flowers that have taken over a

Little Town that Ian and I will visit tomorrow. It is called

Kalapana. The population here have got their eyes on that. I believe

Ian is out on the lava and we will be interviewing gone Swanson again.

-- Don Swanson. Water was the safe here in Iceland, but here, it is

different? -- was the saviour. Water can cause expose of eruptions.

It heats up and forms steam and the steam power as the explosions.

Talking of explosions, this is the fissure that erupted in. 1969. This

is. The fountain here was not very large but during the course of the

summer, it became very high. Extraordinary. Why is it that

volcanoes switch from a gentle, if you sit tight, too explosive?

seems as if the summit region has to come maps -- has to collapse so

water can get into the plumbing system. Once that happens, you

generate steam explosions. Kilauea has a Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

personality. It is by Bola! It can switch from lava flows to expose of

eruptions. -- by Polar. explosive cannot get? -- can it get.

We have had six eruptions in the last 1200 years sending ash well up

into the jet stream, 10, 15 kilometres high. And in the tropics,

that allows it to move around. is the problem with aircraft

Catholic. -- aircraft traffic. It can be really dangerous. This

landscape is incredible. These are trees! These are trees. The lava

flowed around the tree and it was cooled by the tree. Then the level

of the lava dropped, and this became an island. It shows you the

personality of what we're looking at. We are exploring that in Chile

a different way. The first day was all about

watching events and the plumes. The second day, we wanted to get in and

watch the lava flow itself. This was an obsidian lava flow. It is

volcanic glass. This is solidified magma, which has not formed any

crystals. It was quite a slog to get there,

going up a bridge and downer Bridge, and eventually we came over a slope.

-- down a ridge. Eventually we saw a spectacular lava flow.

But was the first time in our lives that we had ever seen and obsidian

flow, a rhyolitic lover flow in action. -- a lava flow. That is the

lava float there, the material flowing out from the base of the

volcano. This was as far from a river of red lava as you can get,

it was like a glacier of creaking lava, groaning, almost

imperceptibly moving. One to his unique is that we are

seeing the explosive phase and the effusive phase, which is still

evidence -- which is still active. Rhyolitic eruptions have always

been couched in terms of a full serve -- explosive or effusive, so

easily -- either it is producing pumice or lava. Both are happening

at the same time so what we're watching here is new evidence that

is telling us something detail about how these volcanoes work.

John went down to the edge of the lava flow. John is collecting some

samples of obsidian. I hope to see him running away from their pretty

fast. Move! Definitely some hard one samples.

The that samples is a nice resource for us, that we can use to study in

more detail how the love for deforms and how it loses gas. --

how the lava reforms. We are running out of food and water. We

decided to go back down to the ballet. As we walked down through

the forest, it was so quiet again. Eventually, when we got down to the

valley itself, everything seemed brilliantly colourful after the

black and white landscape that we had come from.

We went down to a beautiful lake at the foot of the volcano. Many of

the lakes around the volcano have floating rafts of pumice. It is

such a light rock as it is full of bubbles. There are huge slicks of

pumice floating on the surface. It is a beautiful thing to witness.

When you come down from the summit, there is no better way to get

cleaned up than to go for a little swim in the exfoliating pumice raft.

It was one of the most exciting trips I have ever been on. It was a

practical challenge, tyrant, and really exciting as well. We felt a

little bit on the edge sometimes, just through being so close to the

events. For me, being able to watch these processes that I had been

studying for years, that was really a special thing that I will

You can see why he thinks that. This is obsidian. Beautiful. This

is glass. Absolutely. Have a look at this. That is the pumice. You

can see all the gas bubbles. things from the same col vain know

and totally different formations. There's a lot of silicone and that

blasts out. You are taking glass into your lungs. Good for your feet

though. Time for our viewers' questions. We have this crackers.

One of the topics that has come up tomb and again is yellowstone, when

is it going to blow? Big question. This is the supervolcano in America

and we are going to be dealing with that on Thursday, so we'll hold off

there. Tune in then. The other thing, our favourite fact of

yesterday's programme was to tell you that the volcano was not only

the biggest in the world, but the second biggest in the Solar System,

but everyone wants to know what is the biggest? It's the one on Mars.

Mr Judd and her year-nines in Malden in Essex, they want to know

will there be an eruption in England? An interesting one. No.

There was activity in Britain about 50 million years ago, but we have

shifted our position. The source is under Iceland now. I'm pretty sure.

John Hunter in Workington in Cumbria, he wants to know, does

lava contain precious metals? does. The hot fluid has lots of

precious metals that gets blown out in the plumes. There is a lot of

metals coming out. On Mount Etna, this is my favourite fact, every

year 700 grammes of gold gets ejected. You will be out there with

your little bag. It's not that much, given how much stuff comes out,

it's not worth going out with your panning basket. Paul Hill in Ealing,

he wants to know, how far down is the deepest magma chamber? That's

quite hard to tell, because often they have different chambers,

there's a lower and they climb up to shallows, but tens of miles down.

Did you not say it's about a mile under this Halem'uma'u one here?

Typically. Keep your questions coming. It may surprise you that

volcanoes can be created as well as distructive. They build new land

and with that comes new life and the national park here, where we

are, is a World Heritage Site not for the volcanoes, but

extraordinary biodiversity. A lot of you have been in touch saying

you want to see the flora and fauna, and you are in luck and so were we,

because last week an ejock gist, who works here found and -- ecol

gist who works here phoned and said there is a plant that flowers once

in the 25-year lifespan and then it dies. And there's one, in fact more

than one, in bloom right this minute and we had to go and see it.

It's beautiful. You are on the volcano at 6600 feet elevation and

where I'm taking you is a really special place and I think you'll

enjoy it. Look. These are the flowers. They are the silver shards.

I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. You don't always

see them flowering. If you had come last year there would have been no

flowering plants. It's the most beautiful thing. I agree. And the

scent. Yes. There's a very heavy smell of honey. They live to be

maybe 20 or 30 years. How rare is it? Very rare. We only know of

three natural populations remaining in the world. All are on this

mountain and the largest population is only 700 individuals. This

amazing plant is totally indemic to this volcano? Yes Yes. There are

others found on other mountains on the different islands. This is

specific to here. That's extraordinary. It was so unusual,

but we as a crew were actually in the right spot at the right time.

How many times have you said, "You should have been here last week."?

Spot on. What a great surprise and treat it was seeing that. It's

lovely. That sentiment that volcanoes are places where life can

flourish to such exotic things is really important. It's easy to

forget through all the images of spewing lava. I went out to see the

good side of volcanoes the other day. Walking through the black lava

fields it's hard to imagine that volcanoes are capable of anything

other than total destruction. Around 150 years ago this beautiful

bay used to stretch all the way around here. Those trees over there,

they were on the shoreline and beside it was a thriving little

fishing village. In 1859 this happened. A huge lava flow flowed

from the biggest volcano and it for through the trees and destroyed the

fishing village and filled in half the bay as it spilled out into the

sea. Although the eruption was devastating, the lava created new

land and added almost two square miles to the shoreline, providing a

new habitat for life. And it's not just here. All over the island,

volcanoes are building land. They built the wol island and every

other island in the entire chain. - - whole island and every other

island in the entire chain. Now there's a whole string of island

paradises. All of them built by volcanoes. Blanketed in forest and

bathed in sunlight, the islands have become a haven for life,

teaming with -- teeming with unineat species. -- unique species.

This looks really rich. It is. The amazing thing about this forest is

virtually everything we are seeing is found nowhere else in the world,

only in Hawaii. This is a healthy forest, so in terms of plants,

there's over 2,000 species found only here. I can hear some birds.

The chattering is the Nectar- feeding bird and it has a curved

bill to fit into the flowers, so there's an incredible pairing of

the plants and birds here. important is volume cannism here?

It's fundamental. It's founded by the volcano. They create the

islands and they are in the ocean. It's the arena for all the

evolution and adaptation to happen. Even the rain, because obviously it

falls on this speck of land. Without that we wouldn't have the

amazing rain forests, that's for sure. Even in this forest, you are

never far from the devastation. The sun's out. It comes and goes.

that's it. The forest is there and now this. We are into the lava.

These flows come from an eruption in 1974. The cracks ripped open

through the earth. It's incredible, that abrupt line between lush

forest and suddenly, wham, black lava. It may look desolate, but

life has found a way to thrive again. This is the native tree,

found nowhere else in the world. They are adapted to grow out of

here. What is it rooting into then? There's no soil and in many cases

they don't even need to be in a crack, as you would expect. They

can be just stuck to the side of a rock, with the roots goes over the

top. Many think volcanoes are fertile, but it's hard for plants

to get at the nutrients? Yes. Lava has all the minerals a plant could

ever want, but they are locked into the lava. As near as we can figure,

this tree is surviving completely off of what little nutrients there

is in rainwater. It's a symbol of resilience? Absolutely. As the

volcanoes age and become inactive the raw materials we are seeing

here will begin to erode and be weathered away and it will

contribute to the rich col vainic soils we always here about. -- hear

about. In a few decades, the trees will have transformed the land back

into lush forest. In a few thousand years the mineral-rich lava will be

broken down into soil that will support countless more plant

species. They do a lot more than provide new trepbts for plants to

grow, because without -- new Trents for plants to grow, because without

them there wouldn't be any plants at all. Here at the summit there's

barely a plant to be seen, but it's what's in the air that's important.

That huge cloud is mostly water vapour. Also sulphur dioxide and

Co2, which is crucial for plants because it allows them to process

the sun and store it as energy. When our planet first formed 4.5

billion years ago it was volcanic activity that put Co2 into the

atmosphere, so without it plants would never have evolved. We tend

to think of Co2 as a greenhouse gas, keeping the planet warm. Too much

and it can make the planet dangerously warm, but too little is

also dangerous too. If there was none in the atmosphere then heat

would just leak out into space. If there was no greenhouse gases at