Threads of fire: uncovering volcanic secrets with Pele’s hair and tears

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Hello and welcome to the Physics World
Stories podcast.

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I'm Andrew Lester, and in this episode
we're going to be exploring Pele's hair

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and Pele's tears.

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These extraordinary wave structures
formed by volcanic eruptions

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can help us understand
the dynamics of those eruptions.

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Atmospheric processes and planetary
geology here on Earth,

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and quite possibly out there
in the solar system.

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And there are plenty of tales of derring
do, including exploring the depths

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of the ocean, volcanoes in submarine,
because we'll hear from two people

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who spent their careers
so far studying volcanoes

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soon we'll hear from Tamsin
Mather of the University of Oxford.

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But first, I wanted to know why the name
Pele in Pele's and Pele's tears came from

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and in case you're wondering, it's
nothing to do with the footballer.

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Here's Kenna Rubin, who spent 30 years

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as a volcanologist
on the island of Hawaii.

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Pele is volcano goddess in Hawaii

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and interestingly enough, she resize

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or is thought to reside underneath
Kilauea volcano.

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And, you know, a little bit just to inject
a tiny bit of Polynesian history here.

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There were various
waves of migration of Hawaiians

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or the people that populated
the Hawaiian Islands,

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first from the areas that,
we now know or of as French

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Polynesia and Marcos's in Tahiti,

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and they brought various
Polynesian gods with them in the volcano.

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God that they brought
was named Isla out and Isla and was,

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very, sort of waterfall

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God, 
a God who was subject to fits of temper.

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And in fact, scientists at the Hawaii
Volcanoes

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have correlated this observation

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and personification of Isla out
with a phase of explosive volcanism.

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A Kilauea volcano
which ended in the 1790s,

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and Pele was brought

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to Hawaii as a concept by Samoans

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that started to migrate to the islands
maybe 3 or 400 years later.

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There are many, of the Davies

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in the Polynesian religion
which are similar across the islands.

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Pele's one who is different.

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And so when Pele came to the islands,
she took on a somewhat different vibe.

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Pele is,

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also, known to be a vengeful god.

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She lusted after many men.

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And then after, enjoying relations
with those men,

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she would oftentimes
turn them into features of the landscapes.

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There are many volcanic features
on all of the islands

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are named after people
that Pele supposedly turned into.

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These features, for one reason
or another,

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and her arrival in the Hawaiian Islands

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is thought to coincide
with the transition to a more,

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subdued, lava

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flow, what we call effusive
volcanic style.

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Just a little tidbit.

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The 2011, excuse me, 2018

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eruption at Kilauea on the, eastern south

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southeast rift zone
that erupted in the neighborhood.

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If you recall,
it was the Leilani Estates eruption.

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Some people thought that that was a return
or resurgence of either out

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because of the violence of the eruption,
as well as the collapse of

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the volcanic caldera that was happening up
at the summit of the volcano.

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That hasn't necessarily been borne
out in the subsequent, activity.

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But this is this is something that, 
very important to the people in Hawaii is,

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personifying processes
not just in the volcanoes,

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but up in the atmosphere,
different states of weather, the

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who controls the wind in the waves
and the coral reefs with the deities.

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And so I say that because

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while it's important to respect everyone's
cultural perspectives

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and their religions, it also gives us
an important way of understanding

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the way Hawaiians interact
with their natural landscape,

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the renewal of the land that happens
because of volcanic phenomena,

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and the instability of the land
because of the volcano.

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We'll hear much more
from kind of later in the podcast,

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including her adventures
exploring underwater volcanoes.

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But first, let's go to Tamsin Mae,
the professor of earth sciences

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at the University of Oxford.

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For more than 20 years now,
I've been studying the world's volcanoes.

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I guess some of the highlights
are going out there

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and, and seeing volcanoes in the wild,
so to speak.

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So standing next to fire fountains

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on Mount Etna in Italy, down in Sicily,
staring into massive,

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roiling lava lake, going to Hawaii and,

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and studying the, emissions
coming out to the hello mama crater,

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hiking down into the jungle
in Guatemala to sample rocks.

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That's just a few amazing Pele's
hair and Pele's tears.

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Oh, they're really extraordinary rocks.

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Actually,
they really, really do look like, hair.

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When you have a basaltic lava

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lake or lava event

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or lava flow with bubbles
bursting on its surface, when the

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the bubbles break, they can kind of,
extrude and stretch, the glassy rock.

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So the magma, freezes and forms
glassy threads,

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which then blow up
or waft up with the volcano's hot gases,

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and get deposited on the ground
or caught in fences

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or on, on ridges and vegetation
around the volcano.

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And it looks just like from a distance,
looks pretty much like kind of

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animal hair, like dark sheep's hair
or something like that, caught on a fence.

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But then when you pick it
up, it's brittle, and glassy and actually

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can be quite sharp and you can get it
stuck in your fingers and things.

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So it's really extraordinary stuff.

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That is a away you have,
they sit, they, they fly out

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and you have the, the droplets
from the top of bubbles bursting.

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So if you ever looked at, a slo mo

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of a water bubble bursting,
sometimes you get a drop at the top.

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So sometimes they're formed like that,
and then sometimes they're just

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the sort of more gloopy end of the,
of the extrusion.

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So you actually get a Pele's hair,
which terminates in a police tear,

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and they are exactly as they sound.

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The that shaped glassy blobs,
that then, pretty small,

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and then get
wafted up with the volcanic gases.

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So they must be cooling very quickly
then. Yes.

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Particularly the glass shards,
because they're so fine and thin.

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They have a very high aspect ratio.

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They call really, really quickly.

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And that's why you get glass rather
than having many crystals forming in them.

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Okay.

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But if you were sort of walking along, 
not that you'd want to be

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while this was going on right now,
I assume.

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But if you were walking along
in this sort of

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did get in your hair,
that would be problematic.

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I the worst place it could be in your eyes
because, as I say, these,

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these glassy shards
that if you rubbed your eyes,

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you might break them and you get sharp.

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But since you're into your eyeball,
which would be, I'd

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imagine, deeply unpleasant.

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Fortunately,
it hasn't happened to me as yet.

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Okay, but imagine the tears are quite
if one of those struck you

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as it had been blasted out of a volcano,
that would hurt quite a bit.

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They're pretty

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small, and actually,
not that they're not that heavy.

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They're quite light.

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So, that's not too much raw. Okay.

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So enough.

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But what you can do with them
is pick them up,

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take them back to the lab
and study them. Yes.

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So the great thing,
I mean, utterly beautiful and amazing.

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Wonderful. And fascinating.

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But the great thing,

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as well as because they've quenched
so they've cool really, really quickly.

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And you've got this glossiness,
it means you've, you've got a, kind of,

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you've got a total composition,
if you like.

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It hasn't separated off
into the different crystal phases.

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So you can just crush it up, or probe it
with, with a different beam technology.

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And you can get the composition
of the glass

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that was there in the lava, like,
you know, pretty much as you walk past.

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So, so that's a real advantage to them.

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You know, you kind of know the,
you know, that

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they, they don't persist for long,
long periods of time in the environments.

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You know, that they've just been there
probably a few weeks at maximum.

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And if you clear a surface
and then collect some more of them,

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you know, that that's really fresh stuff.

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So you know, that of representative
of the magma composition

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there and then in the lava lake
or on the lava flow.

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But what does that tell us,
knowing that kind of composition?

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So, a bunch of different things, really.

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So one of the things
we might be interested in

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is the fluid properties of the magma.

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So, how viscosity is, how sticky it is.

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So one of the things

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we want to know about for
that would be the, the silica content.

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So silica and oxygen, because silica
shouldn't form polymers in the magma.

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So the more silica an oxygen you have,
the stickier a magma tends to be.

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So the lower that is, the runny
and magmas are if it's getting stickier,

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then that might change the way

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that the dynamics of the lava flows
or the eruption might go.

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You might also want to look at things
like dissolved water content,

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because that also affects
how sticky a business of my flour is.

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And also the dissolved water content, 
determines how volatile, how volatile rich

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the magma is and how explosive it might
or might not be.

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So if you, for example, looking, 
at a long lived lava lake

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like in Hawaii, you might be interested
in how these different parameters

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are changing with time.

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And that might also give you clues about
what's going on deep inside the volcano.

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How often would you be finding them?

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How often do these conditions arise?

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It's hard to say how often this I mean,
this is quite specific set of conditions.

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You need a dynamic, lava
or magma, interface with bubbles bursting

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or that you need the, the,
the the magma to be low enough viscosity

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that you can get
this extrusions happening.

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So it's not you know, it's

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certainly in my career,
I've been in this situation sort of 3 or

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4 times where that being said,
if Pele's had deposits around,

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so it's not it's not super rare,
but it's also not something

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you necessarily expect
every single time you go to a volcano.

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So all of the volcanoes
that you've looked at are on land.

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Most of the world's
volcanoes are underwater,

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most of them at the mid-ocean ridges,
but those are pretty deep under the waves.

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They're quite hard to study.

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I certainly studied some,
some shallow submarine volcanoes.

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I believe that people have found
Pele's hair

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in submarine volcanoes,
but I've never studied that myself.

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When you set off to go to a volcano,
you're looking for specific things.

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Or you just like, let's go and find out
what's going on there.

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Well, I mean, I go to volcanoes
for a number of different reasons,

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but probably the times that I've been
and collected Pele's hair

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as well is when I've been studying
the gas emissions from the volcanoes.

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And I want to understand how much of
the different components are coming out.

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And sometimes that might be the major

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gas species, like water, carbon
dioxide, sulfur dioxide.

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And then we might be wanting to see
think about what we can tell in terms

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of what those gases
tell us about the subterranean

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plumbing of the volcano
and its status in terms of hazard.

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But other times I'm thinking about
the environmental impact of volcanoes.

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So I'm interested in all sorts
of different elements coming out,

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all sorts of, different metal species
coming out.

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One of the interesting things
there is if we, if we measure

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the metal, species, metal,
chemical, chemical species,

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if I did the plumes, the different salts
and and things like that.

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You're interested to find out
how that compares

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to their concentrations in the magma?

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Because what you'd like to understand
is how volatile the different metals are.

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So how easily they are transferred
from the magma to the gas phase.

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Because if we can understand more
about what

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that means, we can make predictions
about how it might behave under volcanoes

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based on just a lava sample
or, or a glass sample.

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So we're not we're not always

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there yet,
but that's the sort of aspiration

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we'd like to understand
more about that degassing process

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of, of different elements
in the periodic table.

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So that's somewhere where
I might be very excited to find some place

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that's going to tell me about the magma
in the, in the, in the magma event.

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Right at the moment,

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pretty much that I'm measuring the gases
sitting on the edge of the volcano.

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Different, different
chemicals are cycled through our planet

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in natural cycles and different ways.

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Volcanoes are part of that in terms
of providing a conduit for different

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chemicals between the solid Earth
and the environment on the atmosphere.

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So we'd like to understand
how it's operating today

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so that we can think about how
it might have varied over geological time.

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Is that something that would inform
our understanding of climate change?

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More broadly, yes.

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I mean, the carbon dioxide
and sulfur dioxide are a major,

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00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:25,720
major sort of, climate, elements.

231
00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:29,800
So we are interested
in how volcanoes are forced

232
00:13:29,800 --> 00:13:33,720
climate back in geological time,
because sometimes that gives us clues

233
00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:36,720
in terms of the sort of massive carbon
release experiment

234
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:41,400
that we're currently undertaking
as a species, the consequences thereof.

235
00:13:41,760 --> 00:13:44,960
Volcanoes have released, a lot of carbon.

236
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:49,680
So big events and volcanic past these
things called large igneous provinces.

237
00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:53,160
So if you go to somewhere
like the Deccan in India,

238
00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:57,160
actually we've got some here in the UK,
if you go to northern sky,

239
00:13:57,160 --> 00:14:00,240
you can see these big stacks
of basaltic lava flows.

240
00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:05,400
And these are the remnants of,
of large igneous provinces.

241
00:14:05,400 --> 00:14:08,760
And these are these enormous outpourings
of largely

242
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:11,760
basaltic magma
onto the surface of the planet.

243
00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:14,360
And they last about a million years.

244
00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:20,280
But they put about 1,000,000km³ of magma
onto the surface of the Earth.

245
00:14:20,640 --> 00:14:24,520
So just one cubic km of magma
would cover the whole of Greater London

246
00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:26,000
to about 60cm.

247
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:28,240
So this is we're putting millions
of these out.

248
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:31,160
They cover big areas in places
like Siberia.

249
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:34,920
The Columbia River in
not in North America, for example.

250
00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:39,080
So during these logic,
these provinces that sort of doubled

251
00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:43,240
the rate of volcanism on our planet
and doubled the rate of carbon dioxide

252
00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:46,480
being put out by the world's
volcanoes on our planet.

253
00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:50,280
So we're interested to see
what the environmental consequences

254
00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:53,800
of that are, because right at the moment,
we're doing even more than that.

255
00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:56,360
You know, we're we're 
we're doing 60 times

256
00:14:56,360 --> 00:14:59,440
the amount of carbon dioxide
that comes out of the world's volcanoes.

257
00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:01,560
So, you know, we're beating the logic.

258
00:15:01,560 --> 00:15:04,760
These provinces, we've been at this
a much shorter length of time.

259
00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:06,880
We've only been at it
for a couple of centuries.

260
00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:07,880
But, you know, so far

261
00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:12,000
we're we're best in class at carbon
dioxide emissions compared to volcanoes.

262
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:15,840
And and so we are we're interested
to study,

263
00:15:15,840 --> 00:15:18,280
understand how much carbon came out,
which is where

264
00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:21,560
sitting in volcanic plumes
today is of interest.

265
00:15:22,040 --> 00:15:25,520
And and also just the consequences.

266
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:29,960
And, 
we see some pretty strong consequences.

267
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:33,240
We see, we see mass extinction events
associated

268
00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:36,240
with these large igneous provinces.

269
00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:39,280
We see episodes of global ocean anoxia.

270
00:15:39,280 --> 00:15:43,480
So when all the oxygen in the oceans
got depleted and you get these black shale

271
00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:49,280
layers and the geological record
of, of oxygen depleted, of oxygen,

272
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:53,160
diagnostic of oxygen depletion
in the oceans, for example.

273
00:15:53,720 --> 00:15:56,760
So, so that's
why it's a sort of interesting comparison

274
00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:59,760
to understand
the environmental impacts of volcanoes.

275
00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:02,360
It's not the only way to understand
what we're doing,

276
00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:05,760
what what our consequences
are as a geological force, by any means.

277
00:16:05,760 --> 00:16:08,760
But it's one of the ways that we might
go after that.

278
00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:12,520
What is it that attracted you to to this
area of study?

279
00:16:12,600 --> 00:16:16,680
Well, so I did a chemistry degree and, 
and then had a couple of years

280
00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:21,080
at science and decided
I wanted to go back to doing science.

281
00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:23,760
I would do
I didn't just want to be in the lab.

282
00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:27,960
I liked lab work, but I also wanted
to be outdoors and sampling the world

283
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:31,680
and kind of understanding large scale
processes, as well as the sort of

284
00:16:31,800 --> 00:16:34,800
what was going on
in, in a test tube or even smaller.

285
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:38,920
And so I was looking around
at environmental chemistry projects,

286
00:16:38,920 --> 00:16:43,080
and I happened to find this one, on the,
the atmospheric chemistry

287
00:16:43,080 --> 00:16:44,160
of volcanic plumes.

288
00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:45,720
And I'd done some specialist modules

289
00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:49,600
in atmospheric chemistry, so I thought
I might be able to give that one a go.

290
00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:51,880
And, the rest is history.

291
00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:52,800
As I say,

292
00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:57,240
I think the study of Pele's hair is
part of a wider projects in volcanology.

293
00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:00,360
I mean, there are there are papers written
specifically on Pele's

294
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:03,360
hair, talky Pele's tears.

295
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:09,480
It talks about the shapes, cataloging
the shapes, looking at, the singularity.

296
00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:12,440
This is a bubble structure
within the Pele's tears.

297
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:16,920
And talk about how those relate to things
like the viscosity of magmas, for sure.

298
00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:21,320
But, but for me, I think, 
they are really interesting

299
00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:25,960
as part of our wider endeavor
to really understand volcanic processes,

300
00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:31,880
both looking, peering in and looking down
and thinking deeper into the earth,

301
00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:35,920
but also, looking outwards and thinking
about the consequences of volcanoes.

302
00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:39,240
So the other piece of the puzzle,
they tell us another piece of,

303
00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:43,680
information, other pieces of information
that we can build into bigger pictures.

304
00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:47,040
It seems like
it would be a slightly treacherous,

305
00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:49,760
way to spend your time
studying volcanoes,

306
00:17:49,760 --> 00:17:53,280
if you had any particularly hairy
adventure, Harry.

307
00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:54,240
No pun intended.

308
00:17:55,560 --> 00:17:58,560
Well, it was it was intended.

309
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:01,000
Fortunately, not too much.

310
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:03,800
I mean, I've certainly been scared
of the volcano.

311
00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:05,640
I think it's right to be a bit scared.

312
00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:08,280
Your your, you know, your high alert.
You should be.

313
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:12,280
You're on a an unpredictable, 
natural phenomenon.

314
00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:15,960
I do try to be very, very careful.

315
00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:18,480
I, I am not,

316
00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:21,560
I do not take risks
for the sake of taking risks.

317
00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:25,280
I, very, very adamant

318
00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:28,440
that no measurement is worth taking undue
risk for.

319
00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:31,440
We always talk very carefully

320
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:34,440
to the local scientists
who are monitoring the volcano.

321
00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:38,160
Now, not all volcanoes
worldwide, are perfectly monitored.

322
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:40,080
Or or even well monitored.

323
00:18:40,080 --> 00:18:42,840
So sometimes
you do have to take a bit of a risk. But.

324
00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:44,360
Yeah.
Just to get me to give you an example.

325
00:18:44,360 --> 00:18:45,000
So, Santi, due

326
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:46,440
to volcano in Guatemala,

327
00:18:46,440 --> 00:18:49,440
which is where we were hiking down
into the jungle to do some play,

328
00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:53,640
it was a bit frightening
because the volcano has,

329
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:56,760
you know, small, smallish,
but still sizable explosion.

330
00:18:56,840 --> 00:18:59,280
About every 45 minutes.

331
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:03,480
So you'll go down the jungle,
there's this volcanic, cone above you.

332
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:05,720
Boom. Every 45 minutes.

333
00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:08,520
Pyroclastic flows
come down the side of it.

334
00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:11,120
Now, we'd looked at the map,
so we talked to the local scientists.

335
00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:14,720
We need the pyroclastic flows
basically went down into a big, big valley

336
00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:16,920
and went off a different direction.

337
00:19:16,920 --> 00:19:19,520
But when you're underneath a volcano,
you can't see that.

338
00:19:19,520 --> 00:19:22,560
You just see the power tastic flame
coming towards you.

339
00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:24,840
And, you know,
just hoping it's not going to appear up

340
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:27,960
the other side of the,
of the other sides of the valley.

341
00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:32,160
And it didn't, we sampled our rocks and
and hiked out again.

342
00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:35,720
But, but yeah, it is.

343
00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:39,080
They are you must we
it is really important

344
00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:42,840
to respect the the volcanoes
and to be as careful as you possibly can.

345
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:44,800
How long is the risk assessment?

346
00:19:47,680 --> 00:19:48,480
Yeah,

347
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:51,480
well, it could run to several, many pages.

348
00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:54,240
Normally had some very detailed maps

349
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:57,240
and lots of notes of contact numbers.

350
00:19:57,360 --> 00:20:00,240
I wanted to know more
about these underwater volcanoes

351
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,480
and the possibilities
and realities of exploring them.

352
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:04,280
Kind of.

353
00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:07,320
Reuben is a professor at an associate dean
for research

354
00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:12,200
at the Graduate School for oceanography
at the University of Rhode Island.

355
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:17,760
So in my current position,
I am responsible for the research

356
00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:23,600
portfolio of a school of oceanography
that means shepherding programs

357
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,600
and projects, managing our ship and shore
based facilities,

358
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:29,520
managing our research personnel.

359
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:31,560
I also have about a third of my job.

360
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:33,920
The still dedicated to research.

361
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:37,400
My research is in volcanology
and oceanography.

362
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:43,440
I moved to the University of Rhode Island
two years ago, from a 30 year career

363
00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:49,520
as a professor at the University of Hawaii
in, the Department of Earth Sciences,

364
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:54,160
where I spent a great deal of time
studying both Hawaiian volcanism

365
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:58,440
and my particular specialty,
which is submarine volcanism,

366
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:02,720
including the deepest known active
volcanic spots

367
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:07,080
under the sea on the planet,
on the volcano side.

368
00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:08,720
Who doesn't love volcanoes?

369
00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:10,760
They're spectacular. They're awesome.

370
00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:15,600
They are, fascinating to study,

371
00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:18,600
I guess, understanding how they function.

372
00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:23,760
For me, I'm especially interested in
how they erupt, how often they erupt,

373
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:28,040
how eruptions impact the environment,
how they impact ecosystems.

374
00:21:28,360 --> 00:21:30,440
And that's part of my interest in both.

375
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:36,360
So the aerial meaning above water and 
submarine, which is underwater eruptions.

376
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:41,240
My love of the ocean started from a very,
very young age.

377
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,800
I've always enjoyed the sea, studying it,

378
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:47,800
being in it,
being around it, being able to see it.

379
00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:52,440
And so,
I have a merger of those two things.

380
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,840
It's been a wonderful,
an exceptional career.

381
00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:59,760
I've had more than 30 expeditions at sea.

382
00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:05,880
I've had more than, 60 dives
in, human occupied submersible,

383
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:07,200
another several hundred

384
00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:12,000
in remotely operated vehicles
and one of the things that few of us

385
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:16,320
who study submarine, volcanoes, it's
a relatively small community, but

386
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:19,440
few of the other folks
who do this kind of work

387
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:23,080
also have experience,
working on volcanoes, on land.

388
00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:27,560
So for me, seeing what happens on land
and understanding

389
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:31,080
which which features are similar,
which features are not,

390
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:34,160
and how the,

391
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:38,400
increasing depth as we go down
further from the surface,

392
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:42,520
under the ocean affects
volcanic processes to some extent.

393
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:44,040
It doesn't affect them at all.

394
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:46,960
To other extents,
it affects them very greatly.

395
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:49,280
And this is something that is interesting

396
00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:52,800
not only for studying
the range of volcanism on the planet,

397
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:57,760
but also understanding how volcanism
might happen on other planetary bodies,

398
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:01,800
such as Venus, whose atmospheric pressure
is very similar

399
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:05,280
to what we find in relatively
deep submarine settings on Earth.

400
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:08,800
Okay, going in submersibles

401
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:12,000
and looking at underwater volcanoes,

402
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,000
I mean, that sounds like something
James Cameron would want to do.

403
00:23:15,120 --> 00:23:16,760
He and he has done it.

404
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:21,480
And so most of my work,
especially my deep diving work below

405
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:24,760
about two kilometers, has happened
with, Woods

406
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:28,520
Hole Oceanographic Institution
using their vehicle.

407
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:29,200
Alvin.

408
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:33,600
In fact, we just published an article
last week in EOS,

409
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:37,320
the American Geophysical Union's
weekly news magazine,

410
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,240
about the recent deep
diving upgrade to the vehicle.

411
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:45,680
We can now take it to 6500m depth,
which is, you know,

412
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:49,560
more than 20,000ft for those who still use
the imperial system.

413
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:54,440
And on one of the dives on that program,
I discovered what we now know

414
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:59,240
is the deepest on Earth,
submarine volcanic deposit,

415
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:02,760
about 60 100m depth
in the Mid Cayman Rise.

416
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:08,080
And what's fascinating is,
is that even though the very high

417
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:12,240
hydrostatic pressure, the pressure
from the weight of all that water

418
00:24:12,360 --> 00:24:16,200
pressing down on such a deep, seabed
location,

419
00:24:16,360 --> 00:24:19,600
one would think would have
that would affect the evolution

420
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,440
of volatiles or gases
that become unresolved from magmas

421
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:27,840
and drive a lot of eruption processes,
including Pele's hairs.

422
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:33,240
But to some extent, those phenomena happen
even at those very great depths.

423
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:36,240
And this is one of
the things is so interest ING

424
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,760
about getting to make these observations
in those locations.

425
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:43,320
Can you just sort of describe
that experience to me, of being

426
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:47,080
in one of those submersibles
and arriving at the volcano here?

427
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:48,880
It's it's not for everyone.

428
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:54,440
So, in fact,
it is a two meters here in about,

429
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:59,160
a third of that sphere in the horizontal
direction is filled up with equipment.

430
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:03,720
And then you sort of, you know,
you sit on your side or lie on your belly

431
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,040
and then you've got equipment
all over you two.

432
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:09,680
So there's three people in there,
a pilot and two observers.

433
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,920
The observers, are mostly, involved

434
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:17,560
in obviously making observations,
taking notes, managing the cameras.

435
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:21,600
I, I've done it enough
that I've been able to drive the vehicle,

436
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,600
but there's a pilot
who's the primary person

437
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,800
and will spend somewhere between

438
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:30,800
ten and maybe 12 hours on the seafloor.

439
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:36,360
It, descends at about 30 to 40m a minute.

440
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:40,560
So when we're working those depths of over
six kilometers,

441
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,640
we're spending a couple hours to descend

442
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:47,640
another couple of hours to come back
up, and then,

443
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:51,440
you know, leaving us
maybe six hours or so on the seabed.

444
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:56,640
And during that time,
because we're untethered from the ship.

445
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:00,440
We're not it's not doesn't have a tether
like a remotely operated vehicle.

446
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:02,160
Power is quite limited.

447
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:03,960
Payload is quite limited.

448
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:08,160
But on a typical geology dive,
which is something that untethered

449
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:11,640
vehicles are really good for,
so we can drive around and explore,

450
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:16,400
we might cover a kilometer to a kilometer
and a half of seabed.

451
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:21,000
We might pick up something like 20 rocks
using the manipulators.

452
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,280
The pilot does all of that.

453
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,320
It's, it's a tight, enclosed space.

454
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,600
I don't notice it myself
because I spend all my time

455
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,600
looking out the window,
being excited about what I'm seeing.

456
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:36,120
But in my, you know, many, 
dozens of dives,

457
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:40,680
I've experienced the full range
of partners in the sub.

458
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,160
Some freak out, many of them get ill.

459
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,560
But it's it's truly a surreal experience.

460
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:51,600
And this that you you load into the sub
while it's still on the ship.

461
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:56,280
And from the moment they pick you up,
you go inside and they seal the hatch, and

462
00:26:56,280 --> 00:27:00,760
then they pick you up on a on a winch,
and then they kind of swing you overboard.

463
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:04,200
And so as soon as the vehicle starts
swinging independently of the ship,

464
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,760
and then when they drop you in the water
and there's a big splash and there's scuba

465
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:12,480
divers around that are disconnecting
things and getting you ready to deploy.

466
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,240
It's it's just an amazing experience.

467
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:20,080
And I would say that you you stop feeling
the movement of the ocean, maybe

468
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,160
within the first ten meters of descent,
it really

469
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:26,000
and they don't launch in Rothesay State
anyway.

470
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:31,240
But once once you get down a little bit
below the surface, becomes very calm.

471
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,120
The lighting is amazing.

472
00:27:33,120 --> 00:27:37,440
It gets less and less
as you go down until, you know, roughly

473
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,680
about 150, 160m

474
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,840
is where we stop seeing any, any light.

475
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:47,360
And if we descend without the lights on,
you can see

476
00:27:47,360 --> 00:27:50,680
all sorts of, organisms
that phosphorescence.

477
00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:54,240
It's, it's it's a incredible thing.

478
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,240
And I still remember the,
you know, the first time I saw an active

479
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,600
hydrothermal vent
is just absolutely incredible.

480
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:02,920
You know, the world's all dark.

481
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:06,240
Then you turn on the lights,
you see this incredible,

482
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,320
otherworldly ecosystem
popping out in front of you.

483
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,520
It's it's spectacular.

484
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,280
I wish everyone could have
that experience.

485
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:17,400
And and in a way, everyone can,
because there are now several,

486
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,840
organizations that do live streaming
of their remotely operated

487
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,840
vehicle operations on the seabed.

488
00:28:24,120 --> 00:28:29,360
And, that brings this science to,
you know, many people around the globe.

489
00:28:29,360 --> 00:28:34,000
When I participate in those expeditions,
we have people that sort of

490
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,840
follow the different organizations
that do these things.

491
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:41,320
You see the same people on in the chat
asking questions.

492
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,440
And it's it's it's an honor to be able

493
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,480
to bring that science
to the general public.

494
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,560
But I will say at the same time,
being in the Alvin submersible,

495
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,360
where there's just three of us in there,
there's no communication with the surface,

496
00:28:55,840 --> 00:29:00,120
but we're in a vehicle
this much more nimble, much, more able

497
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,720
to, make delicate sampling operations.

498
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,120
We're seeing things
in true 3D representation

499
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:08,880
by looking out the portholes.

500
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,720
Whereas with a remotely operated vehicle,
the pilots are using

501
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:15,480
a series of cameras
to infer the 3D relationships.

502
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:21,400
It's it's a it's a much better experience
for those in the vehicles.

503
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:26,360
It's essentially like being a geologist
on land and walking to outcrops

504
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,440
and as we're driving along
and if I see something interesting,

505
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:33,360
I can see the pilot, hey, can we go back
and look at that thing I just saw?

506
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,640
I want to understand it a little bit more.

507
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:39,200
They can do that when you're, on
with a tethered vehicle,

508
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:40,800
a remotely operated vehicle.

509
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,720
This is very complex interplay
between the pilots that are controlling

510
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:45,840
the vehicle.

511
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,480
One person is managing the cable,
which connects it

512
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,080
back to the ship, the ship
which is also moving.

513
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,840
And you have to worry about
never touching the seabed with that cable.

514
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,080
And if you're in steep terrain,
which is what a lot of volcanic terrain

515
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:03,000
is, it's you can't necessarily just stop
and go back and look at something.

516
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:06,080
You have to sort of
watch it go by and keep moving.

517
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:07,200
Yeah.

518
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:11,240
So if there's, an underwater volcano,
can you see them

519
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:12,960
without turning the lights on?

520
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:14,920
The only two times.

521
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:16,800
And I participated in both
those expeditions

522
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,200
where we've seen active volcanism
in the deep ocean.

523
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:24,000
One was it Northwest Rota volcano,
which is in the Marianas

524
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,640
arc in, the year 2005.

525
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,600
That was a very,
very small, subdued eruption.

526
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:32,680
But it was the first we had seen.

527
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,760
And, you know, it's it's only 570m deep,

528
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,120
which it's officially
considered the deep sea.

529
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,120
But, for me, it's
not really all that deep.

530
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:46,560
The most impressive display
we saw was at West model Kino.

531
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:51,800
This is in Tonga, and
that summit is about, 1200 meters deep.

532
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:55,440
And in 2009, we went out there and,

533
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,040
observed for about a week
an active volcanic eruption.

534
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:01,880
And it's absolutely spectacular view.

535
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,400
And your listeners can search on the,
on the web

536
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:11,600
for West Mata eruption,
and you will find plenty of video footage.

537
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:17,320
That was a research expedition
co-sponsored by National Science

538
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,280
Foundation in the US
and the National Oceanographic

539
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:24,680
and Atmospheric Administration's Ocean
Explorer program, also in the US.

540
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,800
And I've been back to that volcano
ten times since,

541
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:34,000
including with funding from both
those agencies as well as Schmidt

542
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,800
Ocean Institute, which runs a global

543
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,960
philanthropic oceanographic organization.

544
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,040
We've never seen it erupting again.

545
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:44,520
And in fact,

546
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:49,040
that's sort of how I convinced Schmidt
Ocean Institute to to take us back there.

547
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:54,040
We we, you know, nicknamed our expedition
submarine fire.

548
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,360
And when we arrived on the volcano,

549
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,640
we found out the heat erupted
about two months before we were there.

550
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:02,200
We just missed it.

551
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:06,240
But this place erupted quite frequently,
interrupts much more frequently than,

552
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:11,680
Axial volcano, which is the famous volcano
on the wonderful ridge of the

553
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:15,720
north western coast of the United States.

554
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:19,600
I've also studied it's 1998, 2011

555
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:23,520
and 2015
eruptions, the last two in person.

556
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,520
After the fact, of course.

557
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:30,160
The 2015 eruption was interesting
because they had just installed

558
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:33,560
infrastructure on the volcano
that forms the basis

559
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,560
of a submarine volcano observatory.

560
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:39,120
It was still being tested
and and preliminary,

561
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:43,200
and we detected the event,
but debated about

562
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:46,560
whether or not it was eruption or not,
because the signals we were seeing weren't

563
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:50,280
the same kind of signals
that we've picked up from land

564
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:54,600
base stations
at other volcanoes in that area.

565
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,920
And so it wasn't until several months
later that we decided to go out there.

566
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:03,080
And in fact, there had been an eruption
that had been an extensive eruption.

567
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:06,960
People are now predicting
that that volcano might be ready to erupt,

568
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:11,880
this year,
those predictions are very first order.

569
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:13,320
They're not particularly precise.

570
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:17,760
They're based on how much the volcano
inflates as magma comes in from below.

571
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:22,160
But as we know from other volcanoes
that are well instrumented,

572
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:23,560
such as Kilauea,

573
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:27,440
which is currently erupting
on the big Island in Hawaii right now,

574
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:31,720
that magma does come in
and cause the volcano to inflate,

575
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,000
and we have various ways
we can measure that.

576
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,560
But, certain amounts of inflation

577
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:40,560
will sometimes lead to an eruption
and sometimes not.

578
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:43,760
Mauna Loa volcano, the world's largest

579
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:47,760
active volcano,
which had last erupted in 1984.

580
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,200
And I moved to Hawaii in 1992.

581
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,240
And I was waiting for years and years
and years.

582
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:57,080
We would see very signals of inflation
and seismic and unrest,

583
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,040
and then the volcano wouldn't erupt.

584
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,440
And then, of course, a couple of years
ago, it finally did erupt.

585
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,640
And it was
it was an amazing eruption sequence

586
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,120
that was, 
well observed by people at the U.S.

587
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:12,120
Geological Survey's volcano observatory.

588
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,040
But just the fact that multiple times

589
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:18,040
in that sort of 30 year, 40 year period,

590
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,480
that inflation was observed and it didn't

591
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:25,160
erupt
tells us that sometimes magma comes into

592
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,480
the shallow part of a volcano
and it doesn't breach the surface.

593
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:30,760
It fills in the cracks and voids.

594
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,760
It will sometimes migrate
along with zones.

595
00:34:34,240 --> 00:34:37,320
And so it's this is a complicated process.

596
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:41,360
And in fact, more salicylic
or more viscous

597
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,840
high silicon content magma
such as we find it,

598
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:49,920
island arcs and continental arcs and other
continental volcanic settings often

599
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:55,800
slowly accumulate in volcanic edifices
and don't necessarily erupt.

600
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,200
They can accumulate for hundreds
of thousands of years between eruptions

601
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,600
and lead to much larger
and more explosive eruptions,

602
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,880
so that something about how viscous

603
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:10,360
the magma is,
which is a combination of the temperature

604
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,640
and the composition
and the crystal content.

605
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:19,640
And of course, viscosity is a measure
of how runny or sticky a magma is.

606
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:25,160
That really affects how it erupts,
how often erupts, how it behaves.

607
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:25,840
One it arrives.

608
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,600
What kind of deposits
it makes. One it erupts.

609
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:33,680
And so the the nature of magmas
that are relatively hot

610
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:37,320
and relatively thin,
or what we call low viscosity,

611
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:42,000
are the kind that we tend to find
at volcanoes and erupt quite frequently,

612
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,960
and to make the types of deposits
that we'll be talking about today,

613
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:49,640
one of the fascinating things
about both Pele's hairs and Pele's tears

614
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,000
is we find them at submarine
volcanoes as well.

615
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:55,600
The deepest place
they've been identified yet

616
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:59,120
is, at about 4500m depth

617
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:04,160
at some, submarine, Hawaiian
volcanic sites known as North Arch.

618
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,160
They're the north of the island of Oahu.

619
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,800
Famously a former, Ted of the,

620
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:16,040
Hawaii Volcano Observatory in the 90s
who then later became,

621
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:19,520
researcher at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute.

622
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:23,080
Dave Clark is the person who who spent

623
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:26,160
much of his latter career
looking for these materials.

624
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,560
The rest of us thought, no, come on,
that's not actually happening.

625
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:33,160
But in how we would find them is mostly,

626
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,800
rooting around in the sediment
that's around these volcanoes

627
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:41,600
and finding these, sieving the sediments
and separating out these materials.

628
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,000
And he's published
multiple papers on them.

629
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:49,160
There's some debate about the mechanisms
through which they form.

630
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:54,400
Again, because of the impacts of pressure
as we go down deeper in the ocean.

631
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:59,640
But, yeah, they tend to be found
that the hairs tend to be much shorter.

632
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:02,880
It's hard to find a Pele's hair,

633
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,880
and this could just be
because of how we do the sampling.

634
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:11,840
But it's hard to find one more than 5 or
6cm when we're in an underwater setting.

635
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:17,840
And of course, in, on land settings,
we can find these things to 20, 30cm long,

636
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:22,000
and they'll oftentimes occur in clumps
where many hairs are together.

637
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:26,720
Whereas when we see them, in submarine
settings, they tend to be individuals.

638
00:37:26,720 --> 00:37:28,920
Strands.

639
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:30,960
If you do find them on land,

640
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:33,760
is it sort of like a small bush?

641
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:34,480
Is it?

642
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,200
I don't know, like a field of it.

643
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:40,320
So you can find them
in a variety of different settings.

644
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,800
The primary location is very close
to a volcanic finch.

645
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:47,160
When isn't all that active.

646
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:52,000
So oftentimes at basaltic
fissure volcanoes, which is what,

647
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:56,400
all the main Hawaiian volcanoes are,
which means that there is oftentimes

648
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:00,440
a crater or a caldera at the summit,
and then rift zones, which are areas

649
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:05,360
of repeated injections of magma in
the subsurface in a particular direction,

650
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:08,800
which then will erupt along
these eruptive fissures,

651
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:12,200
very, very similar to the processes
that happened in Iceland.

652
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,800
In fact, the ongoing eruption in Iceland

653
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:17,960
is also a Fisher eruption
and also makes Pele's hair.

654
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,600
And in those cases, real life times

655
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:24,640
see a series of small volcanic vents
along the line.

656
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:28,800
Some of them that are maybe erupting
a little bit less intensely

657
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,000
are the ones that we will find the Pele's
hairs at.

658
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:36,360
There's some famous locations
near the summit of Mount Ulloa,

659
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,800
where some past, prehistoric eruptions
have produced large deposits

660
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:45,600
of both Pele's hairs and something else
that we call reticulate.

661
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:49,920
And it doesn't have any, specific
Hawaiian name that I'm aware of, but

662
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,960
but reticulate is a spongy

663
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:57,960
texture, sort of spun glass material
that has hair

664
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,920
like filamentous features,
but it's much more three dimensional.

665
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:06,360
And so within those passes,
we can oftentimes

666
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:10,400
find Pele's hairs and in clumps that,
you know,

667
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:14,840
might be the size and shape of something
like a cucumber or banana.

668
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,360
It's rare to find it,
more extensive than that,

669
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:22,320
but you can find occasional deposits
that are

670
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,880
that are larger,
perhaps as big as your arm.

671
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:28,440
Now, of course, scientists
should be always aware of working with

672
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:31,440
and understanding the needs and beliefs

673
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:35,040
and cultures of local communities
whenever their work

674
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:40,480
encroaches on their land
or land that they deem as sacred.

675
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:42,240
You may remember that the construction

676
00:39:42,240 --> 00:39:46,320
of telescopes on Mount
Kenya has led to significant conflicts

677
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:49,560
between the scientific community
and the Native Hawaiians.

678
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,560
They do consider that mountain
to be sacred,

679
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:57,520
and it was out of those tensions
that a new oversight board, the Manicare

680
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:02,680
Stewardship and Oversight Authority, was
established to manage the mountain top.

681
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,720
The board has representatives
from both the Astronomical Observatory

682
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:11,880
and the Native Hawaiian communities,
and the aim is to foster collaboration and

683
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:16,080
ensure that future developments respect
cultural and environmental concerns.

684
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:21,120
And I wondered whether there are similar
discussions or need for such discussions

685
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:25,800
with regard to the volcanoes
and Pele's tears and Pele's hair.

686
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:29,920
So that's that's a it's
an it's an intriguing question.

687
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:35,640
I would say that the name Pele
shares and Pele's tears,

688
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:40,680
is a name that was, added by Westerners
after they arrived.

689
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,880
So you know that, although there's
some people that think that perhaps

690
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:49,280
the Spanish arrived in the islands,
before Captain Cook.

691
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:50,840
The first

692
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,880
documented
Western appearances were in 1790,

693
00:40:55,320 --> 00:41:00,960
and the, pretty quickly
introduced the English language.

694
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:04,560
And so, you know, obviously,
Pele's hairs in tears are in,

695
00:41:04,720 --> 00:41:07,640
English adaptation

696
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:10,920
of, of this feature or English naming.

697
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:16,080
So I would say, while Hawaiians, have,

698
00:41:16,720 --> 00:41:21,280
a reverence for pretty much all volcanic
processes, all volcanic activity,

699
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:25,720
I don't think that, the hairs and tears
necessarily have any

700
00:41:26,240 --> 00:41:29,960
specific significance, in part
because they are pretty

701
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:33,600
commonly formed feature
and they don't represent

702
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:37,160
any sort of extraordinary
behavior of a volcano.

703
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:41,200
So there can be times
when the volcano is behaving

704
00:41:41,720 --> 00:41:46,160
very violently,
which would be thought of as manifesting,

705
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:49,320
you know, the emotion of the God
at the time.

706
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,000
Pele is upset at someone, for instance.

707
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,120
There are many periods of time
where the volcano

708
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:58,120
can, erupt very quiescent, quietly.

709
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:02,520
So, for instance, during, 
the first part of this century,

710
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,360
until 2018,
starting in about the mid 2000,

711
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:10,960
there was a lava lake, which is a kind of
boiling caldera or cauldron.

712
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:13,480
I should say, of magma within the caldera.

713
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:17,960
For most of the latter
third of the 19th century,

714
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,880
the volcano also had active, lava lakes.

715
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:23,920
And this was one sort of tourism.

716
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,800
Hawaii just started, and people would go
and stand there in their Sunday best

717
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:32,960
and take a photo in front of the volcano
and when someone's acting like that,

718
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:37,000
the magma is injected from below
and there's this sort of molten

719
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,440
lake of lava
that is constantly overturning

720
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:44,400
and stir stirring, but it doesn't produce
any any Pele's hairs.

721
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:48,720
Interestingly enough,
every once in a while we observed,

722
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:52,920
during the active
lava lake activity in the summit,

723
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,400
in holy mackerel mantle crater, earlier
this century.

724
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,840
Sometimes rocks would fall in
from the wall and they splash

725
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:06,240
and they would kind of disrupt the lake
and allow some more gas

726
00:43:06,240 --> 00:43:10,560
rich magma that was being suppressed
deeper in the lake to come up and erupt.

727
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:11,600
Explosive.

728
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:14,400
And then we would see here, hairs
and tears

729
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:19,320
and other associated,
gentle pyroclastic associated with that.

730
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:24,640
So that's something that we would call
a secondary eruption deposit,

731
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:29,920
because it's not juvenile magma on its
first way up from depth to the surface.

732
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:31,800
And, and erupting at the site

733
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:35,800
or wherever
it happens to erupt on a volcano.

734
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:39,680
It's something that was already,
in effect, erupted.

735
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:42,680
But then disturbed and re erupted.

736
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:47,560
Another related phenomena
which is again super common in Iceland.

737
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,840
And not as common in Hawaii, but happens
sometimes

738
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:55,320
is another kind of what we call
secondary volcanic deposit,

739
00:43:55,320 --> 00:44:00,000
where if you have a lava flow is flowing
across a land surface and encounters

740
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,200
a wet or a boggy area, or encounters

741
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:08,200
the coastline in the ocean,
then that water can flash to steam

742
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:12,320
and come up through the lava flow
and create the.

743
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:17,160
The formation of small pyroclastic,
which are molten volcanic fragments,

744
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:18,800
are injected into the air.

745
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:19,840
Getting Pele's hairs.

746
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,840
And Pele's
tears can be made in that process.

747
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,880
And we call when when it's lava

748
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,280
that's meeting the ocean,
we call that a lateral eruption.

749
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:35,200
And so this is this is a very common
phenomenon there in Iceland.

750
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:39,520
The most famous example other than 30,
which, of course was the island

751
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,000
that formed in the 60s off the coast is,

752
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:47,360
at the volcano in the northeast,
where Lake Netherton,

753
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,120
which is a very large, broad, 
lake next to the volcano,

754
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:54,200
has experienced
lava flows that have been poured into it.

755
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:58,920
And so there's a whole series
of volcanic cones which you can still find

756
00:44:58,920 --> 00:44:59,280
today.

757
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,760
Pele's hairs and tears
associated with those cone deposits.

758
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:06,120
And these were formed
because lava flows flowed

759
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:11,440
maybe ten kilometers from, the volcanic
caldera over this wet landscape.

760
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:14,680
Everything that comes out of volcano
gets studied,

761
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:19,920
whether it's, pieces of the magma,
whether it's fragments of dust,

762
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:23,640
whether it's volcanic gases,
and pretty much everything

763
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:28,680
tells us about the pantheon of processes
that happen at a volcano.

764
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,680
You can imagine
these are incredibly dynamic

765
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:35,360
environments
where we can have a range of compositions.

766
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:37,320
We can have a range of,

767
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:40,200
conditions in

768
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:43,200
evolution of pressure and temperature.

769
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,920
Particles can be flying
at supersonic velocities.

770
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:51,240
They can be, cooling at different rates
and the magma composition

771
00:45:51,240 --> 00:45:51,920
can be different.

772
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:58,440
And so Pele's hairs and tears
are part of the range of particle types.

773
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:02,320
Allow us to interrogate some of the more

774
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:06,240
quiescent, shall I say volcanic phenomena
that happen.

775
00:46:06,240 --> 00:46:10,000
It doesn't it doesn't mean that it's safe
to go up to a volcano

776
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:14,240
when they're producing these things,
but these tend to be at the lower

777
00:46:14,240 --> 00:46:18,240
energetic rate of processes
that can happen

778
00:46:18,240 --> 00:46:21,600
when, 
magma is erupted onto the land surface.

779
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:27,040
And so by studying them, studying,
for instance, the range of compositions,

780
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:31,480
the range of textures,
the amount of gases in the stored

781
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:33,240
and still dissolved in the magma,

782
00:46:33,240 --> 00:46:36,160
the rate at which crystals
seem to grow as we look

783
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:39,760
at, Pele's hairs and tears

784
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:42,960
deposits as we move with distance
from an active volcanic vent.

785
00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:47,240
All of these things
tell us about the kinetics

786
00:46:47,240 --> 00:46:51,080
or the rate of phenomena
that are happening within the volcano,

787
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:55,400
in the rate of change of conditions
in volcanic parameters.

788
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:58,040
So they're super, super important.

789
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:01,520
As you know, a monitor

790
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:05,880
of what's happening in a volcano
we can observe with our eyes today.

791
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:10,960
And therefore, when we find them
in deposits in the past, for instance,

792
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:14,880
think of, you know, eruptions
that happened in Roman times at Vesuvius.

793
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:19,040
How might some of those eruptions
have taken place

794
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:23,040
on a minute by minute basis,
as a function of the deposits

795
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:26,160
that we find, including the
the tears and hair?

796
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:32,200
If you was sort of given the opportunity
to be part of a mission

797
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:36,480
to IO
or somewhere where there were, yes, yes.

798
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:36,880
Oh, no.

799
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:38,760
Amazing.

800
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:42,680
Amazing, really, even
even at the drop of a hat, you can.

801
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:43,680
Absolutely.

802
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:48,160
You know, it didn't didn't take me
a nanosecond when I did my first dive.

803
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:51,040
I've gone to volcanoes.

804
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:52,240
This is highs.

805
00:47:52,240 --> 00:47:56,160
Cotopaxi is 17,000ft
above sea level in Chile.

806
00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:01,400
I, the opportunity
to witness these things in person,

807
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:03,040
obviously would be amazing.

808
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:06,040
I don't think we're ever going
to get there in person at least.

809
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:10,040
You know, in, in in the next few
centuries, perhaps in millennia.

810
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,320
But, for instance,
if there were an opportunity

811
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:16,840
to get to Mars and to study
the volcanism there, for sure.

812
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:20,480
And the reason being that the,

813
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,800
the cause of volcanism on io
is so interesting, right?

814
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,120
It has to do
with the gravitational attraction

815
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:30,120
of, of Jupiter
and some of the neighboring moons.

816
00:48:30,720 --> 00:48:33,360
But in the type of magmas
that are being produced,

817
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:38,240
the types of volcanic deposits
that are forming, these are to some extent

818
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:43,040
we can see these things remotely,
but the way that they impact the

819
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,440
both the types of magma compositions
in the volcanic materials

820
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,480
as they're, ejected onto the land surface

821
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:55,200
would be invaluable
to see happening in real time.

822
00:48:55,200 --> 00:49:00,600
Because even when when we saw those very
first volcanic eruptions under the sea,

823
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:04,400
the the range of things
that we were seeing with

824
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,600
our own eyes
was well beyond what I could imagine.

825
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:13,680
By having spent hundreds of hours
looking at old volcanic eruption deposits.

826
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:16,680
You know, you can see a lava flow
and you can imagine your mind

827
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,880
what must have been happening
when it was produced,

828
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:24,240
until you see it actually happening
and you realize, oh, that's just curious.

829
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:28,240
And that that isn't what I thought
was, you know, going to be the phenomenon.

830
00:49:28,240 --> 00:49:32,520
So I think it's it's it's definitely
something that we need to strive

831
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:38,400
for is to, to get observational tools
to as many active volcanic bodies

832
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,080
as we have in our solar system
to get a better feeling.

833
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:43,720
The range of processes.

834
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:45,560
Do you have a

835
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:49,200
look at the moon and wonder what it was
when it was?

836
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:50,200
Absolutely.

837
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:55,520
It's, it's it's a wonderful thing
to look at with a high powered telescope,

838
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:59,040
because you can still actually see
quite a few features there that the,

839
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,320
the there's still some debate about
when the last

840
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:05,400
significant volcanism
happened on, on the moon.

841
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:09,600
But but most people put, you know, a
date of about three and a half to 3.9

842
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:10,720
billion years on it.

843
00:50:10,720 --> 00:50:14,680
And most of that volcanism
was very extensive.

844
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:17,880
Even bigger

845
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,880
than,
but equivalent in scale to, for instance,

846
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:25,680
the very large igneous provinces
we find on Earth, which is the,

847
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:29,400
Cretaceous, tertiary
or now named pillaging,

848
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:34,160
Cretaceous pillaging boundary deposits
in India, the Deccan Traps,

849
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:38,480
the Columbia Flood River
basalts, the Siberian Traps, the.

850
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:41,680
These are very large outpourings of

851
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:45,400
of lava that we we can only infer.

852
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:48,600
Very few of the volcanic vent
structures are still left.

853
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:51,040
So we can see these very thick lava flows.

854
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:55,000
It must have been enormous injection
of material into the atmosphere

855
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,960
that we don't
really find the evidence for anymore.

856
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:03,240
But the the lava flows themselves,
we we make emphasis on the basis

857
00:51:03,240 --> 00:51:05,640
of what we see at places
like, like Kilauea

858
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,160
and, you know, other basaltic volcanoes
around the world.

859
00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:12,560
But but we actually be able
to see something

860
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:15,560
like that would be amazing.

861
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:17,520
Yeah. Anybody would.

862
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:20,160
Listen,
I probably should let you go very much.

863
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:20,800
I just,

864
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:26,160
there's places that people can look up,
a little bit more if they're interested.

865
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:30,120
In addition to, you know,
the material is found in the physics

866
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:33,360
world, article that was recently written,
but there's also,

867
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:38,880
in information about Pele's, 
hairs and tears at the U.S.

868
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,760
Geological Survey website.

869
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,680
British Geological Survey
has a little section on it.

870
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:45,840
So it's something that

871
00:51:45,840 --> 00:51:49,320
when if people want to Google about it,
they can actually find

872
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:52,320
reputable sources of information from

873
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:55,320
scientific organizations on the web.

874
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,760
I'd like to thank both Professors
Thomson and Kenna for talking to me

875
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:02,120
for this episode of Physics
Bull Stories podcast,

876
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:05,280
and if you would like to know more,
and indeed read that article

877
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:09,600
that kind of just mentioned on Physics
Welcome, you'll find it entitled Pele's

878
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:13,520
Hair Raising Physics
Glossy Gifts from a Volcano Goddess.

879
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,920
But Samir Sagal will be back

880
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,920
next month with something else
from this wonderful world of physics.

881
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:21,800
And thank you very much for listening.

882
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:45,800
Hello and welcome to the Physics World
Stories podcast.

883
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:49,920
I'm Andrew Lester, and in this episode
we're going to be exploring Pele's hair

884
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:51,760
and Pele's tears.

885
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:55,720
These extraordinary wave structures
formed by volcanic eruptions

886
00:52:56,040 --> 00:52:59,280
can help us understand
the dynamics of those eruptions.

887
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:03,600
Atmospheric processes and planetary
geology here on Earth,

888
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:06,840
and quite possibly out there
in the solar system.

889
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:12,120
And there are plenty of tales of derring
do, including exploring the depths

890
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:18,240
of the ocean, volcanoes in submarine,
because we'll hear from two people

891
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:21,760
who spent their careers
so far studying volcanoes

892
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:25,680
soon we'll hear from Tamsin
Mather of the University of Oxford.

893
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:31,560
But first, I wanted to know why the name
Pele in Pele's and Pele's tears came from

894
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:35,280
and in case you're wondering, it's
nothing to do with the footballer.

895
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,800
Here's Kenna Rubin, who spent 30 years

896
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:41,800
as a volcanologist
on the island of Hawaii.

897
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:45,520
Pele is volcano goddess in Hawaii

898
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:49,320
and interestingly enough, she resize

899
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:53,040
or is thought to reside underneath
Kilauea volcano.

900
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:58,520
And, you know, a little bit just to inject
a tiny bit of Polynesian history here.

901
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:01,680
There were various
waves of migration of Hawaiians

902
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:04,680
or the people that populated
the Hawaiian Islands,

903
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:08,880
first from the areas that,
we now know or of as French

904
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:11,880
Polynesia and Marcos's in Tahiti,

905
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:15,480
and they brought various
Polynesian gods with them in the volcano.

906
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:20,280
God that they brought
was named Isla out and Isla and was,

907
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:24,240
very, sort of warful

908
00:54:24,240 --> 00:54:28,120
God, 
a God who was subject to fits of temper.

909
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:32,000
And in fact, scientists at the Hawaii
Volcanoes

910
00:54:32,720 --> 00:54:36,200
have correlated this observation

911
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:40,680
and personification of Isla out
with a phase of explosive volcanism.

912
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:44,440
A Kilauea volcano
which ended in the 1790s,

913
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:48,000
and Pele was brought

914
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:51,200
to Hawaii as a concept by Samoans

915
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:54,960
that started to migrate to the islands
maybe 3 or 400 years later.

916
00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:57,480
There are many, of the Davies

917
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:01,800
in the Polynesian religion
which are similar across the islands.

918
00:55:02,240 --> 00:55:04,360
Pele's one who is different.

919
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:11,080
And so when Pele came to the islands,
she took on a somewhat different vibe.

920
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:14,160
Pele is,

921
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:17,520
also, known to be a vengeful god.

922
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:20,080
She lusted after many men.

923
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:24,840
And then after, enjoying relations
with those men,

924
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:29,400
she would oftentimes
turn them into features of the landscapes.

925
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:32,840
There are many volcanic features
on all of the islands

926
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:36,520
are named after people
that Pele supposedly turned into.

927
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:39,880
These features, for one reason
or another,

928
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:43,520
and her arrival in the Hawaiian Islands

929
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:46,800
is thought to coincide
with the transition to a more,

930
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,160
subdued, lava

931
00:55:50,160 --> 00:55:53,160
flow, what we call effusive
volcanic style.

932
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:54,520
Just a little tidbit.

933
00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:58,800
The 2011, excuse me, 2018

934
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:03,680
eruption at Kilauea on the, eastern south

935
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:07,760
southeast rift zone
that erupted in the neighborhood.

936
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:10,440
If you recall,
it was the Leilani Estates eruption.

937
00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:15,040
Some people thought that that was a return
or resurgence of either out

938
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:19,920
because of the violence of the eruption,
as well as the collapse of

939
00:56:19,920 --> 00:56:23,560
the volcanic caldera that was happening up
at the summit of the volcano.

940
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:29,040
That hasn't necessarily been borne
out in the subsequent, activity.

941
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:34,960
But this is this is something that, 
very important to the people in Hawaii is,

942
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:39,240
personifying processes
not just in the volcanoes,

943
00:56:39,240 --> 00:56:42,240
but up in the atmosphere,
different states of weather, the

944
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:47,560
who controls the wind in the waves
and the coral reefs with the deities.

945
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:50,760
And so I say that because

946
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:55,280
while it's important to respect everyone's
cultural perspectives

947
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:59,680
and their religions, it also gives us
an important way of understanding

948
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:03,480
the way Hawaiians interact
with their natural landscape,

949
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:06,880
the renewal of the land that happens
because of volcanic phenomena,

950
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:12,040
and the instability of the land
because of the volcano.

951
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:14,960
We'll hear much more
from kind of later in the podcast,

952
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:19,040
including her adventures
exploring underwater volcanoes.

953
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:23,600
But first, let's go to Tamsin Mae,
the professor of earth sciences

954
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:25,560
at the University of Oxford.

955
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:29,040
For more than 20 years now,
I've been studying the world's volcanoes.

956
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:32,160
I guess some of the highlights
are going out there

957
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:35,240
and, and seeing volcanoes in the wild,
so to speak.

958
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:38,480
So standing next to fire fountains

959
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:43,680
on Mount Etna in Italy, down in Sicily,
staring into massive,

960
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:48,200
roiling lava lake, going to Hawaii and,

961
00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:52,720
and studying the, emissions
coming out to the hello mama crater,

962
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:57,640
hiking down into the jungle
in Guatemala to sample rocks.

963
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:02,840
That's just a few amazing Pele's
hair and Pele's tears.

964
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:04,760
Oh, they're really extraordinary rocks.

965
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:08,040
Actually,
they really, really do look like, hair.

966
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:12,640
When you have a basaltic lava

967
00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:15,640
lake or lava event

968
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:20,000
or lava flow with bubbles
bursting on its surface, when the

969
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:25,840
the bubbles break, they can kind of,
extrude and stretch, the glassy rock.

970
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:29,880
So the magma, freezes and forms
glassy threads,

971
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:34,680
which then blow up
or waft up with the volcano's hot gases,

972
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:39,960
and get deposited on the ground
or caught in fences

973
00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:43,720
or on, on ridges and vegetation
around the volcano.

974
00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:47,480
And it looks just like from a distance,
looks pretty much like kind of

975
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:50,880
animal hair, like dark sheep's hair
or something like that, caught on a fence.

976
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:55,520
But then when you pick it
up, it's brittle, and glassy and actually

977
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:58,560
can be quite sharp and you can get it
stuck in your fingers and things.

978
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:00,840
So it's really extraordinary stuff.

979
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:04,440
That is a away you have,
they sit, they, they fly out

980
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:08,360
and you have the, the droplets
from the top of bubbles bursting.

981
00:59:08,360 --> 00:59:11,400
So if you ever looked at, a slo mo

982
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:14,440
of a water bubble bursting,
sometimes you get a drop at the top.

983
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:17,640
So sometimes they're formed like that,
and then sometimes they're just

984
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:21,720
the sort of more gloopy end of the,
of the extrusion.

985
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:25,360
So you actually get a Pele's hair,
which terminates in a police tear,

986
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:27,680
and they are exactly as they sound.

987
00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:32,800
The that shaped glassy blobs,
that then, pretty small,

988
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:35,920
and then get
wafted up with the volcanic gases.

989
00:59:36,280 --> 00:59:39,360
So they must be cooling very quickly
then. Yes.

990
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:42,800
Particularly the glass shards,
because they're so fine and thin.

991
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:45,200
They have a very high aspect ratio.

992
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:46,360
They call really, really quickly.

993
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:50,120
And that's why you get glass rather
than having many crystals forming in them.

994
00:59:50,120 --> 00:59:50,520
Okay.

995
00:59:50,520 --> 00:59:54,040
But if you were sort of walking along, 
not that you'd want to be

996
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:55,680
while this was going on right now,
I assume.

997
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:57,840
But if you were walking along
in this sort of

998
00:59:57,840 --> 01:00:00,040
did get in your hair,
that would be problematic.

999
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:03,680
I the worst place it could be in your eyes
because, as I say, these,

1000
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:06,000
these glassy shards
that if you rubbed your eyes,

1001
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:07,760
you might break them and you get sharp.

1002
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:10,840
But since you're into your eyeball,
which would be, I'd

1003
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:12,040
imagine, deeply unpleasant.

1004
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:13,960
Fortunately,
it hasn't happened to me as yet.

1005
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:17,520
Okay, but imagine the tears are quite
if one of those struck you

1006
01:00:17,520 --> 01:00:20,040
as it had been blasted out of a volcano,
that would hurt quite a bit.

1007
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:21,440
They're pretty

1008
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,440
small, and actually,
not that they're not that heavy.

1009
01:00:24,440 --> 01:00:25,720
They're quite light.

1010
01:00:25,720 --> 01:00:28,320
So, that's not too much raw. Okay.

1011
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:28,800
So enough.

1012
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:31,000
But what you can do with them
is pick them up,

1013
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:33,800
take them back to the lab
and study them. Yes.

1014
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:37,400
So the great thing,
I mean, utterly beautiful and amazing.

1015
01:00:37,440 --> 01:00:40,080
Wonderful. And fascinating.

1016
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:40,920
But the great thing,

1017
01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:44,160
as well as because they've quenched
so they've cool really, really quickly.

1018
01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:48,320
And you've got this glossiness,
it means you've, you've got a, kind of,

1019
01:00:48,320 --> 01:00:52,080
you've got a total composition,
if you like.

1020
01:00:52,080 --> 01:00:54,960
It hasn't separated off
into the different crystal phases.

1021
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:59,760
So you can just crush it up, or probe it
with, with a different beam technology.

1022
01:00:59,760 --> 01:01:02,320
And you can get the composition
of the glass

1023
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:05,400
that was there in the lava, like,
you know, pretty much as you walk past.

1024
01:01:05,960 --> 01:01:08,760
So, so that's a real advantage to them.

1025
01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:12,040
You know, you kind of know the,
you know, that

1026
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:15,200
they, they don't persist for long,
long periods of time in the environments.

1027
01:01:15,200 --> 01:01:18,200
You know, that they've just been there
probably a few weeks at maximum.

1028
01:01:18,560 --> 01:01:22,160
And if you clear a surface
and then collect some more of them,

1029
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:24,160
you know, that that's really fresh stuff.

1030
01:01:24,160 --> 01:01:27,480
So you know, that of representative
of the magma composition

1031
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:30,840
there and then in the lava lake
or on the lava flow.

1032
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:33,960
But what does that tell us,
knowing that kind of composition?

1033
01:01:34,200 --> 01:01:36,320
So, a bunch of different things, really.

1034
01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:38,440
So one of the things
we might be interested in

1035
01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:40,160
is the fluid properties of the magma.

1036
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:43,160
So, how viscosity is, how sticky it is.

1037
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:44,520
So one of the things

1038
01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:48,320
we want to know about for
that would be the, the silica content.

1039
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:52,720
So silica and oxygen, because silica
shouldn't form polymers in the magma.

1040
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:56,520
So the more silica an oxygen you have,
the stickier a magma tends to be.

1041
01:01:57,120 --> 01:02:01,680
So the lower that is, the runny
and magmas are if it's getting stickier,

1042
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:03,240
then that might change the way

1043
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:07,160
that the dynamics of the lava flows
or the eruption might go.

1044
01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:10,960
You might also want to look at things
like dissolved water content,

1045
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:14,640
because that also affects
how sticky a business of my flour is.

1046
01:02:15,480 --> 01:02:20,760
And also the dissolved water content, 
determines how volatile, how volatile rich

1047
01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:24,400
the magma is and how explosive it might
or might not be.

1048
01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:28,760
So if you, for example, looking, 
at a long lived lava lake

1049
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:32,600
like in Hawaii, you might be interested
in how these different parameters

1050
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:34,200
are changing with time.

1051
01:02:34,200 --> 01:02:37,960
And that might also give you clues about
what's going on deep inside the volcano.

1052
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:39,640
How often would you be finding them?

1053
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:42,200
How often do these conditions arise?

1054
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:45,680
It's hard to say how often this I mean,
this is quite specific set of conditions.

1055
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:51,160
You need a dynamic, lava
or magma, interface with bubbles bursting

1056
01:02:51,160 --> 01:02:56,240
or that you need the, the,
the the magma to be low enough viscosity

1057
01:02:56,240 --> 01:02:58,320
that you can get
this extrusions happening.

1058
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:01,440
So it's not you know, it's

1059
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:05,120
certainly in my career,
I've been in this situation sort of 3 or

1060
01:03:05,120 --> 01:03:08,800
4 times where that being said,
if Pele's had deposits around,

1061
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:12,800
so it's not it's not super rare,
but it's also not something

1062
01:03:12,800 --> 01:03:15,920
you necessarily expect
every single time you go to a volcano.

1063
01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:19,080
So all of the volcanoes
that you've looked at are on land.

1064
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:22,720
Most of the world's
volcanoes are underwater,

1065
01:03:22,720 --> 01:03:27,520
most of them at the mid-ocean ridges,
but those are pretty deep under the waves.

1066
01:03:27,520 --> 01:03:28,960
They're quite hard to study.

1067
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:32,280
I certainly studied some,
some shallow submarine volcanoes.

1068
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:35,760
I believe that people have found
Pele's hair

1069
01:03:35,760 --> 01:03:38,760
in submarine volcanoes,
but I've never studied that myself.

1070
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:42,280
When you set off to go to a volcano,
you're looking for specific things.

1071
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:45,280
Or you just like, let's go and find out
what's going on there.

1072
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:48,600
Well, I mean, I go to volcanoes
for a number of different reasons,

1073
01:03:48,600 --> 01:03:52,160
but probably the times that I've been
and collected Pele's hair

1074
01:03:52,160 --> 01:03:56,160
as well is when I've been studying
the gas emissions from the volcanoes.

1075
01:03:56,160 --> 01:04:00,840
And I want to understand how much of
the different components are coming out.

1076
01:04:02,360 --> 01:04:04,760
And sometimes that might be the major

1077
01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:08,560
gas species, like water, carbon
dioxide, sulfur dioxide.

1078
01:04:08,880 --> 01:04:12,360
And then we might be wanting to see
think about what we can tell in terms

1079
01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:15,480
of what those gases
tell us about the subterranean

1080
01:04:15,480 --> 01:04:18,840
plumbing of the volcano
and its status in terms of hazard.

1081
01:04:19,520 --> 01:04:23,520
But other times I'm thinking about
the environmental impact of volcanoes.

1082
01:04:23,920 --> 01:04:27,480
So I'm interested in all sorts
of different elements coming out,

1083
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:30,640
all sorts of, different metal species
coming out.

1084
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:34,760
One of the interesting things
there is if we, if we measure

1085
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:38,880
the metal, species, metal,
chemical, chemical species,

1086
01:04:39,280 --> 01:04:42,280
if I did the plumes, the different salts
and and things like that.

1087
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:45,360
You're interested to find out
how that compares

1088
01:04:45,360 --> 01:04:48,360
to their concentrations in the magma?

1089
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:51,960
Because what you'd like to understand
is how volatile the different metals are.

1090
01:04:51,960 --> 01:04:55,680
So how easily they are transferred
from the magma to the gas phase.

1091
01:04:56,240 --> 01:04:58,600
Because if we can understand more
about what

1092
01:04:58,600 --> 01:05:02,080
that means, we can make predictions
about how it might behave under volcanoes

1093
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:06,800
based on just a lava sample
or, or a glass sample.

1094
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:09,600
So we're not we're not always

1095
01:05:09,600 --> 01:05:11,520
there yet,
but that's the sort of aspiration

1096
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:14,240
we'd like to understand
more about that degassing process

1097
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:17,240
of, of different elements
in the periodic table.

1098
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:21,120
So that's somewhere where
I might be very excited to find some place

1099
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:25,280
that's going to tell me about the magma
in the, in the, in the magma event.

1100
01:05:25,720 --> 01:05:26,720
Right at the moment,

1101
01:05:26,720 --> 01:05:30,360
pretty much that I'm measuring the gases
sitting on the edge of the volcano.

1102
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:34,160
Different, different
chemicals are cycled through our planet

1103
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:36,960
in natural cycles and different ways.

1104
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:41,080
Volcanoes are part of that in terms
of providing a conduit for different

1105
01:05:41,080 --> 01:05:44,640
chemicals between the solid Earth
and the environment on the atmosphere.

1106
01:05:45,200 --> 01:05:47,600
So we'd like to understand
how it's operating today

1107
01:05:47,600 --> 01:05:50,600
so that we can think about how
it might have varied over geological time.

1108
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:55,680
Is that something that would inform
our understanding of climate change?

1109
01:05:55,960 --> 01:05:57,040
More broadly, yes.

1110
01:05:57,040 --> 01:06:00,840
I mean, the carbon dioxide
and sulfur dioxide are a major,

1111
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:04,360
major sort of, climate, elements.

1112
01:06:04,840 --> 01:06:08,440
So we are interested
in how volcanoes are forced

1113
01:06:08,440 --> 01:06:12,360
climate back in geological time,
because sometimes that gives us clues

1114
01:06:12,360 --> 01:06:15,360
in terms of the sort of massive carbon
release experiment

1115
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:20,040
that we're currently undertaking
as a species, the consequences thereof.

1116
01:06:20,400 --> 01:06:23,600
Volcanoes have released, a lot of carbon.

1117
01:06:23,640 --> 01:06:28,320
So big events and volcanic past these
things called large igneous provinces.

1118
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:31,800
So if you go to somewhere
like the Deccan in India,

1119
01:06:32,240 --> 01:06:35,800
actually we've got some here in the UK,
if you go to northern sky,

1120
01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:38,880
you can see these big stacks
of basaltic lava flows.

1121
01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:44,040
And these are the remnants of,
of large igneous provinces.

1122
01:06:44,040 --> 01:06:47,400
And these are these enormous outpourings
of largely

1123
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:50,400
basaltic magma
onto the surface of the planet.

1124
01:06:50,880 --> 01:06:53,000
And they last about a million years.

1125
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:58,920
But they put about 1,000,000km³ of magma
onto the surface of the Earth.

1126
01:06:59,280 --> 01:07:03,160
So just one cubic km of magma
would cover the whole of Greater London

1127
01:07:03,160 --> 01:07:04,640
to about 60cm.

1128
01:07:04,640 --> 01:07:06,880
So this is we're putting millions
of these out.

1129
01:07:06,880 --> 01:07:09,800
They cover big areas in places
like Siberia.

1130
01:07:09,800 --> 01:07:13,560
The Columbia River in
not in North America, for example.

1131
01:07:14,200 --> 01:07:17,720
So during these logic,
these provinces that sort of doubled

1132
01:07:17,720 --> 01:07:21,880
the rate of volcanism on our planet
and doubled the rate of carbon dioxide

1133
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:25,120
being put out by the world's
volcanoes on our planet.

1134
01:07:25,680 --> 01:07:28,920
So we're interested to see
what the environmental consequences

1135
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:32,440
of that are, because right at the moment,
we're doing even more than that.

1136
01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:35,000
You know, we're we're 
we're doing 60 times

1137
01:07:35,000 --> 01:07:38,080
the amount of carbon dioxide
that comes out of the world's volcanoes.

1138
01:07:38,520 --> 01:07:40,200
So, you know, we're beating the logic.

1139
01:07:40,200 --> 01:07:43,400
These provinces, we've been at this
a much shorter length of time.

1140
01:07:43,400 --> 01:07:45,520
We've only been at it
for a couple of centuries.

1141
01:07:45,520 --> 01:07:46,520
But, you know, so far

1142
01:07:46,520 --> 01:07:50,640
we're we're best in class at carbon
dioxide emissions compared to volcanoes.

1143
01:07:51,280 --> 01:07:54,480
And and so we are we're interested
to study,

1144
01:07:54,480 --> 01:07:56,920
understand how much carbon came out,
which is where

1145
01:07:56,920 --> 01:08:00,200
sitting in volcanic plumes
today is of interest.

1146
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:04,160
And and also just the consequences.

1147
01:08:04,640 --> 01:08:08,600
And, 
we see some pretty strong consequences.

1148
01:08:08,600 --> 01:08:11,880
We see, we see mass extinction events
associated

1149
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:14,880
with these large igneous provinces.

1150
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:17,920
We see episodes of global ocean anoxia.

1151
01:08:17,920 --> 01:08:22,120
So when all the oxygen in the oceans
got depleted and you get these black shale

1152
01:08:22,120 --> 01:08:27,920
layers and the geological record
of, of oxygen depleted, of oxygen,

1153
01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:31,800
diagnostic of oxygen depletion
in the oceans, for example.

1154
01:08:32,360 --> 01:08:35,400
So, so that's
why it's a sort of interesting comparison

1155
01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:38,400
to understand
the environmental impacts of volcanoes.

1156
01:08:38,400 --> 01:08:41,000
It's not the only way to understand
what we're doing,

1157
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:44,400
what what our consequences
are as a geological force, by any means.

1158
01:08:44,400 --> 01:08:47,400
But it's one of the ways that we might
go after that.

1159
01:08:48,160 --> 01:08:51,160
What is it that attracted you to to this
area of study?

1160
01:08:51,240 --> 01:08:55,320
Well, so I did a chemistry degree and, 
and then had a couple of years

1161
01:08:55,320 --> 01:08:59,720
at science and decided
I wanted to go back to doing science.

1162
01:08:59,800 --> 01:09:02,400
I would do
I didn't just want to be in the lab.

1163
01:09:02,400 --> 01:09:06,600
I liked lab work, but I also wanted
to be outdoors and sampling the world

1164
01:09:06,600 --> 01:09:10,320
and kind of understanding large scale
processes, as well as the sort of

1165
01:09:10,440 --> 01:09:13,440
what was going on
in, in a test tube or even smaller.

1166
01:09:14,080 --> 01:09:17,560
And so I was looking around
at environmental chemistry projects,

1167
01:09:17,560 --> 01:09:21,720
and I happened to find this one, on the,
the atmospheric chemistry

1168
01:09:21,720 --> 01:09:22,800
of volcanic plumes.

1169
01:09:22,800 --> 01:09:24,360
And I'd done some specialist modules

1170
01:09:24,360 --> 01:09:28,240
in atmospheric chemistry, so I thought
I might be able to give that one a go.

1171
01:09:28,240 --> 01:09:30,520
And, the rest is history.

1172
01:09:30,520 --> 01:09:31,440
As I say,

1173
01:09:31,440 --> 01:09:35,880
I think the study of Pele's hair is
part of a wider projects in volcanology.

1174
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:39,000
I mean, there are there are papers written
specifically on Pele's

1175
01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:42,000
hair, talky Pele's tears.

1176
01:09:42,160 --> 01:09:48,120
It talks about the shapes, cataloging
the shapes, looking at, the singularity.

1177
01:09:48,280 --> 01:09:51,080
This is a bubble structure
within the Pele's tears.

1178
01:09:51,080 --> 01:09:55,560
And talk about how those relate to things
like the viscosity of magmas, for sure.

1179
01:09:56,160 --> 01:09:59,960
But, but for me, I think, 
they are really interesting

1180
01:09:59,960 --> 01:10:04,600
as part of our wider endeavor
to really understand volcanic processes,

1181
01:10:05,080 --> 01:10:10,520
both looking, peering in and looking down
and thinking deeper into the earth,

1182
01:10:10,520 --> 01:10:14,560
but also, looking outwards and thinking
about the consequences of volcanoes.

1183
01:10:14,840 --> 01:10:17,880
So the other piece of the puzzle,
they tell us another piece of,

1184
01:10:17,880 --> 01:10:22,320
information, other pieces of information
that we can build into bigger pictures.

1185
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:25,680
It seems like
it would be a slightly treacherous,

1186
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:28,400
way to spend your time
studying volcanoes,

1187
01:10:28,400 --> 01:10:31,920
if you had any particularly hairy
adventure, Harry.

1188
01:10:31,920 --> 01:10:32,880
No pun intended.

1189
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:37,200
Well, it was it was intended.

1190
01:10:38,240 --> 01:10:39,640
Fortunately, not too much.

1191
01:10:39,640 --> 01:10:42,440
I mean, I've certainly been scared
of the volcano.

1192
01:10:42,440 --> 01:10:44,280
I think it's right to be a bit scared.

1193
01:10:44,280 --> 01:10:46,920
Your your, you know, your high alert.
You should be.

1194
01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:50,920
You're on a an unpredictable, 
natural phenomenon.

1195
01:10:51,600 --> 01:10:54,600
I do try to be very, very careful.

1196
01:10:54,680 --> 01:10:57,120
I, I am not,

1197
01:10:57,120 --> 01:11:00,200
I do not take risks
for the sake of taking risks.

1198
01:11:01,240 --> 01:11:03,920
I, very, very adamant

1199
01:11:03,920 --> 01:11:07,080
that no measurement is worth taking undue
risk for.

1200
01:11:07,640 --> 01:11:10,080
We always talk very carefully

1201
01:11:10,080 --> 01:11:13,080
to the local scientists
who are monitoring the volcano.

1202
01:11:13,280 --> 01:11:16,800
Now, not all volcanoes
worldwide, are perfectly monitored.

1203
01:11:16,800 --> 01:11:18,720
Or or even well monitored.

1204
01:11:18,720 --> 01:11:21,480
So sometimes
you do have to take a bit of a risk. But.

1205
01:11:21,480 --> 01:11:23,000
Yeah.
Just to get me to give you an example.

1206
01:11:23,000 --> 01:11:23,640
So, Santi, due

1207
01:11:23,640 --> 01:11:25,080
to volcano in Guatemala,

1208
01:11:25,080 --> 01:11:28,080
which is where we were hiking down
into the jungle to do some play,

1209
01:11:28,600 --> 01:11:32,280
it was a bit frightening
because the volcano has,

1210
01:11:32,280 --> 01:11:35,400
you know, small, smallish,
but still sizable explosion.

1211
01:11:35,480 --> 01:11:37,920
About every 45 minutes.

1212
01:11:37,920 --> 01:11:42,120
So you'll go down the jungle,
there's this volcanic, cone above you.

1213
01:11:42,160 --> 01:11:44,360
Boom. Every 45 minutes.

1214
01:11:44,360 --> 01:11:47,160
Pyroclastic flows
come down the side of it.

1215
01:11:47,160 --> 01:11:49,760
Now, we'd looked at the map,
so we talked to the local scientists.

1216
01:11:49,760 --> 01:11:53,360
We need the pyroclastic flows
basically went down into a big, big valley

1217
01:11:53,600 --> 01:11:55,560
and went off a different direction.

1218
01:11:55,560 --> 01:11:58,160
But when you're underneath a volcano,
you can't see that.

1219
01:11:58,160 --> 01:12:01,200
You just see the power tastic flame
coming towards you.

1220
01:12:01,560 --> 01:12:03,480
And, you know,
just hoping it's not going to appear up

1221
01:12:03,480 --> 01:12:06,600
the other side of the,
of the other sides of the valley.

1222
01:12:07,080 --> 01:12:10,800
And it didn't, we sampled our rocks and
and hiked out again.

1223
01:12:11,360 --> 01:12:14,360
But, but yeah, it is.

1224
01:12:14,400 --> 01:12:17,720
They are you must we
it is really important

1225
01:12:17,720 --> 01:12:21,480
to respect the the volcanoes
and to be as careful as you possibly can.

1226
01:12:22,040 --> 01:12:23,440
How long is the risk assessment?

1227
01:12:26,320 --> 01:12:27,120
Yeah,

1228
01:12:27,120 --> 01:12:30,120
well, it could run to several, many pages.

1229
01:12:31,200 --> 01:12:32,880
Normally had some very detailed maps

1230
01:12:32,880 --> 01:12:35,880
and lots of notes of contact numbers.

1231
01:12:36,000 --> 01:12:38,880
I wanted to know more
about these underwater volcanoes

1232
01:12:38,880 --> 01:12:42,120
and the possibilities
and realities of exploring them.

1233
01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:42,920
Kind of.

1234
01:12:42,920 --> 01:12:45,960
Reuben is a professor at an associate dean
for research

1235
01:12:46,440 --> 01:12:50,840
at the Graduate School for oceanography
at the University of Rhode Island.

1236
01:12:51,120 --> 01:12:56,400
So in my current position,
I am responsible for the research

1237
01:12:56,400 --> 01:13:02,240
portfolio of a school of oceanography
that means shepherding programs

1238
01:13:02,240 --> 01:13:06,240
and projects, managing our ship and shore
based facilities,

1239
01:13:06,240 --> 01:13:08,160
managing our research personnel.

1240
01:13:08,160 --> 01:13:10,200
I also have about a third of my job.

1241
01:13:10,200 --> 01:13:12,560
The still dedicated to research.

1242
01:13:12,560 --> 01:13:16,040
My research is in volcanology
and oceanography.

1243
01:13:16,520 --> 01:13:22,080
I moved to the University of Rhode Island
two years ago, from a 30 year career

1244
01:13:22,080 --> 01:13:28,160
as a professor at the University of Hawaii
in, the Department of Earth Sciences,

1245
01:13:28,320 --> 01:13:32,800
where I spent a great deal of time
studying both Hawaiian volcanism

1246
01:13:33,120 --> 01:13:37,080
and my particular specialty,
which is submarine volcanism,

1247
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:41,360
including the deepest known active
volcanic spots

1248
01:13:41,360 --> 01:13:45,720
under the sea on the planet,
on the volcano side.

1249
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:47,360
Who doesn't love volcanoes?

1250
01:13:47,360 --> 01:13:49,400
They're spectacular. They're awesome.

1251
01:13:49,400 --> 01:13:54,240
They are, fascinating to study,

1252
01:13:54,240 --> 01:13:57,240
I guess, understanding how they function.

1253
01:13:57,600 --> 01:14:02,400
For me, I'm especially interested in
how they erupt, how often they erupt,

1254
01:14:02,640 --> 01:14:06,680
how eruptions impact the environment,
how they impact ecosystems.

1255
01:14:07,000 --> 01:14:09,080
And that's part of my interest in both.

1256
01:14:09,080 --> 01:14:15,000
So the aerial meaning above water and 
submarine, which is underwater eruptions.

1257
01:14:15,400 --> 01:14:19,880
My love of the ocean started from a very,
very young age.

1258
01:14:19,880 --> 01:14:23,440
I've always enjoyed the sea, studying it,

1259
01:14:23,440 --> 01:14:26,440
being in it,
being around it, being able to see it.

1260
01:14:26,760 --> 01:14:31,080
And so,
I have a merger of those two things.

1261
01:14:31,080 --> 01:14:34,480
It's been a wonderful,
an exceptional career.

1262
01:14:34,480 --> 01:14:38,400
I've had more than 30 expeditions at sea.

1263
01:14:38,400 --> 01:14:44,520
I've had more than, 60 dives
in, human occupied submersible,

1264
01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:45,840
another several hundred

1265
01:14:45,840 --> 01:14:50,640
in remotely operated vehicles
and one of the things that few of us

1266
01:14:50,640 --> 01:14:54,960
who study submarine, volcanoes, it's
a relatively small community, but

1267
01:14:55,520 --> 01:14:58,080
few of the other folks
who do this kind of work

1268
01:14:58,080 --> 01:15:01,720
also have experience,
working on volcanoes, on land.

1269
01:15:02,160 --> 01:15:06,200
So for me, seeing what happens on land
and understanding

1270
01:15:06,360 --> 01:15:09,720
which which features are similar,
which features are not,

1271
01:15:10,120 --> 01:15:12,800
and how the,

1272
01:15:12,800 --> 01:15:17,040
increasing depth as we go down
further from the surface,

1273
01:15:17,040 --> 01:15:21,160
under the ocean affects
volcanic processes to some extent.

1274
01:15:21,160 --> 01:15:22,680
It doesn't affect them at all.

1275
01:15:22,680 --> 01:15:25,600
To other extents,
it affects them very greatly.

1276
01:15:25,600 --> 01:15:27,920
And this is something that is interesting

1277
01:15:27,920 --> 01:15:31,440
not only for studying
the range of volcanism on the planet,

1278
01:15:31,440 --> 01:15:36,400
but also understanding how volcanism
might happen on other planetary bodies,

1279
01:15:36,720 --> 01:15:40,440
such as Venus, whose atmospheric pressure
is very similar

1280
01:15:40,440 --> 01:15:43,920
to what we find in relatively
deep submarine settings on Earth.

1281
01:15:44,600 --> 01:15:47,440
Okay, going in submersibles

1282
01:15:47,440 --> 01:15:50,640
and looking at underwater volcanoes,

1283
01:15:50,640 --> 01:15:53,640
I mean, that sounds like something
James Cameron would want to do.

1284
01:15:53,760 --> 01:15:55,400
He and he has done it.

1285
01:15:55,400 --> 01:16:00,120
And so most of my work,
especially my deep diving work below

1286
01:16:00,120 --> 01:16:03,400
about two kilometers, has happened
with, Woods

1287
01:16:03,400 --> 01:16:07,160
Hole Oceanographic Institution
using their vehicle.

1288
01:16:07,160 --> 01:16:07,840
Alvin.

1289
01:16:07,840 --> 01:16:12,240
In fact, we just published an article
last week in EOS,

1290
01:16:12,240 --> 01:16:15,960
the American Geophysical Union's
weekly news magazine,

1291
01:16:16,240 --> 01:16:19,880
about the recent deep
diving upgrade to the vehicle.

1292
01:16:19,880 --> 01:16:24,320
We can now take it to 6500m depth,
which is, you know,

1293
01:16:24,320 --> 01:16:28,200
more than 20,000ft for those who still use
the imperial system.

1294
01:16:28,200 --> 01:16:33,080
And on one of the dives on that program,
I discovered what we now know

1295
01:16:33,080 --> 01:16:37,880
is the deepest on Earth,
submarine volcanic deposit,

1296
01:16:37,880 --> 01:16:41,400
about 60 100m depth
in the Mid Cayman Rise.

1297
01:16:41,880 --> 01:16:46,720
And what's fascinating is,
is that even though the very high

1298
01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:50,880
hydrostatic pressure, the pressure
from the weight of all that water

1299
01:16:51,000 --> 01:16:54,840
pressing down on such a deep, seabed
location,

1300
01:16:55,000 --> 01:16:58,240
one would think would have
that would affect the evolution

1301
01:16:58,240 --> 01:17:02,080
of volatiles or gases
that become unresolved from magmas

1302
01:17:02,160 --> 01:17:06,480
and drive a lot of eruption processes,
including Pele's hairs.

1303
01:17:06,640 --> 01:17:11,880
But to some extent, those phenomena happen
even at those very great depths.

1304
01:17:11,880 --> 01:17:14,880
And this is one of
the things is so interest ING

1305
01:17:14,920 --> 01:17:18,400
about getting to make these observations
in those locations.

1306
01:17:18,440 --> 01:17:21,960
Can you just sort of describe
that experience to me, of being

1307
01:17:21,960 --> 01:17:25,720
in one of those submersibles
and arriving at the volcano here?

1308
01:17:25,720 --> 01:17:27,520
It's it's not for everyone.

1309
01:17:27,520 --> 01:17:33,080
So, in fact,
it is a two meters here in about,

1310
01:17:33,080 --> 01:17:37,800
a third of that sphere in the horizontal
direction is filled up with equipment.

1311
01:17:38,280 --> 01:17:42,360
And then you sort of, you know,
you sit on your side or lie on your belly

1312
01:17:42,360 --> 01:17:44,680
and then you've got equipment
all over you two.

1313
01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:48,320
So there's three people in there,
a pilot and two observers.

1314
01:17:48,720 --> 01:17:52,560
The observers, are mostly, involved

1315
01:17:52,560 --> 01:17:56,200
in obviously making observations,
taking notes, managing the cameras.

1316
01:17:56,600 --> 01:18:00,240
I, I've done it enough
that I've been able to drive the vehicle,

1317
01:18:00,240 --> 01:18:03,240
but there's a pilot
who's the primary person

1318
01:18:03,520 --> 01:18:06,440
and will spend somewhere between

1319
01:18:06,440 --> 01:18:09,440
ten and maybe 12 hours on the seafloor.

1320
01:18:09,720 --> 01:18:15,000
It, descends at about 30 to 40m a minute.

1321
01:18:15,200 --> 01:18:19,200
So when we're working those depths of over
six kilometers,

1322
01:18:19,480 --> 01:18:22,280
we're spending a couple hours to descend

1323
01:18:22,280 --> 01:18:26,280
another couple of hours to come back
up, and then,

1324
01:18:26,280 --> 01:18:30,080
you know, leaving us
maybe six hours or so on the seabed.

1325
01:18:30,560 --> 01:18:35,280
And during that time,
because we're untethered from the ship.

1326
01:18:35,440 --> 01:18:39,080
We're not it's not doesn't have a tether
like a remotely operated vehicle.

1327
01:18:39,480 --> 01:18:40,800
Power is quite limited.

1328
01:18:40,800 --> 01:18:42,600
Payload is quite limited.

1329
01:18:42,600 --> 01:18:46,800
But on a typical geology dive,
which is something that untethered

1330
01:18:46,800 --> 01:18:50,280
vehicles are really good for,
so we can drive around and explore,

1331
01:18:50,720 --> 01:18:55,040
we might cover a kilometer to a kilometer
and a half of seabed.

1332
01:18:55,040 --> 01:18:59,640
We might pick up something like 20 rocks
using the manipulators.

1333
01:18:59,640 --> 01:19:01,920
The pilot does all of that.

1334
01:19:01,920 --> 01:19:04,960
It's, it's a tight, enclosed space.

1335
01:19:05,320 --> 01:19:08,240
I don't notice it myself
because I spend all my time

1336
01:19:08,240 --> 01:19:11,240
looking out the window,
being excited about what I'm seeing.

1337
01:19:11,440 --> 01:19:14,760
But in my, you know, many, 
dozens of dives,

1338
01:19:14,880 --> 01:19:19,320
I've experienced the full range
of partners in the sub.

1339
01:19:20,040 --> 01:19:22,800
Some freak out, many of them get ill.

1340
01:19:22,800 --> 01:19:26,200
But it's it's truly a surreal experience.

1341
01:19:26,240 --> 01:19:30,240
And this that you you load into the sub
while it's still on the ship.

1342
01:19:30,720 --> 01:19:34,920
And from the moment they pick you up,
you go inside and they seal the hatch, and

1343
01:19:34,920 --> 01:19:39,400
then they pick you up on a on a winch,
and then they kind of swing you overboard.

1344
01:19:39,400 --> 01:19:42,840
And so as soon as the vehicle starts
swinging independently of the ship,

1345
01:19:43,600 --> 01:19:47,400
and then when they drop you in the water
and there's a big splash and there's scuba

1346
01:19:47,400 --> 01:19:51,120
divers around that are disconnecting
things and getting you ready to deploy.

1347
01:19:51,440 --> 01:19:53,880
It's it's just an amazing experience.

1348
01:19:53,880 --> 01:19:58,720
And I would say that you you stop feeling
the movement of the ocean, maybe

1349
01:19:58,800 --> 01:20:01,800
within the first ten meters of descent,
it really

1350
01:20:02,040 --> 01:20:04,640
and they don't launch in Rothesay State
anyway.

1351
01:20:04,640 --> 01:20:09,880
But once once you get down a little bit
below the surface, becomes very calm.

1352
01:20:10,080 --> 01:20:11,760
The lighting is amazing.

1353
01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:16,080
It gets less and less
as you go down until, you know, roughly

1354
01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:19,320
about 150, 160m

1355
01:20:19,480 --> 01:20:22,480
is where we stop seeing any, any light.

1356
01:20:22,680 --> 01:20:26,000
And if we descend without the lights on,
you can see

1357
01:20:26,000 --> 01:20:29,320
all sorts of, organisms
that phosphorescence.

1358
01:20:30,000 --> 01:20:32,880
It's, it's it's a incredible thing.

1359
01:20:32,880 --> 01:20:36,880
And I still remember the,
you know, the first time I saw an active

1360
01:20:36,880 --> 01:20:40,240
hydrothermal vent
is just absolutely incredible.

1361
01:20:40,240 --> 01:20:41,560
You know, the world's all dark.

1362
01:20:41,560 --> 01:20:44,880
Then you turn on the lights,
you see this incredible,

1363
01:20:44,880 --> 01:20:47,960
otherworldly ecosystem
popping out in front of you.

1364
01:20:47,960 --> 01:20:50,160
It's it's spectacular.

1365
01:20:50,160 --> 01:20:51,920
I wish everyone could have
that experience.

1366
01:20:51,920 --> 01:20:56,040
And and in a way, everyone can,
because there are now several,

1367
01:20:56,040 --> 01:20:59,480
organizations that do live streaming
of their remotely operated

1368
01:20:59,480 --> 01:21:02,480
vehicle operations on the seabed.

1369
01:21:02,760 --> 01:21:08,000
And, that brings this science to,
you know, many people around the globe.

1370
01:21:08,000 --> 01:21:12,640
When I participate in those expeditions,
we have people that sort of

1371
01:21:13,080 --> 01:21:16,480
follow the different organizations
that do these things.

1372
01:21:16,480 --> 01:21:19,960
You see the same people on in the chat
asking questions.

1373
01:21:20,440 --> 01:21:23,080
And it's it's it's an honor to be able

1374
01:21:23,080 --> 01:21:26,120
to bring that science
to the general public.

1375
01:21:26,680 --> 01:21:30,200
But I will say at the same time,
being in the Alvin submersible,

1376
01:21:30,200 --> 01:21:34,000
where there's just three of us in there,
there's no communication with the surface,

1377
01:21:34,480 --> 01:21:38,760
but we're in a vehicle
this much more nimble, much, more able

1378
01:21:38,760 --> 01:21:42,360
to, make delicate sampling operations.

1379
01:21:42,360 --> 01:21:45,760
We're seeing things
in true 3D representation

1380
01:21:45,760 --> 01:21:47,520
by looking out the portholes.

1381
01:21:47,520 --> 01:21:50,360
Whereas with a remotely operated vehicle,
the pilots are using

1382
01:21:50,360 --> 01:21:54,120
a series of cameras
to infer the 3D relationships.

1383
01:21:54,360 --> 01:22:00,040
It's it's a it's a much better experience
for those in the vehicles.

1384
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:05,000
It's essentially like being a geologist
on land and walking to outcrops

1385
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:08,080
and as we're driving along
and if I see something interesting,

1386
01:22:08,080 --> 01:22:12,000
I can see the pilot, hey, can we go back
and look at that thing I just saw?

1387
01:22:12,160 --> 01:22:14,280
I want to understand it a little bit more.

1388
01:22:14,280 --> 01:22:17,840
They can do that when you're, on
with a tethered vehicle,

1389
01:22:17,840 --> 01:22:19,440
a remotely operated vehicle.

1390
01:22:19,440 --> 01:22:23,360
This is very complex interplay
between the pilots that are controlling

1391
01:22:23,360 --> 01:22:24,480
the vehicle.

1392
01:22:24,480 --> 01:22:27,120
One person is managing the cable,
which connects it

1393
01:22:27,120 --> 01:22:29,720
back to the ship, the ship
which is also moving.

1394
01:22:29,720 --> 01:22:33,480
And you have to worry about
never touching the seabed with that cable.

1395
01:22:33,480 --> 01:22:36,720
And if you're in steep terrain,
which is what a lot of volcanic terrain

1396
01:22:36,720 --> 01:22:41,640
is, it's you can't necessarily just stop
and go back and look at something.

1397
01:22:41,640 --> 01:22:44,720
You have to sort of
watch it go by and keep moving.

1398
01:22:45,520 --> 01:22:45,840
Yeah.

1399
01:22:45,840 --> 01:22:49,880
So if there's, an underwater volcano,
can you see them

1400
01:22:49,880 --> 01:22:51,600
without turning the lights on?

1401
01:22:51,600 --> 01:22:53,560
The only two times.

1402
01:22:53,560 --> 01:22:55,440
And I participated in both
those expeditions

1403
01:22:55,440 --> 01:22:58,840
where we've seen active volcanism
in the deep ocean.

1404
01:22:59,160 --> 01:23:02,640
One was it Northwest Rota volcano,
which is in the Marianas

1405
01:23:02,640 --> 01:23:06,280
arc in, the year 2005.

1406
01:23:06,560 --> 01:23:09,240
That was a very,
very small, subdued eruption.

1407
01:23:09,240 --> 01:23:11,320
But it was the first we had seen.

1408
01:23:11,320 --> 01:23:14,400
And, you know, it's it's only 570m deep,

1409
01:23:14,400 --> 01:23:17,760
which it's officially
considered the deep sea.

1410
01:23:17,760 --> 01:23:20,760
But, for me, it's
not really all that deep.

1411
01:23:20,880 --> 01:23:25,200
The most impressive display
we saw was at West model Kino.

1412
01:23:25,400 --> 01:23:30,440
This is in Tonga, and
that summit is about, 1200 meters deep.

1413
01:23:30,440 --> 01:23:34,080
And in 2009, we went out there and,

1414
01:23:34,720 --> 01:23:37,680
observed for about a week
an active volcanic eruption.

1415
01:23:37,680 --> 01:23:40,520
And it's absolutely spectacular view.

1416
01:23:40,520 --> 01:23:45,040
And your listeners can search on the,
on the web

1417
01:23:45,040 --> 01:23:50,240
for West Mata eruption,
and you will find plenty of video footage.

1418
01:23:50,240 --> 01:23:55,960
That was a research expedition
co-sponsored by National Science

1419
01:23:55,960 --> 01:23:58,920
Foundation in the US
and the National Oceanographic

1420
01:23:58,920 --> 01:24:03,320
and Atmospheric Administration's Ocean
Explorer program, also in the US.

1421
01:24:04,000 --> 01:24:07,440
And I've been back to that volcano
ten times since,

1422
01:24:07,720 --> 01:24:12,640
including with funding from both
those agencies as well as Schmidt

1423
01:24:12,640 --> 01:24:16,440
Ocean Institute, which runs a global

1424
01:24:16,440 --> 01:24:19,600
philanthropic oceanographic organization.

1425
01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:22,680
We've never seen it erupting again.

1426
01:24:22,680 --> 01:24:23,160
And in fact,

1427
01:24:23,160 --> 01:24:27,680
that's sort of how I convinced Schmidt
Ocean Institute to to take us back there.

1428
01:24:27,960 --> 01:24:32,680
We we, you know, nicknamed our expedition
submarine fire.

1429
01:24:33,120 --> 01:24:36,000
And when we arrived on the volcano,

1430
01:24:36,000 --> 01:24:39,280
we found out the heat erupted
about two months before we were there.

1431
01:24:39,720 --> 01:24:40,840
We just missed it.

1432
01:24:40,840 --> 01:24:44,880
But this place erupted quite frequently,
interrupts much more frequently than,

1433
01:24:45,600 --> 01:24:50,320
Axial volcano, which is the famous volcano
on the wonderful ridge of the

1434
01:24:50,400 --> 01:24:54,360
north western coast of the United States.

1435
01:24:55,000 --> 01:24:58,240
I've also studied it's 1998, 2011

1436
01:24:58,240 --> 01:25:02,160
and 2015
eruptions, the last two in person.

1437
01:25:02,160 --> 01:25:04,160
After the fact, of course.

1438
01:25:04,160 --> 01:25:08,800
The 2015 eruption was interesting
because they had just installed

1439
01:25:08,800 --> 01:25:12,200
infrastructure on the volcano
that forms the basis

1440
01:25:12,200 --> 01:25:15,200
of a submarine volcano observatory.

1441
01:25:15,200 --> 01:25:17,760
It was still being tested
and and preliminary,

1442
01:25:17,760 --> 01:25:21,840
and we detected the event,
but debated about

1443
01:25:21,840 --> 01:25:25,200
whether or not it was eruption or not,
because the signals we were seeing weren't

1444
01:25:25,680 --> 01:25:28,920
the same kind of signals
that we've picked up from land

1445
01:25:28,920 --> 01:25:33,240
base stations
at other volcanoes in that area.

1446
01:25:33,720 --> 01:25:37,560
And so it wasn't until several months
later that we decided to go out there.

1447
01:25:37,560 --> 01:25:41,720
And in fact, there had been an eruption
that had been an extensive eruption.

1448
01:25:42,200 --> 01:25:45,600
People are now predicting
that that volcano might be ready to erupt,

1449
01:25:45,760 --> 01:25:50,520
this year,
those predictions are very first order.

1450
01:25:50,520 --> 01:25:51,960
They're not particularly precise.

1451
01:25:51,960 --> 01:25:56,400
They're based on how much the volcano
inflates as magma comes in from below.

1452
01:25:56,680 --> 01:26:00,800
But as we know from other volcanoes
that are well instrumented,

1453
01:26:00,800 --> 01:26:02,200
such as Kilauea,

1454
01:26:02,200 --> 01:26:06,080
which is currently erupting
on the big Island in Hawaii right now,

1455
01:26:06,400 --> 01:26:10,360
that magma does come in
and cause the volcano to inflate,

1456
01:26:10,360 --> 01:26:12,640
and we have various ways
we can measure that.

1457
01:26:12,640 --> 01:26:16,200
But, certain amounts of inflation

1458
01:26:16,200 --> 01:26:19,200
will sometimes lead to an eruption
and sometimes not.

1459
01:26:19,400 --> 01:26:22,400
Mauna Loa volcano, the world's largest

1460
01:26:22,400 --> 01:26:26,400
active volcano,
which had last erupted in 1984.

1461
01:26:26,400 --> 01:26:28,840
And I moved to Hawaii in 1992.

1462
01:26:28,840 --> 01:26:30,880
And I was waiting for years and years
and years.

1463
01:26:30,880 --> 01:26:35,720
We would see very signals of inflation
and seismic and unrest,

1464
01:26:36,000 --> 01:26:37,680
and then the volcano wouldn't erupt.

1465
01:26:37,680 --> 01:26:41,080
And then, of course, a couple of years
ago, it finally did erupt.

1466
01:26:41,080 --> 01:26:44,280
And it was
it was an amazing eruption sequence

1467
01:26:44,520 --> 01:26:47,760
that was, 
well observed by people at the U.S.

1468
01:26:47,760 --> 01:26:50,760
Geological Survey's volcano observatory.

1469
01:26:51,000 --> 01:26:53,680
But just the fact that multiple times

1470
01:26:53,680 --> 01:26:56,680
in that sort of 30 year, 40 year period,

1471
01:26:57,120 --> 01:27:00,120
that inflation was observed and it didn't

1472
01:27:00,120 --> 01:27:03,800
erupt
tells us that sometimes magma comes into

1473
01:27:03,800 --> 01:27:07,120
the shallow part of a volcano
and it doesn't breach the surface.

1474
01:27:07,120 --> 01:27:09,400
It fills in the cracks and voids.

1475
01:27:09,400 --> 01:27:12,400
It will sometimes migrate
along with zones.

1476
01:27:12,880 --> 01:27:15,960
And so it's this is a complicated process.

1477
01:27:15,960 --> 01:27:20,000
And in fact, more salicylic
or more viscous

1478
01:27:20,000 --> 01:27:23,480
high silicon content magma
such as we find it,

1479
01:27:23,800 --> 01:27:28,560
island arcs and continental arcs and other
continental volcanic settings often

1480
01:27:28,560 --> 01:27:34,440
slowly accumulate in volcanic edifices
and don't necessarily erupt.

1481
01:27:34,480 --> 01:27:37,840
They can accumulate for hundreds
of thousands of years between eruptions

1482
01:27:38,160 --> 01:27:41,240
and lead to much larger
and more explosive eruptions,

1483
01:27:41,760 --> 01:27:44,520
so that something about how viscous

1484
01:27:44,520 --> 01:27:49,000
the magma is,
which is a combination of the temperature

1485
01:27:49,440 --> 01:27:52,280
and the composition
and the crystal content.

1486
01:27:52,280 --> 01:27:58,280
And of course, viscosity is a measure
of how runny or sticky a magma is.

1487
01:27:58,600 --> 01:28:03,800
That really affects how it erupts,
how often erupts, how it behaves.

1488
01:28:03,800 --> 01:28:04,480
One it arrives.

1489
01:28:04,480 --> 01:28:07,240
What kind of deposits
it makes. One it erupts.

1490
01:28:07,240 --> 01:28:12,320
And so the the nature of magmas
that are relatively hot

1491
01:28:12,600 --> 01:28:15,960
and relatively thin,
or what we call low viscosity,

1492
01:28:16,240 --> 01:28:20,640
are the kind that we tend to find
at volcanoes and erupt quite frequently,

1493
01:28:20,840 --> 01:28:24,600
and to make the types of deposits
that we'll be talking about today,

1494
01:28:24,600 --> 01:28:28,280
one of the fascinating things
about both Pele's hairs and Pele's tears

1495
01:28:28,640 --> 01:28:31,640
is we find them at submarine
volcanoes as well.

1496
01:28:31,760 --> 01:28:34,240
The deepest place
they've been identified yet

1497
01:28:34,240 --> 01:28:37,760
is, at about 4500m depth

1498
01:28:38,120 --> 01:28:42,800
at some, submarine, Hawaiian
volcanic sites known as North Arch.

1499
01:28:42,800 --> 01:28:45,800
They're the north of the island of Oahu.

1500
01:28:45,840 --> 01:28:50,440
Famously a former, Ted of the,

1501
01:28:51,320 --> 01:28:54,680
Hawaii Volcano Observatory in the 90s
who then later became,

1502
01:28:54,720 --> 01:28:58,160
researcher at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute.

1503
01:28:58,440 --> 01:29:01,720
Dave Clark is the person who who spent

1504
01:29:01,720 --> 01:29:04,800
much of his latter career
looking for these materials.

1505
01:29:05,120 --> 01:29:08,200
The rest of us thought, no, come on,
that's not actually happening.

1506
01:29:08,200 --> 01:29:11,800
But in how we would find them is mostly,

1507
01:29:11,800 --> 01:29:15,440
rooting around in the sediment
that's around these volcanoes

1508
01:29:15,720 --> 01:29:20,240
and finding these, sieving the sediments
and separating out these materials.

1509
01:29:20,240 --> 01:29:23,640
And he's published
multiple papers on them.

1510
01:29:24,640 --> 01:29:27,800
There's some debate about the mechanisms
through which they form.

1511
01:29:27,800 --> 01:29:33,040
Again, because of the impacts of pressure
as we go down deeper in the ocean.

1512
01:29:33,600 --> 01:29:38,280
But, yeah, they tend to be found
that the hairs tend to be much shorter.

1513
01:29:38,520 --> 01:29:41,520
It's hard to find a Pele's hair,

1514
01:29:41,520 --> 01:29:44,520
and this could just be
because of how we do the sampling.

1515
01:29:44,760 --> 01:29:50,480
But it's hard to find one more than 5 or
6cm when we're in an underwater setting.

1516
01:29:50,480 --> 01:29:56,480
And of course, in, on land settings,
we can find these things to 20, 30cm long,

1517
01:29:56,480 --> 01:30:00,640
and they'll oftentimes occur in clumps
where many hairs are together.

1518
01:30:00,960 --> 01:30:05,360
Whereas when we see them, in submarine
settings, they tend to be individuals.

1519
01:30:05,360 --> 01:30:07,560
Strands.

1520
01:30:07,560 --> 01:30:09,600
If you do find them on land,

1521
01:30:09,600 --> 01:30:12,400
is it sort of like a small bush?

1522
01:30:12,400 --> 01:30:13,120
Is it?

1523
01:30:13,120 --> 01:30:14,840
I don't know, like a field of it.

1524
01:30:14,840 --> 01:30:18,960
So you can find them
in a variety of different settings.

1525
01:30:19,440 --> 01:30:23,440
The primary location is very close
to a volcanic finch.

1526
01:30:23,440 --> 01:30:25,800
When isn't all that active.

1527
01:30:25,800 --> 01:30:30,640
So oftentimes at basaltic
fissure volcanoes, which is what,

1528
01:30:30,640 --> 01:30:35,040
all the main Hawaiian volcanoes are,
which means that there is oftentimes

1529
01:30:35,040 --> 01:30:39,080
a crater or a caldera at the summit,
and then rift zones, which are areas

1530
01:30:39,400 --> 01:30:44,000
of repeated injections of magma in
the subsurface in a particular direction,

1531
01:30:44,000 --> 01:30:47,440
which then will erupt along
these eruptive fissures,

1532
01:30:47,760 --> 01:30:50,840
very, very similar to the processes
that happened in Iceland.

1533
01:30:50,840 --> 01:30:53,440
In fact, the ongoing eruption in Iceland

1534
01:30:53,440 --> 01:30:56,600
is also a Fisher eruption
and also makes Pele's hair.

1535
01:30:57,320 --> 01:31:00,240
And in those cases, real life times

1536
01:31:00,240 --> 01:31:03,280
see a series of small volcanic vents
along the line.

1537
01:31:03,280 --> 01:31:07,440
Some of them that are maybe erupting
a little bit less intensely

1538
01:31:07,640 --> 01:31:10,640
are the ones that we will find the Pele's
hairs at.

1539
01:31:11,000 --> 01:31:15,000
There's some famous locations
near the summit of Mount Ulloa,

1540
01:31:15,120 --> 01:31:19,440
where some past, prehistoric eruptions
have produced large deposits

1541
01:31:19,440 --> 01:31:24,240
of both Pele's hairs and something else
that we call reticulate.

1542
01:31:24,240 --> 01:31:28,560
And it doesn't have any, specific
Hawaiian name that I'm aware of, but

1543
01:31:28,920 --> 01:31:31,600
but reticulate is a spongy

1544
01:31:31,600 --> 01:31:36,600
texture, sort of spun glass material
that has hair

1545
01:31:36,600 --> 01:31:40,560
like filamentous features,
but it's much more three dimensional.

1546
01:31:41,080 --> 01:31:45,000
And so within those passes,
we can oftentimes

1547
01:31:45,000 --> 01:31:49,040
find Pele's hairs and in clumps that,
you know,

1548
01:31:49,160 --> 01:31:53,480
might be the size and shape of something
like a cucumber or banana.

1549
01:31:53,640 --> 01:31:57,000
It's rare to find it,
more extensive than that,

1550
01:31:57,280 --> 01:32:00,960
but you can find occasional deposits
that are

1551
01:32:01,000 --> 01:32:03,520
that are larger,
perhaps as big as your arm.

1552
01:32:03,520 --> 01:32:07,080
Now, of course, scientists
should be always aware of working with

1553
01:32:07,080 --> 01:32:10,080
and understanding the needs and beliefs

1554
01:32:10,160 --> 01:32:13,680
and cultures of local communities
whenever their work

1555
01:32:13,840 --> 01:32:19,120
encroaches on their land
or land that they deem as sacred.

1556
01:32:19,280 --> 01:32:20,880
You may remember that the construction

1557
01:32:20,880 --> 01:32:24,960
of telescopes on Mount
Kenya has led to significant conflicts

1558
01:32:24,960 --> 01:32:28,200
between the scientific community
and the Native Hawaiians.

1559
01:32:28,400 --> 01:32:31,200
They do consider that mountain
to be sacred,

1560
01:32:31,200 --> 01:32:36,160
and it was out of those tensions
that a new oversight board, the Manicare

1561
01:32:36,200 --> 01:32:41,320
Stewardship and Oversight Authority, was
established to manage the mountain top.

1562
01:32:41,640 --> 01:32:45,360
The board has representatives
from both the Astronomical Observatory

1563
01:32:45,600 --> 01:32:50,520
and the Native Hawaiian communities,
and the aim is to foster collaboration and

1564
01:32:50,520 --> 01:32:54,720
ensure that future developments respect
cultural and environmental concerns.

1565
01:32:54,960 --> 01:32:59,760
And I wondered whether there are similar
discussions or need for such discussions

1566
01:33:00,040 --> 01:33:04,440
with regard to the volcanoes
and Pele's tears and Pele's hair.

1567
01:33:04,800 --> 01:33:08,560
So that's that's a it's
an it's an intriguing question.

1568
01:33:08,560 --> 01:33:14,280
I would say that the name Pele
shares and Pele's tears,

1569
01:33:14,280 --> 01:33:19,320
is a name that was, added by Westerners
after they arrived.

1570
01:33:19,440 --> 01:33:23,520
So you know that, although there's
some people that think that perhaps

1571
01:33:23,520 --> 01:33:27,920
the Spanish arrived in the islands,
before Captain Cook.

1572
01:33:29,040 --> 01:33:29,480
The first

1573
01:33:29,480 --> 01:33:33,520
documented
Western appearances were in 1790,

1574
01:33:33,960 --> 01:33:39,600
and the, pretty quickly
introduced the English language.

1575
01:33:39,600 --> 01:33:43,200
And so, you know, obviously,
Pele's hairs in tears are in,

1576
01:33:43,360 --> 01:33:46,280
English adaptation

1577
01:33:46,280 --> 01:33:49,560
of, of this feature or English naming.

1578
01:33:49,800 --> 01:33:54,720
So I would say, while Hawaiians, have,

1579
01:33:55,360 --> 01:33:59,920
a reverence for pretty much all volcanic
processes, all volcanic activity,

1580
01:34:00,280 --> 01:34:04,360
I don't think that, the hairs and tears
necessarily have any

1581
01:34:04,880 --> 01:34:08,600
specific significance, in part
because they are pretty

1582
01:34:08,640 --> 01:34:12,240
commonly formed feature
and they don't represent

1583
01:34:12,240 --> 01:34:15,800
any sort of extraordinary
behavior of a volcano.

1584
01:34:16,200 --> 01:34:19,840
So there can be times
when the volcano is behaving

1585
01:34:20,360 --> 01:34:24,800
very violently,
which would be thought of as manifesting,

1586
01:34:24,800 --> 01:34:27,960
you know, the emotion of the God
at the time.

1587
01:34:28,240 --> 01:34:30,640
Pele is upset at someone, for instance.

1588
01:34:30,640 --> 01:34:33,760
There are many periods of time
where the volcano

1589
01:34:33,760 --> 01:34:36,760
can, erupt very quiescent, quietly.

1590
01:34:36,960 --> 01:34:41,160
So, for instance, during, 
the first part of this century,

1591
01:34:41,160 --> 01:34:45,000
until 2018,
starting in about the mid 2000,

1592
01:34:45,040 --> 01:34:49,600
there was a lava lake, which is a kind of
boiling caldera or cauldron.

1593
01:34:49,600 --> 01:34:52,120
I should say, of magma within the caldera.

1594
01:34:52,120 --> 01:34:56,600
For most of the latter
third of the 19th century,

1595
01:34:56,600 --> 01:35:00,520
the volcano also had active, lava lakes.

1596
01:35:00,520 --> 01:35:02,560
And this was one sort of tourism.

1597
01:35:02,560 --> 01:35:06,440
Hawaii just started, and people would go
and stand there in their Sunday best

1598
01:35:06,440 --> 01:35:11,600
and take a photo in front of the volcano
and when someone's acting like that,

1599
01:35:11,600 --> 01:35:15,640
the magma is injected from below
and there's this sort of molten

1600
01:35:15,640 --> 01:35:19,080
lake of lava
that is constantly overturning

1601
01:35:19,080 --> 01:35:23,040
and stir stirring, but it doesn't produce
any any Pele's hairs.

1602
01:35:23,640 --> 01:35:27,360
Interestingly enough,
every once in a while we observed,

1603
01:35:27,480 --> 01:35:31,560
during the active
lava lake activity in the summit,

1604
01:35:31,560 --> 01:35:35,040
in holy mackerel mantle crater, earlier
this century.

1605
01:35:35,440 --> 01:35:38,480
Sometimes rocks would fall in
from the wall and they splash

1606
01:35:38,920 --> 01:35:44,880
and they would kind of disrupt the lake
and allow some more gas

1607
01:35:44,880 --> 01:35:49,200
rich magma that was being suppressed
deeper in the lake to come up and erupt.

1608
01:35:49,200 --> 01:35:50,240
Explosive.

1609
01:35:50,240 --> 01:35:53,040
And then we would see here, hairs
and tears

1610
01:35:53,040 --> 01:35:57,960
and other associated,
gentle pyroclastic associated with that.

1611
01:35:57,960 --> 01:36:03,280
So that's something that we would call
a secondary eruption deposit,

1612
01:36:03,280 --> 01:36:08,560
because it's not juvenile magma on its
first way up from depth to the surface.

1613
01:36:08,720 --> 01:36:10,440
And, and erupting at the site

1614
01:36:11,440 --> 01:36:14,440
or wherever
it happens to erupt on a volcano.

1615
01:36:14,440 --> 01:36:18,320
It's something that was already,
in effect, erupted.

1616
01:36:18,320 --> 01:36:21,320
But then disturbed and re erupted.

1617
01:36:21,480 --> 01:36:26,200
Another related phenomena
which is again super common in Iceland.

1618
01:36:26,600 --> 01:36:30,480
And not as common in Hawaii, but happens
sometimes

1619
01:36:30,920 --> 01:36:33,960
is another kind of what we call
secondary volcanic deposit,

1620
01:36:33,960 --> 01:36:38,640
where if you have a lava flow is flowing
across a land surface and encounters

1621
01:36:38,640 --> 01:36:41,840
a wet or a boggy area, or encounters

1622
01:36:41,840 --> 01:36:46,840
the coastline in the ocean,
then that water can flash to steam

1623
01:36:46,840 --> 01:36:50,960
and come up through the lava flow
and create the.

1624
01:36:50,960 --> 01:36:55,800
The formation of small pyroclastic,
which are molten volcanic fragments,

1625
01:36:55,920 --> 01:36:57,440
are injected into the air.

1626
01:36:57,440 --> 01:36:58,480
Getting Pele's hairs.

1627
01:36:58,480 --> 01:37:01,480
And Pele's
tears can be made in that process.

1628
01:37:01,760 --> 01:37:04,520
And we call when when it's lava

1629
01:37:04,520 --> 01:37:07,920
that's meeting the ocean,
we call that a lateral eruption.

1630
01:37:08,520 --> 01:37:13,840
And so this is this is a very common
phenomenon there in Iceland.

1631
01:37:13,840 --> 01:37:18,160
The most famous example other than 30,
which, of course was the island

1632
01:37:18,160 --> 01:37:21,640
that formed in the 60s off the coast is,

1633
01:37:21,640 --> 01:37:26,000
at the volcano in the northeast,
where Lake Netherton,

1634
01:37:26,040 --> 01:37:29,760
which is a very large, broad, 
lake next to the volcano,

1635
01:37:30,120 --> 01:37:32,840
has experienced
lava flows that have been poured into it.

1636
01:37:32,840 --> 01:37:37,560
And so there's a whole series
of volcanic cones which you can still find

1637
01:37:37,560 --> 01:37:37,920
today.

1638
01:37:37,920 --> 01:37:41,400
Pele's hairs and tears
associated with those cone deposits.

1639
01:37:41,760 --> 01:37:44,760
And these were formed
because lava flows flowed

1640
01:37:44,920 --> 01:37:50,080
maybe ten kilometers from, the volcanic
caldera over this wet landscape.

1641
01:37:50,640 --> 01:37:53,320
Everything that comes out of volcano
gets studied,

1642
01:37:53,320 --> 01:37:58,560
whether it's, pieces of the magma,
whether it's fragments of dust,

1643
01:37:58,560 --> 01:38:02,280
whether it's volcanic gases,
and pretty much everything

1644
01:38:02,280 --> 01:38:07,320
tells us about the pantheon of processes
that happen at a volcano.

1645
01:38:07,400 --> 01:38:10,320
You can imagine
these are incredibly dynamic

1646
01:38:10,320 --> 01:38:14,000
environments
where we can have a range of compositions.

1647
01:38:14,000 --> 01:38:15,960
We can have a range of,

1648
01:38:17,400 --> 01:38:18,840
conditions in

1649
01:38:18,840 --> 01:38:21,840
evolution of pressure and temperature.

1650
01:38:22,000 --> 01:38:25,560
Particles can be flying
at supersonic velocities.

1651
01:38:25,840 --> 01:38:29,880
They can be, cooling at different rates
and the magma composition

1652
01:38:29,880 --> 01:38:30,560
can be different.

1653
01:38:30,560 --> 01:38:37,080
And so Pele's hairs and tears
are part of the range of particle types.

1654
01:38:37,080 --> 01:38:40,960
Allow us to interrogate some of the more

1655
01:38:41,480 --> 01:38:44,880
quiescent, shall I say volcanic phenomena
that happen.

1656
01:38:44,880 --> 01:38:48,640
It doesn't it doesn't mean that it's safe
to go up to a volcano

1657
01:38:48,640 --> 01:38:52,880
when they're producing these things,
but these tend to be at the lower

1658
01:38:52,880 --> 01:38:56,880
energetic rate of processes
that can happen

1659
01:38:56,880 --> 01:39:00,240
when, 
magma is erupted onto the land surface.

1660
01:39:00,600 --> 01:39:05,680
And so by studying them, studying,
for instance, the range of compositions,

1661
01:39:05,680 --> 01:39:10,120
the range of textures,
the amount of gases in the stored

1662
01:39:10,120 --> 01:39:11,880
and still dissolved in the magma,

1663
01:39:11,880 --> 01:39:14,800
the rate at which crystals
seem to grow as we look

1664
01:39:14,800 --> 01:39:18,400
at, Pele's hairs and tears

1665
01:39:18,400 --> 01:39:21,600
deposits as we move with distance
from an active volcanic vent.

1666
01:39:21,840 --> 01:39:25,880
All of these things
tell us about the kinetics

1667
01:39:25,880 --> 01:39:29,720
or the rate of phenomena
that are happening within the volcano,

1668
01:39:30,000 --> 01:39:34,040
in the rate of change of conditions
in volcanic parameters.

1669
01:39:34,040 --> 01:39:36,680
So they're super, super important.

1670
01:39:36,680 --> 01:39:40,160
As you know, a monitor

1671
01:39:40,160 --> 01:39:44,520
of what's happening in a volcano
we can observe with our eyes today.

1672
01:39:44,760 --> 01:39:49,600
And therefore, when we find them
in deposits in the past, for instance,

1673
01:39:49,600 --> 01:39:53,520
think of, you know, eruptions
that happened in Roman times at Vesuvius.

1674
01:39:53,760 --> 01:39:57,680
How might some of those eruptions
have taken place

1675
01:39:57,680 --> 01:40:01,680
on a minute by minute basis,
as a function of the deposits

1676
01:40:01,680 --> 01:40:04,800
that we find, including the
the tears and hair?

1677
01:40:05,720 --> 01:40:10,840
If you was sort of given the opportunity
to be part of a mission

1678
01:40:11,040 --> 01:40:15,120
to IO
or somewhere where there were, yes, yes.

1679
01:40:15,120 --> 01:40:15,520
Oh, no.

1680
01:40:16,680 --> 01:40:17,400
Amazing.

1681
01:40:17,400 --> 01:40:21,320
Amazing, really, even
even at the drop of a hat, you can.

1682
01:40:21,560 --> 01:40:22,320
Absolutely.

1683
01:40:22,320 --> 01:40:26,800
You know, it didn't didn't take me
a nanosecond when I did my first dive.

1684
01:40:26,800 --> 01:40:29,680
I've gone to volcanoes.

1685
01:40:29,680 --> 01:40:30,880
This is highs.

1686
01:40:30,880 --> 01:40:34,800
Cotopaxi is 17,000ft
above sea level in Chile.

1687
01:40:35,240 --> 01:40:40,040
I, the opportunity
to witness these things in person,

1688
01:40:40,040 --> 01:40:41,680
obviously would be amazing.

1689
01:40:41,680 --> 01:40:44,680
I don't think we're ever going
to get there in person at least.

1690
01:40:45,040 --> 01:40:48,680
You know, in, in in the next few
centuries, perhaps in millennia.

1691
01:40:49,240 --> 01:40:51,960
But, for instance,
if there were an opportunity

1692
01:40:51,960 --> 01:40:55,480
to get to Mars and to study
the volcanism there, for sure.

1693
01:40:56,120 --> 01:40:59,120
And the reason being that the,

1694
01:41:00,040 --> 01:41:03,440
the cause of volcanism on io
is so interesting, right?

1695
01:41:03,440 --> 01:41:05,760
It has to do
with the gravitational attraction

1696
01:41:05,760 --> 01:41:08,760
of, of Jupiter
and some of the neighboring moons.

1697
01:41:09,360 --> 01:41:12,000
But in the type of magmas
that are being produced,

1698
01:41:12,000 --> 01:41:16,880
the types of volcanic deposits
that are forming, these are to some extent

1699
01:41:16,880 --> 01:41:21,680
we can see these things remotely,
but the way that they impact the

1700
01:41:22,440 --> 01:41:26,080
both the types of magma compositions
in the volcanic materials

1701
01:41:26,080 --> 01:41:29,120
as they're, ejected onto the land surface

1702
01:41:29,520 --> 01:41:33,840
would be invaluable
to see happening in real time.

1703
01:41:33,840 --> 01:41:39,240
Because even when when we saw those very
first volcanic eruptions under the sea,

1704
01:41:39,800 --> 01:41:43,040
the the range of things
that we were seeing with

1705
01:41:43,040 --> 01:41:46,240
our own eyes
was well beyond what I could imagine.

1706
01:41:46,440 --> 01:41:52,320
By having spent hundreds of hours
looking at old volcanic eruption deposits.

1707
01:41:52,320 --> 01:41:55,320
You know, you can see a lava flow
and you can imagine your mind

1708
01:41:55,520 --> 01:41:58,520
what must have been happening
when it was produced,

1709
01:41:58,560 --> 01:42:02,880
until you see it actually happening
and you realize, oh, that's just curious.

1710
01:42:02,880 --> 01:42:06,880
And that that isn't what I thought
was, you know, going to be the phenomenon.

1711
01:42:06,880 --> 01:42:11,160
So I think it's it's it's definitely
something that we need to strive

1712
01:42:11,160 --> 01:42:17,040
for is to, to get observational tools
to as many active volcanic bodies

1713
01:42:17,040 --> 01:42:20,720
as we have in our solar system
to get a better feeling.

1714
01:42:20,920 --> 01:42:22,360
The range of processes.

1715
01:42:23,840 --> 01:42:24,200
Do you have a

1716
01:42:24,200 --> 01:42:27,840
look at the moon and wonder what it was
when it was?

1717
01:42:28,000 --> 01:42:28,840
Absolutely.

1718
01:42:28,840 --> 01:42:34,160
It's, it's it's a wonderful thing
to look at with a high powered telescope,

1719
01:42:34,160 --> 01:42:37,680
because you can still actually see
quite a few features there that the,

1720
01:42:37,920 --> 01:42:40,960
the there's still some debate about
when the last

1721
01:42:40,960 --> 01:42:44,040
significant volcanism
happened on, on the moon.

1722
01:42:44,040 --> 01:42:48,240
But but most people put, you know, a
date of about three and a half to 3.9

1723
01:42:48,240 --> 01:42:49,360
billion years on it.

1724
01:42:49,360 --> 01:42:53,320
And most of that volcanism
was very extensive.

1725
01:42:53,760 --> 01:42:56,520
Even bigger

1726
01:42:56,520 --> 01:42:59,520
than,
but equivalent in scale to, for instance,

1727
01:42:59,520 --> 01:43:04,320
the very large igneous provinces
we find on Earth, which is the,

1728
01:43:04,320 --> 01:43:08,040
Cretaceous, tertiary
or now named pillaging,

1729
01:43:08,120 --> 01:43:12,800
Cretaceous pillaging boundary deposits
in India, the Deccan Traps,

1730
01:43:13,200 --> 01:43:17,120
the Columbia Flood River
basalts, the Siberian Traps, the.

1731
01:43:17,240 --> 01:43:20,320
These are very large outpourings of

1732
01:43:20,800 --> 01:43:24,040
of lava that we we can only infer.

1733
01:43:24,520 --> 01:43:27,240
Very few of the volcanic vent
structures are still left.

1734
01:43:27,240 --> 01:43:29,680
So we can see these very thick lava flows.

1735
01:43:29,680 --> 01:43:33,640
It must have been enormous injection
of material into the atmosphere

1736
01:43:33,640 --> 01:43:36,600
that we don't
really find the evidence for anymore.

1737
01:43:36,600 --> 01:43:41,880
But the the lava flows themselves,
we we make emphasis on the basis

1738
01:43:41,880 --> 01:43:44,280
of what we see at places
like, like Kilauea

1739
01:43:44,280 --> 01:43:47,800
and, you know, other basaltic volcanoes
around the world.

1740
01:43:48,040 --> 01:43:51,200
But but we actually be able
to see something

1741
01:43:51,200 --> 01:43:54,200
like that would be amazing.

1742
01:43:54,200 --> 01:43:56,160
Yeah. Anybody would.

1743
01:43:56,160 --> 01:43:58,800
Listen,
I probably should let you go very much.

1744
01:43:58,800 --> 01:43:59,440
I just,

1745
01:43:59,440 --> 01:44:04,800
there's places that people can look up,
a little bit more if they're interested.

1746
01:44:04,800 --> 01:44:08,760
In addition to, you know,
the material is found in the physics

1747
01:44:08,760 --> 01:44:12,000
world, article that was recently written,
but there's also,

1748
01:44:12,480 --> 01:44:17,520
in information about Pele's, 
hairs and tears at the U.S.

1749
01:44:17,520 --> 01:44:20,400
Geological Survey website.

1750
01:44:20,400 --> 01:44:23,320
British Geological Survey
has a little section on it.

1751
01:44:23,320 --> 01:44:24,480
So it's something that

1752
01:44:24,480 --> 01:44:27,960
when if people want to Google about it,
they can actually find

1753
01:44:28,320 --> 01:44:30,960
reputable sources of information from

1754
01:44:30,960 --> 01:44:33,960
scientific organizations on the web.

1755
01:44:34,080 --> 01:44:38,400
I'd like to thank both Professors
Thomson and Kenna for talking to me

1756
01:44:38,400 --> 01:44:40,760
for this episode of Physics
Bull Stories podcast,

1757
01:44:40,760 --> 01:44:43,920
and if you would like to know more,
and indeed read that article

1758
01:44:43,920 --> 01:44:48,240
that kind of just mentioned on Physics
Welcome, you'll find it entitled Pele's

1759
01:44:48,240 --> 01:44:52,160
Hair Raising Physics
Glossy Gifts from a Volcano Goddess.

1760
01:44:52,480 --> 01:44:55,560
But Samir Sagal will be back

1761
01:44:55,560 --> 01:44:58,560
next month with something else
from this wonderful world of physics.

1762
01:44:58,600 --> 01:45:00,400
And thank you very much for listening.