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hello and welcome to technically speaking where scientists and Engineers come together to chat about a common interests share knowledge and satisfy some curiosity I'm Laura and in this episode I'm joined by Antonia and Ellie to talk about volcanoes how easy they are to predict and whether we want to live near them Antonia this came about because you recently visited Mount Etna so what did you learn there what was the most interesting thing yeah so I went on
a tour and we walked around on the lava field and the guide was quite knowledgeable bullied been there for a few years and seen a few eruptions in his time and he goes up and down taking tourists like me up the mountain every day um so he had a lot to share there were some really interesting things but thing that surprised me was if someone said that people who who have got houses and businesses sort of around the volcano can't get building insurance and I guess I can see why because it's I
think it was the largest or most active volcano in Europe so I can see why Insurance insurers are a bit nervous about it but then why do people still live there I'm sure you know there must be a way for you to live there otherwise you know wouldn't it just be not worth the risk of constantly thinking is my house going to be there or you know what could happen when the volcano does erupt I like how out of all the IU knows a lot of sciency stuff there the thing you took away was some sort of
engineering Eve why can't I get insurance yeah I mean I think because maybe for an audio Medium as well there are some great pictures and some great views and there was a lot of here's a crater from 2002 2003 but it's better with pictures so that's why I thought that was a more interesting fact to share fair enough yeah I mean I would I would like to think that there are companies that would just give you really expensive building Insurance because of that perceived high risk yeah surely they
just make loads of money wouldn't they like you just charge an absolute fortune and then if it does erupt you like as the insurance company you're like well I told you maybe people can in theory get insurance but just don't because it's so ridiculously expensive they'd just rather rebuild their house or deal with it as and when it comes maybe yeah I guess that's something we'll get into like how do they predict when a volcano will erupt and how and what would insurance companies do with
that information if anything Ellie I guess you've got a different perspective on volcanoes with your background in Zoology yeah I know nothing about health insurance that's for sure um but there's some very cool animals that use volcanoes in their everyday lives the first one I think is probably my favorite it's called a volcano snail which is it's a little bit of a misnomer because it doesn't really live in volcanoes but it lives in like hydrothermal vents Under the Sea like a
mile and a half down this little snail is like grooving around and it's like 750 degrees Fahrenheit and it's so hard but it survived because it uses the like minerals and the stuff all coming out of the vents and it builds like a shell and the shell is made of iron sulfide and it like builds a suit of armor to help it survive and it's like it's a metal snail it's incredible that is very cool so cool or so hot so hot right now I guess if that snail can see some benefit to living near a
volcano and uh filling some sort of particular Niche yeah definitely like it's really it's gone hard on that one meat I would say it's like the only place it's found there's like this tiny space in the Indian Ocean and it's just there chilling I mean potentially it could be another like hydrocember events around the world but you have to go there to find out and I think that's pretty tricky to be honest I already found it in like 2015 so they didn't even know it existed for a long time all
right I was gonna say I thought it was because that's now I was just used to living in that area would be able to leave it because it's so well adjusted to living near that hydrothermal then yeah it's really carved out a little home for itself yeah but if that still has found its Niche maybe the people that live near volcanoes also have some sort of Niche I don't know if they've managed I don't know if humans have managed to survive in 750 Fahrenheit but yeah I think the main thing is that no
one really lives in the most dangerous parts of the volcano like the snail does just now just out there on a limb on its own oh I was gonna say maybe like their culture was sort of built up living near that volcano because maybe not so much the physical aspects and all the social aspects in their society it's got a great agriculture there because of the minerals and nutrients that are found in the soil thanks to the previous volcanic eruptions so yeah they've definitely
built a culture around having that resource there if you can call a volcano a resource that's so true I never thought of it like that way like as a beneficial thing but I guess like for the snail it's beneficial like it's it's the whole habitat so yeah I guess maybe there are benefits to volcanoes that we didn't consider another thought about volcanoes is it's one of the ways we get new material on the crust on the earth crust yeah because in general we don't create new minerals and materials we
just kind of dig them up and then it becomes more and more dispersible we saw refine it into what we want to use and then throw it away and volcanoes just come up with this stuff we'll kind of make like whole islands didn't it they're like yeah generate a whole place where they generate land mass I think I saw an article about a new island has been discovered in Hawaii because of a volcano but that happens all the time and I thought what this is this is like such news to me that there is a new
island that's just appeared in the sea or ocean I love it I think that's amazing and like still as well like I feel like this is the kind of thing that would have happened like way back billions of years ago but it's like September 20th just a new island rocked up so I guess one thing we wanted to know going back to the insurance thing and also apparently to geotechnical engineering and Mining this is Tony's just mentioned is um if you can predict the volcanoes would that affect how
people treat them or what people do near them would you be more or less likely to leave of new on or find the Earth's resources from one in my very um tourist experience what the volcanic activity meant was because they saw activity and it could be dangerous um we couldn't go all the way up to the top so that's my My Little slice of how it affects what you can do but some of the things that they told us that they were monitoring to assess basically the risk of volcanic activity was
temperature and the gas composition coming from the vents and so they have a sort of levels of risk system like high or very high there because it's a volcano it was all it's always very high basically and I thought how how do you how do you go on with that I'll tell you an interesting fact that I find when I was doing some research for this um was from the Smithsonian Museum's volcanism program uh where they say that there are at least 20 volcanoes erupting
at any one time in the world yes I mean I don't live near one so that seems like craziness to me but I guess a lot of those could be in unpopulated regions you say 21 but just constantly 20 at any one time yeah not not the same 20 it
could be like 80 20. one might stop for another one might start some do seem to erupt for quite a long time but it's not necessarily the big explosive scary thing that you see in the movies it's just generally leaking lava is it having like a certain like threshold because it was just you know like doing a little bit of gas and a little you know a couple of things of lava is that like not really count does it have to like really go for it to count as a natural
eruption so I found some categories that people put eruptions into one was effusive and the other one explosive so does effusive mean it's just like genuinely leaking a bit of lava or gas yeah so it could be it might not even just so sometimes it's not lava but it's actually Rock so it's already sort of formed and cooled down and solidified you know so so they also categorize it by what kind of things are coming out so if it's mostly gas or if it's slow moving lava effusive
can be more dangerous than the explosive ones because of the material that that comes out am I making sense I feel like you said a diffusive thing is completely solidified as if it's not erupting which confused me a little bit but I think you mean that it's sort of occasionally throwing out big rocks of some sort yeah so when a volcano erupts it doesn't just erupt Vapor or liquid but it can also erupt with solid and I was really surprised about that because I was just
mixturing oh so rocks just fall out the sky I had read something about pyroclastic flows which you tend to think of a flow as being a liquid thing but no it was pretty much like gas Ash and Rocky particles so yeah it seems to be well known in volcanology circles it's crazy to me that molten rock is even a thing like the rock gets so hot that it melts and then it like flows down the mountain like that just seemed wild like it's throwing out solid pieces makes more
sense in my head than it being like it's so hot that it melted The Rock and now like hot rock is just everywhere like that's just that's wild that's pretty much how you make glass products though to make the pains in the window that are next to me pretty much rocks were melted and turned into glass the sand well yeah the sand melted to make glass but then sand I guess is just bits of tiny Rock right yeah I think it's specifically silicon dioxide uh we could go down the
route of talking about glass compositions which I used to study but maybe we shouldn't do that you can save that for another one yeah but talking about silicon the content of silicon also changes how how the lava flows so maybe it is relevant to this topic so there's lava flow differently depending on the volcano like if it's a more silicony area that's a good question we don't know but if anyone knows please tell us because I'm intrigued sure it must make a difference
right the volcano like a volcano in Europe versus a volcano in Hawaii like what this viewing out might be different not a thing well the same volcano can also do different types of eruptions so it will be at different temperatures different material inside it and also it's not just like material coming from the crust it's deeper don't know how how far does it go how different is the material I imagine there are a lot of multi-dimensional diagrams that have been drawn by geologists and
volcanologists that talk about different magma compositions because strain shape diagrams are something I vaguely remember from my undergraduate degree in Earth science but yeah I could definitely see how different compositions combine with different temperatures would create different viscosities that makes sense to me but you also mentioned there can be different types of eruptions from the same volcano did you happen to come across anything that explained why they're different no
that's okay because neither did I uh that's what I was wondering when I was doing the research I found a lot of sort of quite generic stuff that was like they just kind of look at it and collect all these data and they know and then at the other end of that I went down scientific academic published papers route that got really really specific really quickly and just confused me yeah I started reading the US Geological Survey about their volcanic threat assessment to try and understand how
they assess threat unfortunately because it's an ongoing thing it didn't explain the methodology in this paper it just found the results and I wanted the methodology but interesting they have in general classified them with a volcanic explosive index and then they talk about different types of eruptions and it seems like they've named them after places so there's the Hawaiian eruption Stromboli interruption a volcanian eruption yeah he just got bored at that
point they just had enough they wanted to go to the volcanian eruption come on yeah we can't we can't think of anything more original now it's just a volcano that's erupting not spelled volcano but Volcanion I don't know how to really pronounce it but like Vulcans like as in Star Trek yeah yeah so okay figure out how the Vulcan erupt they're not meant to do that right they're meant to be all about reason and logic oh are there volcanoes on Vulcan are we missing something
I did come across a paper about the Las Palmas eruption last year which I somehow completely passed me by and I find that odd because that's not too far from here it's in the Canary Islands right and it's quite a popular holiday destination is that the Lanzarote one that area yeah it's erupted for 86 days finishing on Christmas Day last year wow did someone throw something in it I always feel like you know when they finish it like weird times like someone's had enough and they're like
right we need to sacrifice something someone check up to the volcano we'll Chuck it in it's Christmas I've had enough of this put your turkey in the volcano and calm it down can you stop an eruption that's a thought isn't it if you pour cold water on it could it stop it but yeah how much cold water did you have to pour on it if there is magma erupting to solidify the magma though and would that work because some of the eruptions are due to a pressure build up right which is when the magma can't
escape so if all you're doing is creating a plug that will become pressurized it's a really bad idea I think you'd make it worse yeah I and create a loaded Steve in the process how is it still going for 83 days in six days like you'd think pressure would be like one huge wolf I got the impression it depends on the type of volcano but they did say that they looked at stress build up in the earth so sometimes it's sort of a weakness that it's found in the mountain so maybe as it was erupting
it kind of found new weaknesses and so that's why it just kept going oh so it like exploit a bit more did it like weaken the mountain then as it erupted yeah and then like it kept going and then there was more cracks and more yeah there must be a case study on this on this eruption I think in my head I thought volcanoes did like a day you know like oh it's erupted what was the name of that volcano because now I'm gonna look it up it just said it was on La Palma it seems to be the whole thing
is pretty much a volcano wow and they just classify it in different zones depending on what's erupting someone did some modeling to predict what sort of eruptions would occur and what the effects would be and they based it on things like the previous lava flows in the area and how far they spread and the sorts of ash clouds and our deposits that would develop again based on other volcanoes around the world and then they tied that in with sort of weather data
to predict where these ash clouds might go depending on the direction and strength of the wind and I guess whether it's raining I guess they determined what was the sort of most important things to monitor like knowing how far it might go and protecting those homes and businesses and infrastructure or yeah like preventing ash from disrupting Aviation I never fully understood why that was a thing do you remember like I don't remember what year it was that huge Icelandic volcano eruptured and
then no flight to fly because they were worried about all the ash getting in the propellers or the engines of the planes but like why why was that bad what was wrong with the app that it was so like damaging because I just assumed it was going to be like fog but obviously it was more than that right because you don't really want foreign materials in your engine I mean I suppose yeah it's not worth the risk is it they're like oh we're not sure what it'll do let's fly a passenger
being full of people across the sky yeah I just I just assumed it would reduce the amount of air going into it but maybe maybe your right motor is more to that and it depends on the exact competition so obviously if you have less air going in you have less complete combustion so you don't have as much power from the engines I'm completely guessing this is how um airplane engines work based on our episode about how cars work I might be very wrong actually I've
found volcanic ash is hard and abrasive and can cause significant wear to propellers and turbo compressor blades and I I remember this now actually being on Mount Aetna thinking everything is Jagged like I vaguely put my hand down to support me as I lost my balance and then I got a cut from just holding I didn't fall significantly or anything I just kind of wobbled grabbed some rock yeah definitely wouldn't just want to Chuck it into uh into my plane and see
what happens fair enough so it is pretty abrasive pretty sharp stuff yeah and you were right as well in that it would contaminate the fuel air mix yes that's partly right yeah good to know I've learned something from doing this podcast already and it's been useful for future podcast episodes great one thing I guess people need to think about when they're looking at the risks of volcanoes is how many people live near them and this is kind of what we're talking about in this episode isn't it
would you want to live near why would you live near one it turns out millions of people live near volcanoes millions and millions I found a list of sort of the top 10 most highly populated volcanoes the most populated one is in Mexico and it has six million people living within five kilometers wow okay
and it last erupted in 1952. did any of the lava flows like get five kilometers or is that one that just does a little fizzle of gas and then that's it I didn't really find a lot of information on that I got distracted by the fact that only three people died as a result of lightning strikes caused by the eruptions so no one died because of the Ash and because of the lava or anything but because of volcanic lightning because of volcanic lightning yes and I just thought this is a mad thing that
films made up to make volcanoes seem even more dangerous wow but no it's it's an actual phenomenon it's not all that well understood that's so like can you imagine just I'm just visualizing this whole thing and seeing a an eruption which could be clouds or gas or or like hot glowing uh material and then just also lightning strikes at the same time like how incredible would that be to see if you're at a safe distance yeah if you're standing in the midst of it maybe not so impressive maybe just
terrifying yeah six million people are legging it and Antonio's there like taking pictures I mean someone's got to record it right otherwise it didn't happen that's so true especially in this Instagram generation that we live in it wouldn't just be full of granite before the news again with the quest from the BBC but you see like um I don't remember a word for it but you know when when you have news articles and they put together all the mobile phone footage and it's just
you know of particular things and it's that sort of quick response of of an event or some some disaster so it can be useful yeah definitely useful people love that stuff especially now because everyone has a camera right so if you're there whip it out and then BBC will ring you up and say come is to get on our broadcasters I'm not too sure that's good advice for documenting a volcano so I just have all like the general public just running towards this eruption with
all these this dangerous gas and lightning around it no no don't run towards the danger excellent hit but that is actually very true yeah self-preservation it's like that guy known Jurassic Park when they're like all the animals Escape all the dinosaurs and then he like runs back for the margarita in like the new one he like he's like trying to escape but then he's like no The margaritas and he goes back to get them I love that bit but then you also talk about this film which was
about a couple of volcanologists actual married couple who were so good at documenting volcanoes but unfortunately got caught out by one yes it's called fire of love it's this amazing like new documentary like indie film and yeah it's exactly you said this um they're called catcher Maurice and they were married and they were like super into volcanoes but I think I'm not sure who was the filmer but they also like filmed a lot of it as well and themselves in the process but yeah unfortunately they
both died in a volcano related incident but because they filmed so much of their lives and so much of like the work that they did they've made this film based on like hours and hours of archive footage that they like made when they were alive which is insane and also the footage is incredible like the shots that they've got are amazing I really want to go and watch the whole thing it's super new as well that only came out like a couple of months ago oh okay I'll keep a look out
for things that does sound interesting yeah how can you get volcanic lightning though I'm thinking because it's like generating a spark and so you can generate spark if there's temperature or low pressure and then it will spark more easily at a auto ignition conditions am I thinking correctly it sounds like no one knows for sure but there are a few potential mechanisms so there's the obvious just you know things rubbing against each other similar to what happens in the clouds with ice particles
and you can get ice particles forming above the volcano when the plume reaches a tall enough height and obviously things crystallize one other suggestion was from the radioactive particles that were rejected so we've got radioactive particles in the magma and they can create ionization events and if you're creating ions which is what ionization is then that can lead to a difference which can create a flow of current so a spark wow yeah another weird one that I
didn't understand was just from rocks breaking apart oh to create charged particles which apparently can happen nearer the vent the paper that has done this they have literally flashed two particles together they're sort of Micron hundreds of microns in diameter they're silicate particles again and then they've made this complicated setup to measure the charge that results and they don't seem to have a very good explanation for the mechanism happening a smaller length scale than that and I'm
sitting here thinking with my interest in atoms how does that work how are you creating some sort of ionization from that I'm also thinking this sounds really bad how could they not know if they know what rock they have and they smash it together but I guess then actually rock is a very complicated material it's not just like a metal or element it's such a mix well I think this was pure silicate particles I didn't see where they got them from but you can buy like sort of lab grade
silicates I guess and then they smashed it together and saw lightning they observed charge okay okay using some charge collection devices no they didn't actually see lightning um but if you have a charge build up then obviously that can lead to a discharge and if it's um if the discharge is big enough I guess you would see lightning Sparks I just Googled volcanic lightning because I was intrigued and if you go on Google I mean they are acted but they look insane it's like
coming out of the ash cloud apparently it's a thing if the ash cloud is big enough then you might get volcanic lightning right yeah so for going back to predicting the risks from a volcano I wonder how they even attempt to factor that in if the mechanisms aren't that well understood I guess it's just from observing previous eruptions from similar volcanoes and does it have the same characteristics all right then maybe lightning is likely yeah that's true maybe if you've got like previous
data on like similar ones in the area because I feel like volcanoes tend to be like there's like a volcanic area isn't there because of all the plates and all that sort of thing so like if one does something nearby then maybe it's likely that the others will do similar things yeah a lot of the articles that I saw about forecasting did seem to be based on the previous activity of the volcano although they recognized that previous activity doesn't necessarily predict
future activity I sound like a financial analyst here because they say the same thing like was it like prior indication does not indicate future problems but there can be changes happening below the Earth's crust that we can't necessarily see um like I saw a lot of talk about um and trying to understand the volcanic Plumbing so how the magma chain was underneath it connected together but I didn't get a good description of how that affects what we see at the surface
I mean how do you even start with volcanic Plumbing [Laughter] I'm still on volcanic lightning because it sounds like we've found a lot can we just get a normal word and then put volcanic in front of it and that is a thing yes definitely 100 that's true volcanic cake I made a volcano oh my God I can't believe I haven't brought this up when I was in school we had a geography lesson the homework thing and it was to make a cake in the shape of our volcano and I did and it was
chocolate and I had like pieces of crystallized ginger for the lava and I had icing that was like red and yellow and orange it was incredible and we cooked it in a pudding Basin so that it was like domed and it had the crater on top that's probably the best cake I've ever made actually it was chocolate obviously all the best volcanoes are and it had like a flake scrambled up to well volcano cake 100 thing there you go yeah I remember also building a volcano but
we didn't want to because we also had to do the eruption in inverse commas but the only way we were told was bicarb and vinegar and I didn't want to make a cake that I couldn't eat so we just made it paper mache I feel like paper mache was traditional I don't know why we decided that cake was the way forward but we did I also have a feeling that chemical reaction isn't what's happening to create a volcanic eruption in actual volcanoes there is CO2 that is part of
it but I think there's also sulfur which was not in the bicarb and vinegar thankfully otherwise we wouldn't be able to eat it no and it's it's not a thing I've seen coming up that they look at the ph and uh the different the whether it's a base and an acid reacting together what I'd seen was more about you know as we were saying like different compositions and different different crystals um Crystal sizes and Crystal shapes in there that would affect lava flows I just taking your wacky crazy
conversation and turned into something far too practical there is always time for cake volcano or otherwise not a quote from somewhere um no oh that came out of my own head but is there time to have cake if you see something happening and maybe the early warning system of the volcano is going would you then still have time to eat okay yeah how much time have you got 24 hours or like we think it's going to go in the next couple of hours like you need to leave because I've been looking
at more animals that like survive in a volcanoi way and I couldn't find loads but there's this one which is pretty incredible it's the Galactica Land Iguana and so it lives on for Nandina Island ferdinandina and it's pretty incredible because they take advantage of the thermal heat coming off the volcano and 2 000 of these iguanas right track for 10 days from the coast of the island all the way up to the volcano crater floor and then once they get there they lay their eggs
in the ash of the crater because it's the perfect temperature to incubate a baby iguana right but apparently they're able to sense increased volcanic activity and then if it's too like if they feel like it's too dangerous they they leg it and they don't go into the crater but how do they know we're just gonna have to watch them and and see what what all the other measurement systems are doing at the same time if you see two thousand iguanas past your front door you know
you've got yeah and just see what what spikes you know was it was it the heat was it the gas was it seismic was it what were some of the other uh Scentsy mechanisms that we have well it could be yeah it could be the original changes in gravity and magnetic fields is another one imagine if an animal can detect magnetic fields what would that be like I can't do that can't they I thought they could already do that isn't that part of some migration techniques the magnetic fields of the that might be
wrong but I feel I would do more research into that because I feel like that is true that some animals do know about magnetic fields yeah I think I'd heard the same thing but I couldn't say exactly why without more research future episode I think haha but I mean the way humans do it is they use a whole different range of techniques right so do the iguanas do the same thing or do they have some more refined way of sensing a particular thing really good sense that it's like a
volcano sense but it's like because obviously they've lived there for so long they've evolved along with the volcano then it's like an evolutionary advantage to survive so if you didn't know what it was going to erupt then you'd be pretty Deadpool what if they had a very well if they were very pessimistic and just and and just never used to create it you know because they thought oh that's a bit risky let's not use it this time then and so that's why they survived they're
just really cautious yeah but then they'd never leave their eggs would they said then they wouldn't have survived because if they were too cautious they'd never have made it to the crater of the first place do you think they're a different Scholastic behaviors where some of them are like no I'm not doing that it's a stupid idea I don't care if I never have children [Laughter] maybe maybe there's a certain like portion of the Iguana population that's always going to go and the rest of them
are like yeah not today thanks do you think they they used to be like 2 million and they've all been like they've died out because only the bravest one survive not only the ones with the best volcano senses yeah how long has the Galapagos Land Iguana species been around I would say probably a fairly long time but I couldn't put a number on it I guess something different to think about in relation to volcanoes going back to your point about um the Iceland volcano I think was in
2010 when it erupted and stop flight yes was like the big effects that some volcanoes can have there were a few disaster movies where they erupt to an extent where they they produce all this ash that completely changes the atmosphere and kills all Life as we know it because the sun can't get through when it could get really cold and whatever else and I swear that was a thing in my geology lectures in my undergrads like 20 years when I did this when I was studying this that there was
a large volcano that did actually hasten huge changes in life this is how like the earth atmosphere was formed right in the beginning right to like if you go back like four and a half billion years all we had were volcanoes spewing out gas and rocks and all sorts of things and it's only because of that and because of like the Earth gradually cooled down that we got water and enough like there was way more carbon dioxide four and a half billion years ago than there is now
and then gradually that cooled and then formed like a more normal atmosphere but obviously it took billions of years to get to that I was gonna say we can't really expect another volcano to eruption sort of save the climate emergency that we're precipitating by human activities that would be great can you imagine if that happened if it just wiped out all like that all of the uh you know emissions since the start of the industrialization age yeah that would be a great benefit if you had
better air quality would your best wear quality or would it be a bit too sulfuric it's full of minerals though isn't it like um they're really good like you know when you get wine from volcanic regions isn't it supposed to be like really different because of all the minerals in the soil ah so that's why people live near it for the wine yeah I mean Sicily is built on olive oil wine pistachios also almonds because you can grow it because the soil is so like nutrient Rich right yeah so maybe it's
like in the food that you eat rather than in the air like you're just getting in extra volcano nutrients all right so I'm imagining an extreme environment that has strangely rich soil it's good for growing things but questionable air quality and at some point something terrible might happen like either Ash choking me or laying on roofs so heavily that it causes them to collapse which apparently is one way that people have died from volcanoes oh my God yeah or being struck by lightning uh
um would is that somewhere I'd want to live are the benefits worth it and what would I need to do to adapt to live there with less fear of death the benefits potentially outweigh the good because loads of people live in volcanic regions right then all those people that live in Mexico so like the chances of your home are getting destroyed you're getting struck by volcanic lightning I've got to be pretty low it all depends on whether the volcano is going to go erupt in the first place right
or how severe it is because if it's constantly erupting but it never really does very much you know it doesn't reach you I mean yeah maybe don't live on the on the Crater Rim but you know I think one of the the worst eruptions of Mount Etna from where it is Inland it did actually erupt into one of the major cities but the last time it did that was the 1600s so you're not going to live 400 years so maybe that's why people are okay with living there because the next
eruption isn't due in their lifetime I guess it's about knowing your volcano as well like if you know that your volcano is pretty minor in the scale of things and it might do one small eruption but chances are it's not going to do anything big then it's probably fine and you can just enjoy all the nice wine and almonds and pistachios but then if you live like by a really scary one then I guess you might be really concerned but it wouldn't destroy your home and
livelihood but then that's providing that you have the like opportunity and means to move like some people don't have a choice do they you've got to live where you've got to live yeah so given everything we've just discussed would you guys live on or near an active volcano oh yeah go on a little bit of danger you would you want to live with the landing one yes I mean no because there's not much there apart from them but I quite like it I could take a trip to the Galapagos to be fair living in
the Galapagos would be great yeah I'd risk it for the volcanoes I think I'll be all right I'm pretty risk-averse so I wouldn't just too much since her handle is a baseline you know being in a very high risk eruption area I quite like how mild the UK is in every way we are very like below average for a lot of those like danger things like very few earthquakes hardly any volcanoes yeah tsunamis aren't going to happen on the channel are they probably flooding in high winds
seem to be the the worst thing as we get here in comparison I would rather suffer death by volcano than death by flooding because people can't manage the land appropriately I'll take that I mean what a way to get what made the documentary like they did get killed Gilbert that was their life's work like if they were gonna go that was the way they were going to go oh I feel like we've probably gotten about as far as we're gonna go in this conversation we've kind of rambled around how how can
you predict a volcano and said we're not really sure it seems to depend on some really complicated modeling in lots of different types of data being collected and a good understanding of the history of the volcano and as volcanologists we're not going to be able to answer this question as thoroughly as we'd like so given that I've just really hastily summarized both of the things we've discussed that have been scientific rather than weird speculation I feel
like that's probably a good point to end the episode so if you've enjoyed listening to this and you've got any questions you can find us on social media and if if you would like to buy us a coffee we would really really appreciate that and it would be great to see your support on our coffee fund so until next time where I think we're meant to be talking about um the physics of the metaverse which is very different and very exciting I'll see you later the views expressed in this podcast
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