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00:00:00has taken place, tell us about this
00:00:01incident.
00:00:05TVC
00:00:06a news, first with breaking
00:00:08news.
00:00:14At TV News, wherever the big news
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00:00:20news, first with
00:00:22in breaking
00:00:22news.
00:00:40of in
00:00:45of of We are in Kamchatka, land of
00:00:49fire-breathing volcanoes. Volcanoes vividly capture the
00:00:52imagination, and they define our lives much more than you would
00:00:56expect. So what are they capable of and what makes?
00:01:00volcanoes stand
00:01:01out.
00:01:27of It's unlikely
00:01:31anyone
00:01:32of knows more about volcanoes here than Alexi Ozerov.
00:01:36He's the chief volcanologist in
00:01:39a Gumchatka.
00:01:47Alexie, thanks for coming up here with us. This is fascinating view, that
00:01:51is for sure. Um, so here in Kamchatka, there are about 300
00:01:56a volcanos, they say, 30
00:01:57of them are believed to be active. Why such a...
00:02:32of
00:02:46of
00:02:58a fluid melts the rocks, turning them into
00:03:01magma, and the magma reaches the surface
00:03:04in Kamchatka. The Pacific plate under Kamchatka is sinking 10
00:03:07centimeters every year. That's very fast. The greater the speed, the
00:03:11more magner is produced and ultimately
00:03:14in released, and so we have
00:03:15in more volcanoes that erupt more frequently. So, you
00:03:18mentioned that we are right here on the ocean, specifically the Pacific Ocean, the
00:03:22Kamchatka peninsula juts out into it. What is
00:03:26the Pacific ring of fire and what role does Kamchatka play in?
00:03:32That's a very good question, it's a very important question, the
00:03:36pacific ring of fire to humanity is the most expensive geological
00:03:40structure that exists
00:03:41on the planet, it's 80,000 km, it's
00:03:45of huge, it accounts for 80%
00:03:47of the active volcanoes on earth,
00:03:49a 80% of earthquakes on earth and 89% of tsunamis, it
00:03:53also impacts 35%
00:03:55of the people on our planet, more than
00:03:59a third,
00:04:24of
00:04:30of of things that we can understand and see what's going
00:04:33on inside the earth. first of all, the melted rock we're now
00:04:36of standing on. this solidified magma comes from literally thousands of
00:04:40kilometers
00:04:41of under the surface. that's where it's produced. so the first thing
00:04:44we can do is study this material, where it came from, how it got
00:04:48here, how it evolved, and what's inside it. that's one
00:04:52of the most important things for us. the next thing we can do is understand
00:04:56the root system of volcanoes that heat the overlying rock.
00:05:00The overlying rock is located
00:05:01of in the water here, so geothermal stream fields can
00:05:05form. These geothermal stream fields are source of green
00:05:09energy, which is becoming more popular with every year. of
00:05:12course more necessary, in fact we really should worry about the state of our
00:05:16planet. another very important factor that's also related to
00:05:20volcanoes is gas. gas is released by volcanoes
00:05:24into the atmosphere and help create the conditions that allow us to
00:05:27breathe and live. one the most distinguished scientists of his
00:05:31time who worked at the Institute of Volcanology and seismology in
00:05:34Kanchatka was Dr. Yavgininin who authored the theory that
00:05:38life on earth evolved thanks to volcanic activity. well they help
00:05:42form the general conditions on earth, that's clear, he believed
00:05:46that volcanoes made it possible for life evolve on
00:05:49earth, it required some very specific
00:05:52conditions, the combination the right temperature,
00:05:55gases, water, electric discharges and so
00:05:59on, at some point something close to life began evolve and
00:06:03later that process continued its
00:06:06own, now i've heard you mentioned a couple times
00:06:09during our conversation
00:06:10that there are different types of volcanos um and I've also heard you say
00:06:14that volcanos are like people, they're all
00:06:17different, can you tell the different volcanoes around here from
00:06:21their personalities? yes of
00:06:23course,
00:06:27volcanos even sleep in different
00:06:29way, and the way they
00:06:32erupt is also completely different. we
00:06:36can divide volcanoes into a few
00:06:38types.
00:08:42bombs everyone wondered how it was
00:08:45possible, then i was in Antarctica, then
00:08:48Japan, then here working on,
00:08:51then, huge number of
00:08:54volcanoes, they're all different, and I like each one
00:08:58them, I constantly return to, of
00:09:01course, I've written a book about it,
00:09:04and so to answer your questions seriously, I can say that my love for
00:09:08volcanoes is multi-faceted, I love all volcanos,
00:09:11but
00:09:15Perfect. All right, I know that we're in the middle of a bunch of volcanoes right now, but there's other
00:09:19places that we need to get to. Let's get to them. Of
00:09:22course.
00:09:29Volcanoes erupt in Kamchatka almost every day. The Shavel
00:09:32and Bizim Miyani volcanoes had explosive
00:09:36eruptions just recently, and engineer and vulcanologist Victor
00:09:40Frolov was caught right in the thick of it.
00:09:48Victor, thanks for bringing us out here to Shavelic, your area of
00:09:52special expertise, when most of us think of a volcanic
00:09:56eruption, we think of lava, but
00:09:59what's really happening behind the scenes, when a volcano erupts,
00:10:03what's the process like, what's what it was, what is actually
00:10:06happening, if I may refer
00:10:09to, the volcano that you can see right? here is an
00:10:13example, in movies you would expect to see this big tall
00:10:16mounting with red hot lava flowing down the side, but
00:10:20that's what you never
00:10:21see. hot
00:10:25rocks rolling down at night, glowing in the dark, but that's
00:10:29it, what you might see from eruption is cloud of volcanic gas and
00:10:33ash shooting up 20 kms and then falling over a large
00:10:37area, during the most recent eruption on April 11th
00:10:41this year, my team and I witnessed the arch spreading over area
00:10:45about 200 by 400 kms, that's an
00:10:48insanely huge area that covers a large part of central and
00:10:52northern Kamchatka, you were here? you saw it with your
00:10:56own eyes, i would even have to go as far as to say you
00:10:59experienced it, what was that
00:11:02like? a nutshell, it all started at 7
00:11:05am, in fact the eruption started at 1 a.m. but no
00:11:09one noticed while asleep
00:11:11and it was dark, hard to see anything. at 7 a.m. we got a
00:11:15call from our driver who said there's some sort of loud thunder
00:11:19out there, we walked out and saw snow falling, so we
00:11:22thought it was a storm. still dark, we used our
00:11:26flashlight and saw these beautiful large flakes falling
00:11:30down, but when we tried to catch them, we noticed it was gray
00:11:34ash, it was pitch dark, no light at all,
00:11:38and remained dark, and the ash kept falling for four
00:11:41hours, the first sunlight broke through the cloud around
00:11:45midday, until then it was so dark as if someone
00:11:48switched off the sun and stars, you couldn't see your own hand without
00:11:52the flashlight, located 45
00:11:56km south the volcano, we had layer of ash 8.5
00:12:00cm thick on the volcano slopes, the layer of ash
00:12:04was between 12 and 14 centimeters thick, about this
00:12:07much, and all this happened within the very short time, less than
00:12:1124 hours, lots of ash and lots of
00:12:14thunder, as the ash cloud erupts, it can also trigger
00:12:18lightning, 50 km away, it sounded like
00:12:22a cargo train was running through the village.
00:12:55being rolled in water for a long time, volcanic ash has
00:12:59very sharp edges, it can really hurt if you inhale it or hurt
00:13:03your eyes, there are harmful to all kinds of aircraft because they
00:13:06disrupt the engines. back in April, we had few snow mobiles were
00:13:10using and three them brooked out after just two days,
00:13:14overall volcanic ash can do lot of harm, it's
00:13:17a pretty aggressive substance, first of all in terms of people's
00:13:21health, but also in terms of missionary the ashes. so
00:13:25heavy, a large amount of it can damage
00:13:28roofs, the plus, after the eruption, the ash helps new
00:13:31vegetation grow, now plants grow very
00:13:35well, even bigger and stronger than before the eruption,
00:13:39so a way the ashes are fertilizer for local soil, if
00:13:43you observe a volcano for many years in
00:13:45a row, you see that first, eruption destroys
00:13:48everything that grew on it, but f to 10 years later there
00:13:52will be much thicker and bigger forest growing. there
00:13:55again, so volcanoes both destroy and support
00:13:59life,
00:14:16alexie, we're a little bit crazy, we're standing on an actual lava
00:14:19flow, um, coming in was absolutely fascinating
00:14:23bause you could see some thermal vents still
00:14:27letting off their steam? um, guess i have to ask, we
00:14:30hear about volcanoes being dormant, this one or that
00:14:34one, what does it take for a volcano actually erupt
00:14:38and to become active again?
00:14:41volcanoes don't go anywhere, they can always wake up because there's always a
00:14:45thermal flow beneath them that generates new magma. as soon as
00:14:49a certain quantity of magma builds up, there's practically other way for
00:14:53it to go. it reaches.
00:15:25lot of interesting research in this field and new
00:15:29information that is coming forward.
00:15:31um, what makes the difference in terms
00:15:35of when we know and when we don't know?
00:16:07Earthquakes that preceed eruption are rarely felt, so it
00:16:11heavily depends on the type of volcano, its structure
00:16:14and how long it's been since eruption in the area. This is more of a
00:16:18question from my mom, are we safe? Is
00:16:20it possible for a volcano to erupt right now before our
00:16:22eye?
00:16:30You'll be
00:16:30fine.
00:16:36In terms of... the age of volcanos, how old is the volcano that we're
00:16:40standing on right now, the lava that
00:16:44you're now standing on dates back to 2012,
00:16:472013, it's young lava, these are all
00:16:50young volcanoes, we always put
00:16:53a particular focus on studying young volcanoes, that's my
00:16:57job, i love studying young volcanoes because this place
00:17:01is a work in progress, it's very important to have
00:17:05access
00:17:05to the process as it occurs,
00:18:07and then we reconstruct the history the volcano that already
00:18:10exists, and
00:18:14accordingly we can make predictions about future processes that may take
00:18:18place, and so studying the geology,
00:18:21the tephora chronology, the larva, petrology and
00:18:24geophysics, lot of complex research, that
00:18:28might show us how a volcano will function, ask you
00:18:31to look into the future, to be
00:18:35clariv, if you
00:19:0720 30 years, that's not a long time in
00:19:10geology, one more step and just your intuition here, what about the
00:19:14next
00:19:14big eruption in the world? well, it will
00:19:18definitely happen, and we already have huge number of problems in the
00:19:21world, huge number of
00:19:23volcanos, in
00:19:26Kamchatka, in Iceland, in the Philippines, there are also
00:19:30underwater volcanos, I wouldn't try to guess
00:19:33now, it would be better
00:19:35to do this,
00:20:10"It is impossible not to mention our pilots here. This is one the
00:20:14most difficult places on earth to navigate, and is considered that
00:20:18some the most experienced pilots are here in Kamchatka. If genny
00:20:21Katatev was
00:20:22ours. We can't do the story
00:20:26without talking to the pilots, because we've seen some amazing flying
00:20:30with you guys here. So thank you for that. I guess I have to ask, what is it like
00:20:34flying in these conditions around volcanoes? Is it exciting, is?
00:21:02heat can actually change the aerodynamics of an aircraft and in this region
00:21:06there's lots of thermal zones where there's volcanic
00:21:09activity uh how does that affect your flying is is
00:21:12it dangerous? in 2013
00:21:16erupted
00:21:18over there we flew above the...
00:21:29also a situation in gorilly
00:21:31there was volcano, we went there with team of volcanologists, the crater the
00:21:35volcan was quite small, so the guys went down, they had
00:21:39a rescuer with them whose job is to make sure they can make it back
00:21:43up using ropes, but something went wrong and they got
00:21:46stuck, it was really dark and we had to think of a way to get them.
00:21:50so we flew the chopper down slowly into the crater and picked them up,
00:21:54it was something else, quite a story, thank you very
00:21:58much, it's been incredibly interesting flying with you and we appreciate the work that you
00:22:02do, appreciate
00:22:03it,
00:22:07it's not just the volcanoes that give Kamchatka this unworldly
00:22:10landscape, calderas and geizers are some of nature's unique
00:22:14creations here in Kamchatka, there is a whole valley
00:22:17them. This is where we will speak to Julia
00:22:21Francova, geologist and expert in these
00:22:24phenomena. Julia, this is kind
00:22:27of a landscape from different world. Thank you for bringing us out
00:22:31here. Um, before we get to this, I want to ask you about
00:22:34Calderas.
00:22:36We know that they're related to volcanic activity, but what exactly are
00:22:39they? A caldera is very large structure measuring
00:22:43many kilometers in diameter. It emerges as result of a
00:22:46massive eruption.
00:22:57depression or
00:22:57bowl
00:23:02like vast confined by
00:23:05faults. an example of that is the Uzen Geiser
00:23:08caldera where we are standing now. if you look over
00:23:12there, you will see the edge of ancient caldera that was formed
00:23:16tens of thousands of years ago. wow, now...
00:23:20so when we were flying over here uh we saw this beautiful lake
00:23:24maliac uh it was beautiful in terms of
00:23:28its color, it's been called green lake but now it's blue
00:23:32but uh it's not really water down there is it it's something else
00:23:36perhaps we wouldn't want to go swimming there would
00:23:38we? the mali simyatic
00:23:42volcano and the lake at the bottom of its crater are two absolutely
00:23:45unique phenomena, they are unique because the water in the lake is
00:23:49ext.
00:24:03that the
00:24:04The went lake volcanologists to explore a rubber boat barely made it back to the
00:24:07shore as the aluminum ores that they were using to row had nearly
00:24:11dissolved, so the lake is absolutely unique to
00:24:15hear. Similar ones can be found in Japan,
00:24:19Indonesia and
00:24:29used to have lake like this before, but that one disappeared after
00:24:33eruption in 2010, so we are left with just this
00:24:36one. in fact, the volcano is getting more active
00:24:40now, the water level in the lake is rising, and
00:24:44something dangerous may happen soon, the crater wall may
00:24:47collapse, letting all of this strong aggressive acidic
00:24:51water flood the surrounding area, it's a good thing, nobody
00:24:55lives around here. let's talk about geizers. um, we know
00:24:59that they're very rare, and we know that they are connected to volcanic
00:25:03activity. what are they? geizers are very rare
00:25:06phenomenon. there are hundreds and thousands of thermal springs in the
00:25:10world and very few guys. almost every one them has
00:25:14a name and its own temper. how does it work?
00:25:18this area the valley.
00:25:27sub-surface rocks have cracks in them and water filters down through
00:25:31those cracks to the body of magma close to the surface.
00:25:35there the water is heated up to 300 degrees, gets
00:25:38saturated with gases
00:25:40and then this hydrothermal flow starts rising towards the
00:25:43surface. what about the difference between hot springs
00:25:47and geizers? I know that you wouldn't want to go
00:25:51swimming in one these, briefly tell me the difference between
00:25:53those, a spring is boiling and
00:25:57bubbling all the time, sometimes they call it a
00:26:00pulsating spring. essentially it's always active,
00:26:04whereas the geeser shoots water periodically and it can go silent
00:26:08for hours, sometimes days depending on the
00:26:11geiser, so that's the key difference, the two have
00:26:15distinct hydrodynamic
00:26:16behaviors, the
00:26:20water itself is just wonderful, and if i could i'd go swimming
00:26:24a guiser after this trip, i would, it's sodium chloride
00:26:28water with a low mineralization, neutral.
00:26:32composition and contains some nice elements like cylicylic
00:26:36acid and boron. all of that is really good for your
00:26:39health. i'd go take bath like that any time the
00:26:43day, but there is just one small problem:
00:26:46geothermal springs can be cold, warm, hot and
00:26:50boiling. and ageizer is a type of boiling spring
00:26:54which says it all. humans are imperfect creatures.
00:26:58we cannot bathe in water that's heated up to 90 to 100°
00:27:02celsius.
00:27:19They like both the near boiling water and the extreme ph
00:27:22conditions, they also like mercury, antimony and other
00:27:26elements, those are the kinds of amazing creatures we've got
00:27:29here, and one more thing, these therer'. are the reason the
00:27:33geiserite is painted in such vibrant and saturated
00:27:37colors. By itself, the Geiserite is gray and
00:27:40unimpressive, but thanks to thermophilic organisms, we
00:27:44have all this stained glass like artwork to
00:27:47enjoy. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, it's been
00:27:51incredibly interesting and uh, I can't wait to learn
00:27:54more.
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