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How Volcanoes Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House to works dot com? Hey, welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant looking spry?
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Speaker 1: Are you spry? Grandma? Here comes to the Sun? What
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Speaker 1: here comes the Sun? This reminds me of the Sun Podcast.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't think it's going to be nearly
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Speaker 1: as better. There's not nearly as much physics to it,
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Speaker 1: especially not particle physics or spooky physics. It's pretty straightforward. Really.
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Speaker 1: It was very richly detailed dance and structuring content. But really,
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Speaker 1: if you break it down, volcanoes, well that's what that's
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Speaker 1: what we're paid to, due Chuck, and that's what we
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Speaker 1: are going to do. Let me do my introt. First,
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Speaker 1: you ever see Joe versus the Volcano? One of my
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Speaker 1: favorite all time movies all time, like probably top five.
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Speaker 1: I've seen it at least twelve times. It's so great,
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Speaker 1: the pre serious Tom Hanks best role. Yeah, I think
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Speaker 1: so beats the tired of bosom buddies. I'm a big
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Speaker 1: bachelor party guy. Are you really? Um? But In this movie,
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Speaker 1: he is sent to Wapani Wu right, which means a
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Speaker 1: little island with big volcano to write to jump into
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Speaker 1: the big woo to basically appease the wall ponies. Um
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Speaker 1: who needs somebody to sacrifice himself into the volcano, to
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Speaker 1: call him the volcano God. So everything keep going out
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Speaker 1: right and they can keep drinking their orange soda, which yeah,
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Speaker 1: they're famous for loving. Yes, was it fanta? Uh? I
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Speaker 1: think it was in the brand for the movie? Um?
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Speaker 1: So you remember then when he jumps in. What happens? Well,
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Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but you
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Speaker 1: remember what happens? Right? Okay, Chuck, do you realize that,
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Speaker 1: as of this week, we've reached a weird point in
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Speaker 1: our life where we can explain what happened Yeah in
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Speaker 1: that movie because it's not explained by the great John
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Speaker 1: Patrick Shanley who wrote and directed that. No, we needn't
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Speaker 1: need to because it's a movie. Yeah, but isn't that
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Speaker 1: weird that were we sitting next to our other significant
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Speaker 1: others watching this movie, we could turn to them and say,
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Speaker 1: here's actually what happened, and this is the type of
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Speaker 1: thing that just happened. Yeah, of course it really wouldn't
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Speaker 1: happen that way, but well, we'll figure it out. I
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Speaker 1: don't want to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't
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Speaker 1: seen it, because we've been chastised for spoiling like thirty
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Speaker 1: year old movies before in series that ended like ten
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Speaker 1: years ago. Yeah, good series, thought phoned home. Let's talk
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Speaker 1: about volcanoes and how they work, Josh. A volcano, a
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Speaker 1: lot of people might say, is a big mountain with
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Speaker 1: a square top that's bits fire everywhere and kills people.
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Speaker 1: I don't know about square top. That is not true,
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Speaker 1: because any place on the planet Earth where the Earth,
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Speaker 1: the inner Earth, leaks out into the outer Earth, is
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Speaker 1: a volcano wherever Earth gets a boo boo. Yeah right,
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Speaker 1: it's exactly right. Yeah. So the Earth is composed of
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Speaker 1: three we should we should really just do the broad
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Speaker 1: stroke basics real quick. The Earth is composed of three
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Speaker 1: general mega layers. Right, You've got the thinnest layer, which
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Speaker 1: is the outer crust, which is what we walk around on,
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Speaker 1: which is the bottom of the ocean, the kind of
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Speaker 1: things deep in land. And that sounds no on yes,
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Speaker 1: you're right, that sounds super big, but that's actually really thin.
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Speaker 1: So from its thinnest part at the bottom of the ocean,
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Speaker 1: it's three miles down, we're thick up to like you said, yeah,
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Speaker 1: forty four miles right, and then under that you've got
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Speaker 1: the mantle, right, and then you have the inner core,
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Speaker 1: which is um where the the inner core the inner
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Speaker 1: earth people that right, Yeah, And the mantle is the
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Speaker 1: biggest part, really really hot but not melty because of
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Speaker 1: one word that is the key to all things volcano pressure.
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Speaker 1: Pressure pressure. Any time, like everything about volcanoes is pressure related.
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Speaker 1: It seems like it's, yes, it's hot enough this so
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Speaker 1: this mantle it is solid, but it's so it's hot
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Speaker 1: enough to melt, but the pressure is so great it
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Speaker 1: can't melt. It can't be liquid. It's forced to stay
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Speaker 1: in this solid form, right. Um. The other key thing
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Speaker 1: that we need to we need to touch on before
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Speaker 1: we get into volcanoes is the continental drift theory plate tectonics.
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Speaker 1: Right that there are set at least seven large plates
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Speaker 1: and some minor plates as well that are the outer
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Speaker 1: crust that are moving over the um mantle via the athenisphere.
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Speaker 1: And it's like this kind of liquid layer, this lubricating
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Speaker 1: layer between the crust and the mantle. Right. And then
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Speaker 1: so any time these boundaries where these boundaries are, there's
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Speaker 1: there's a potential for volcanic activity. Right, But that's not
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Speaker 1: the all encompassing explanation for volcanoes, right the right. There
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Speaker 1: are several ways that volcanic activity can occur as far
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Speaker 1: as plate tectonics goes. Let's cover those first, Chuckers, I'll
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Speaker 1: take the first one. Uh, these plates can move away
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Speaker 1: from each other, sometimes not necessarily toward each other. They
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Speaker 1: can move away when they move away from each other. Um,
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Speaker 1: if you're if it's over water, I'm sorry, underwater. Under
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Speaker 1: the water, it's a specific subsurface. Subsurface, then that's an
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Speaker 1: ocean ridge. If it's under the land, it's a continental ridge.
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Speaker 1: And Uh, these plates drift apart, and then the mantle
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Speaker 1: all of a sudden doesn't have as much pressure, so
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Speaker 1: it can actually melt finally because it's so hot, and
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Speaker 1: then it bubbles up through the little cracks there. Then
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Speaker 1: once it gets there, it gets cool, hardens again, forms
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Speaker 1: an all new crust and kind of just fills up
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Speaker 1: that gap. And that's called spread spreading center volcanism. And
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Speaker 1: that's where two plates are moving apart, moving apart. Now,
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Speaker 1: if you want to talk about subduction zone volcanism, which
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Speaker 1: I do feel allow me. That's where two plates are
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Speaker 1: moving together. And if you remember from the earthquake podcast,
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Speaker 1: we covered a lot of this and that too. A
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Speaker 1: subduction zone is where one where plates are pressing up
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Speaker 1: against one another and one is pushed under the other. Right,
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Speaker 1: this forms a trench, a hole in the earth big time. Okay.
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Speaker 1: So with the spreading center volcanism, magma flowed out because
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Speaker 1: of this, uh, this lower pressure, it was allowed to
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Speaker 1: go to its liquid form. With um subduction. We haven't
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Speaker 1: said what magma is. That's liquid rock. Nice, very important
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Speaker 1: it is. This is the this is what makes up
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Speaker 1: the mantle for the most part as well. Right, So
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Speaker 1: this is the stuff that can that is very hot
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Speaker 1: but is under so much pressure it stays solid. Well,
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Speaker 1: I think it becomes magma once it turns fluid. Okay,
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Speaker 1: and then once and here's the distinction between magma and
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Speaker 1: lava once it exits the earth, lava, it's lava. So
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Speaker 1: go ahead, okay, nice one, chuck, good catch um. So
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Speaker 1: with subduction zone volcanism, uh, the magma actually the melting
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Speaker 1: point is lowered with the introduction of water. So either
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Speaker 1: water enters the trench created by this subduction zone or
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Speaker 1: um ambient water from the rock around it enters it,
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Speaker 1: or it's like squeezed out of it exactly. So either way,
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Speaker 1: this introduction of of water lowers the melting point and
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Speaker 1: allows this, uh, the mantle to become magma, as is
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Speaker 1: its destiny. Right, So that's colliding and then shifting under
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Speaker 1: one another subduction you can also collide and you just collide.
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Speaker 1: You meet each other head on, two plates collide and boom,
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Speaker 1: you've got mountains, not volcano right, right, But this is
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Speaker 1: usually just a subduction zone that hasn't happened yet. Eventually
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Speaker 1: one of them is probably gonna slip under the other
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Speaker 1: and but for the kind of just like pull of rams. Yeah,
8:03
Speaker 1: and then you've got plates moving up against each other.
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Speaker 1: I think that was a slip strike fault, wasn't it
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Speaker 1: in the earthquake podcast, I don't remember. I think it
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Speaker 1: was where they're just like one's going south and one's
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Speaker 1: going north. Um, that forms a transformed plate boundary and
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Speaker 1: there's almost never volcanic activity. Uh, there's another way they
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Speaker 1: can form, and this is kind of a cool one, uh,
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Speaker 1: interplate or hot spot volcanic activity. Right, we should say
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Speaker 1: that everything we just talked about, all of those were
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Speaker 1: found along plate boundaries. And this is like within a
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Speaker 1: solid plate, right, Yeah, within a plate, you can get
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Speaker 1: a hot spot in the middle of it because the
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Speaker 1: mantle basically forms a hot plume. It comes up from
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Speaker 1: the bottom and gets hotter and hotter, and then eventually
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Speaker 1: reaches you know, right underneath I guess, I guess the lithosphere.
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Speaker 1: I guess the lithosphere and creates a hot spot, and
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Speaker 1: it's really an unusual heat. It forms magma right under
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Speaker 1: the earth crust and that stays there, but then the
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Speaker 1: plates move over it. And as each plate moves over it,
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Speaker 1: it forms the whole string of little volcanos, which is
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Speaker 1: how the Hawaii volcanoes were created seventy million years old.
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Speaker 1: By the way, this is a very slow process, but
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Speaker 1: it is a process if you sped it up really
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Speaker 1: fast and be like, okay, yeah, this plate is moving
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Speaker 1: over it, and that's that's that hot spot volcano. Right.
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Speaker 1: Interplate volcanic activity is what it's called. Yeah, And I
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Speaker 1: think they point out that most of the land volcanoes
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Speaker 1: are the subduction zone that you mentioned, and then the
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Speaker 1: hot hot spot ones and then in the ocean it's
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Speaker 1: mostly the um spreading center of volcanism I belief, yes, right, yes,
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Speaker 1: all right, So Chuck, we've got magma, right, yeah, Or
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Speaker 1: let's say we don't have magma, we have a mantle. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And then something happens. So this this mantle shifts a
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Speaker 1: little bit in starts to move upward. Right. Um. Something
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Speaker 1: is something is given way to the downward pressure of
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Speaker 1: the rock surrounding it. And so this magma, which is hot,
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Speaker 1: it's just under a lot of pressure. Uh, And it
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Speaker 1: wants to be liquid. It's less dense, and it's able
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Speaker 1: to move up. The further moves up, the less pressure
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Speaker 1: there is. So it's just gonna keep going upward and
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Speaker 1: upward and upward. And that's how magma starts to move
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Speaker 1: towards the Earth's surface. Right. And one thing I used
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Speaker 1: to build ponds for a living, and one thing that is, uh,
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Speaker 1: you'll find when you ever try to build a pond.
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Speaker 1: Water is very lazy and it wants to go to
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Speaker 1: the path of least resistance. Liquids are, right, So it
10:31
Speaker 1: will always find something you overlooked and cause a leak.
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Speaker 1: Same thing I imagine with lava or magma. It's liquid,
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Speaker 1: so it's going through any crack or crevice that can find.
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Speaker 1: And as long as the upward pressure created by the
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Speaker 1: lower density of the magma is greater than the downward
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Speaker 1: pressure of the surrounding rock, it will keep going up. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But once there is enough pressure, like let's say it
10:54
Speaker 1: just kept going up and eventually with spew out and
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Speaker 1: you've got a volcano. But if there just happens to
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Speaker 1: be enough pressure and it's like no stop, then it
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Speaker 1: kind of has a little waiting zone in a magma chamber, right,
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Speaker 1: and it just fills up and it's like I can
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Speaker 1: wait seventy million years, right, don't don't be a mistaken brother.
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Speaker 1: Don't there that that We just sounded like zazy top
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Speaker 1: um Jerry like that, so chuck um. That explains how
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Speaker 1: lava enters the Earth's crust, holes in the Earth's crust
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Speaker 1: and creates um what we'll talk about in a second
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Speaker 1: Hawaiian type volcanoes Hawaiian type eruptions, I should say, we're
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Speaker 1: basically the lava is just coming out, bubbling up over
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Speaker 1: the surface and flowing real slowly um creating little lava ponds, right,
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Speaker 1: and creators and stuff like this. Just it's cool looking,
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Speaker 1: not very dangerous if you can walk at all, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean it's slow, right, or even drank yourself slowly,
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Speaker 1: you could probably beat the lava. But the one that
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Speaker 1: everybody wants to know about our eruptions, like the spectacular,
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Speaker 1: like the um Iceland volcano. Right, I'm not even going
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Speaker 1: to attempt a pronunciation of this, which, by the way,
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Speaker 1: caused at least one point seven billion dollars to the
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Speaker 1: airlines alone in lost revenue. Yeah. Um, it was a
12:14
Speaker 1: strato volcano by the way. We'll talk about that in
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Speaker 1: a minute. Okay, yes, but with a huge explosion. It's
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Speaker 1: not just this lower density of the magma now, it's
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Speaker 1: it has to do with the gases inside, and magma
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Speaker 1: is what magma eats, right, Yeah, And I mean this
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Speaker 1: is sort of like the It reminds me of the
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Speaker 1: Lake Nyos exploding lakes. It's it's a build up of
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Speaker 1: gas pressure internally within the magma. Uh, it's a lot
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Speaker 1: of dissolved gas and they're they're stuck that way dissolved,
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Speaker 1: which is all fine, and they're kept you know, thanks
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Speaker 1: to pressure confined in there. But when the vapor pressure
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Speaker 1: gets greater than the pressure surrounding it, it forms little vesicles,
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Speaker 1: which are little gas bubbles, and then it's time. And
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Speaker 1: that's when you know you've got some trouble because those
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Speaker 1: bubbles they gotta get out. It's like a soda soda can.
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Speaker 1: It's exactly like it's the exact same principle of a soda. Right.
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Speaker 1: So if you open a soda, all the bubbles rushed
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Speaker 1: to the top, and that's if it's just a regular old,
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Speaker 1: non shaking touched it or anything. If you shake it up,
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Speaker 1: you're actually mixing those bubbles in with the liquid. So
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Speaker 1: when those bubbles rushed to the top, they're going to
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Speaker 1: bring a lot of the liquid with them. This is
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Speaker 1: the same exact principle that's behind a volcanic eruption. Okay,
13:23
Speaker 1: but in this case, magma is the soda exactly, and
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Speaker 1: the bubbles are the gases from the dissolved rock. Okay, right, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm with you. So then there's two factors you said
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Speaker 1: that um that pressure was had everything to do with
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Speaker 1: volcanic activity with eruptions, there's two um two factors, two
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Speaker 1: general factors that really have an effect on what kind
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Speaker 1: of volcanic. Volcanic eruption takes place, and that is viscosity,
13:50
Speaker 1: which is I can never keep it straight, but now
13:53
Speaker 1: I've got it. Viscosity is the ability to resist flow,
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Speaker 1: rightlid Right. If it's high viscosity, which means it has
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Speaker 1: a high ability to resist flow, which means it's thick stuff,
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Speaker 1: it's molasses. If it has a low ability to resist flow,
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Speaker 1: meaning you're pouring something out of a cup and creating flow.
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Speaker 1: If as a low ability, it's going to flow very
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Speaker 1: easily and quickly out of it. So it's low viscosity.
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Speaker 1: So viscosity and the amount of gas bubbles present are
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Speaker 1: going to determine what kind of volcanic eruption you have. Right.
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Speaker 1: If it's high viscosity, which means it's very thick, then
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Speaker 1: it will be a big eruption, right because it tried
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Speaker 1: very hard to get out exactly. And then the opposite
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Speaker 1: is true if it's a low viscosity and the more
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Speaker 1: gas is present, the more imagine just these little bubbles,
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Speaker 1: the more little bubbles that are trying to get out,
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Speaker 1: the higher the viscosity, the harder they're going to try
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Speaker 1: to get out, and then when they do get out, kaboom, right,
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Speaker 1: which is determined by how much silicon is in the magma,
14:51
Speaker 1: which I thought it was a little weird or not weird,
14:54
Speaker 1: but just I had no idea, So Chuck, we have.
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Speaker 1: Um when when it does go kaboom, that's called the
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Speaker 1: eruption column, right, it's composed of hot gas ash pyroclastic rocks,
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Speaker 1: which is lava in solid form. Right. Um. And that one,
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Speaker 1: that one flow I was talking about Hawaii, the real
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Speaker 1: slow kind of lumbering flow where's just bubbling over its effusive. Yeah,
15:19
Speaker 1: and that I mean that's not super dangerous because it's
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Speaker 1: so slow, but it's still destructive eventually, Yeah, slowly destructive.
15:26
Speaker 1: If you're a plant that's stationary, you're in trouble because
15:30
Speaker 1: plants can't walk at all. Let's talk about the different
15:33
Speaker 1: types of eruptions, man, Yeah, there's a bunch of these. Uh.
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Speaker 1: My favorite is a Strombolian. It's definitely the most delicious
15:43
Speaker 1: for one reason and one reason alone. It's pretty impressive,
15:48
Speaker 1: not too dangerous. About fifty feet in the air. It's
15:51
Speaker 1: gonna be spewing a little short bursts, very highly viscous,
15:56
Speaker 1: so gas really has to build up in order for
15:58
Speaker 1: this to happen. But they're pretty the small eruptions, not
16:01
Speaker 1: much lava going on, they make a big boom, yeah,
16:04
Speaker 1: a little ashy tefra, which is always nice in your
16:07
Speaker 1: volcanic eruption, right, and tefras that that fall in volcanic material.
16:12
Speaker 1: A lot of things like uh, undergo a change in
16:15
Speaker 1: name after they become after they've been a verb at
16:19
Speaker 1: some point, so like it goes from magma to lava
16:23
Speaker 1: to tefra. Yeah, right, and that's all rock or it depends.
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Speaker 1: It could be asked, tefra is just any of the
16:31
Speaker 1: material that comes out of volcano and is landed. Oh
16:34
Speaker 1: I thought you said originally it was all magma. That's
16:37
Speaker 1: well yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're good, good chuck. Right.
16:40
Speaker 1: And then we also have the plenty in eruption, right,
16:42
Speaker 1: which the Yeah, this is the type of eruption that
16:46
Speaker 1: covered that came out of Mountain Vesuvius and I think
16:50
Speaker 1: and covered Herculaneum and Pompeii. Yeah, these are the big
16:53
Speaker 1: daddies that you think of when you think of volcano.
16:56
Speaker 1: The big upward thrust, the thirty mile column of junk
17:02
Speaker 1: that is shooting out. That is the plenty in eruption,
17:05
Speaker 1: right yeah. I mean it's bad news for anyone around there,
17:12
Speaker 1: don't you think I would think so? Yeah, and not
17:14
Speaker 1: even right around there. I mean, like it can shoot
17:17
Speaker 1: pyroclastic material thirty miles into the air undred hundreds of
17:23
Speaker 1: feet per second. That's a big explosion. Um and uh so,
17:27
Speaker 1: I imagine I couldn't find it. Looked all over the
17:30
Speaker 1: place to find out what type of eruption the Iceland
17:32
Speaker 1: volcano underwent in April. It couldn't find it. But this
17:36
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like a plenty in eruption. I mean,
17:38
Speaker 1: if they were shutting down air service in like southern
17:40
Speaker 1: Europe because of the ash that it entered the atmosphere.
17:44
Speaker 1: From this, it sounds like it was probably plenty allans
17:47
Speaker 1: I guess was to right, Yeah, basically all the ones
17:49
Speaker 1: you can rattle off off the top of your head,
17:51
Speaker 1: there's a probably plenty in volcan What about the Hawaiian
17:56
Speaker 1: Those are the really slow effusive ones, right yeah. But
17:59
Speaker 1: they have like fire fountains, like they're cool to look at,
18:01
Speaker 1: yeah for sure, and it's cool sounding, yeah, And they
18:05
Speaker 1: can produce a lava lakes which are ponds of lava craters.
18:10
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. Yes, I've never been to Hawaii though, you
18:13
Speaker 1: know Strickland has, Oh yes he has. He loves talking
18:16
Speaker 1: about the Hawaiian eruptions ives butchering the Hawaiian names of
18:21
Speaker 1: things too. Are those other ones smaller and less frequent?
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Speaker 1: The the volcanian, hydro volcanic, and fissure. Yeah, the most
18:27
Speaker 1: common eruption types of the plenty in Hawaiian and Strombolian,
18:31
Speaker 1: and then less common like the real. Like, if you're
18:33
Speaker 1: an aficionado of of volcanoes, then you're gonna want to
18:37
Speaker 1: know about the volcano and hydro hydro volcanic and fisher.
18:40
Speaker 1: Like you said, the fisher has the curtain of fire.
18:43
Speaker 1: It occurs along like a a trench. It's not like
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Speaker 1: a mountain. It's basically there's a tear in the earth
18:51
Speaker 1: and the the magma is becoming lava and like this
18:54
Speaker 1: big curtain of fire. I can't really call it anything
18:57
Speaker 1: else in it be is dead on sure. The volcan
19:01
Speaker 1: ian is cool because of the pyroclastic bombs that it
19:03
Speaker 1: will shoot into the air, like football size bombs of
19:07
Speaker 1: of hot rock. This is the Earth being angry. The
19:11
Speaker 1: gods are awakening. Well, this is the other saying I'm
19:14
Speaker 1: I'm moving around, dude. And then hydro volcanic compares a
19:18
Speaker 1: little um explaining this is a volcano that it takes
19:21
Speaker 1: place not underwater, but near water, near um, a very
19:25
Speaker 1: high humidity area, and basically the interaction of the water
19:29
Speaker 1: creates this chain reaction that turns the volcanic material into
19:33
Speaker 1: this fine ash right Um. It can also melt a
19:36
Speaker 1: lot of surrounding snow um, which can cause landslides and
19:41
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble for people. Yes, so those are
19:45
Speaker 1: the types of eruptions. Are you still awake and are
19:48
Speaker 1: you still with this so far? Anyway? Right? People like, oh, yeah,
19:54
Speaker 1: the sun. Uh should we talk about the shapes or
19:59
Speaker 1: just the frequent the of eruption? Well, let's talk about
20:01
Speaker 1: the shapes, because there's there's the basically, there's three components
20:05
Speaker 1: to a volcano. Every volcano, right Um. You've got the
20:08
Speaker 1: magma chamber, which we talked about, it's where it builds up.
20:11
Speaker 1: You've got the central event, which is the the this
20:14
Speaker 1: little connecting area, this is where it starts to. This
20:18
Speaker 1: is the fissure that it comes out of the crater,
20:21
Speaker 1: right you've got the summit crater, which is where it
20:23
Speaker 1: explodes out of right, and then um, you've got different
20:28
Speaker 1: types of volcanoes, three main shapes, and the strato volcanoes.
20:33
Speaker 1: So a strato volcano with a plenty in eruption is
20:35
Speaker 1: what everyone thinks of as a volcano, right, the classic
20:38
Speaker 1: what what you would build for your science school project
20:41
Speaker 1: with the baking soda. That's a strato volcano. That's right.
20:44
Speaker 1: Unless you're a really forward thinking kid and you're like,
20:46
Speaker 1: I'm going to build a scory of tone volcano for
20:49
Speaker 1: extra points, which actually, if you did do that, you'd
20:51
Speaker 1: be pretty smart, because, um, while the strato volcano is
20:54
Speaker 1: the most familiar, the scory of cone volcano is the
20:57
Speaker 1: most common. Yeah, I guess would be a very smart kid. Yes,
21:01
Speaker 1: And if there's any seventh graders out there looking for
21:04
Speaker 1: a cooler volcano, you want to add a little zing
21:08
Speaker 1: your volcano, make a scory of cone and say, Josh
21:10
Speaker 1: and Chuck, san't you and get prepared to be beaten
21:13
Speaker 1: fire classmates. Score of cones, by the way, if you
21:15
Speaker 1: need a little help, are Um, they're smaller, they're steep
21:19
Speaker 1: on both sides, um, and they're very wide right, uh,
21:25
Speaker 1: And they're usually composed of ashy tephra ashy telfra shield volcanoes,
21:31
Speaker 1: that's the last kind. They're wide short, low viscosity dispersal
21:35
Speaker 1: of lava. So it's just a big using blob basically,
21:39
Speaker 1: and it builds up into like a shield like dome.
21:42
Speaker 1: And these these are repped like every few years, very frequent.
21:45
Speaker 1: So um, we'll talk about eruption a second. A good
21:48
Speaker 1: example of a shield volcanoes Mounta Looa, and a good
21:51
Speaker 1: example of a score of cone is Sunset Crater in Arizona.
21:55
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, Chuck, Josh, you ever heard of Crater
21:59
Speaker 1: Lake in Oregon? Yeah? Yeah, Gortis. Isn't there like a
22:03
Speaker 1: down World War two plane or something in there? I
22:05
Speaker 1: don't know. Is that just like a cloud Cussler novel
22:07
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of? I have no idea. Well, Crater Lake
22:10
Speaker 1: was actually in extinct. We imagine an extinct volcano. Um Basically,
22:15
Speaker 1: the magma chamber blew it all at once, collapsed in
22:19
Speaker 1: on itself. The the crater collapses in on itself and
22:23
Speaker 1: it eventually fills in with water. It's called the caldera, yes,
22:26
Speaker 1: until it's full of water. Then it's called the lake.
22:28
Speaker 1: That's right. Once again, add something, change the name. How
22:33
Speaker 1: many volcanoes are there active right now working in the
22:37
Speaker 1: world today, I'm gonna guess four. You would be off
22:43
Speaker 1: by about a hundred. What do you mean you're gonna
22:46
Speaker 1: guess you have the same information I do. Let's trying
22:48
Speaker 1: to mix it up. Uh, they are active volcanoes five
22:52
Speaker 1: hundred around the world. And the classifications a little inexact,
22:56
Speaker 1: even the revised classifications a little inexacutive. I didn't vers.
23:01
Speaker 1: Here's why though. This is why it's inexact and subjective,
23:05
Speaker 1: because we don't have anything that won't melt if we
23:08
Speaker 1: try to really get a good look inside of a volcano. Yeah,
23:12
Speaker 1: so it's all just kind of like, well, yeah, it's smoking,
23:14
Speaker 1: so we're gonna call that an active volcano. The ones
23:17
Speaker 1: in uh, there was at least one when we were
23:19
Speaker 1: in Guatemala, remember, and then one went off right after
23:22
Speaker 1: Jerry was there? Really I think, so yeah, wow, yeah,
23:26
Speaker 1: we'll find out after we stopped recording an ASCAR. So
23:30
Speaker 1: the classifications, even though it's inexact, we will quote them
23:34
Speaker 1: here if it's erupting obviously or or demonstrating some kind
23:38
Speaker 1: of activity within recorded history, right, then it's active. And
23:43
Speaker 1: why we say it's inaccurate because recorded history varies big time. Uh.
23:48
Speaker 1: If it is not showing any signs, but it has
23:51
Speaker 1: erupted with years, then uh it is you know, could
23:56
Speaker 1: potentially erupt again. So it's dormant, but it could could
23:59
Speaker 1: go off. If it has not erupted in ten thousand years,
24:03
Speaker 1: then it's extinct, they say, right, but I say, all
24:07
Speaker 1: bets are off. Man, you never know. No, I agree wholeheartedly.
24:10
Speaker 1: I think, Um, if you're dealing with plate tectonics and um,
24:16
Speaker 1: there's clearly not any kind of magma chamber around that
24:19
Speaker 1: we can detect, it probably is extinct. But as we said,
24:22
Speaker 1: they have revised the the rating of volcanoes, right, Um,
24:29
Speaker 1: so now if it's showing anything, is that what you
24:32
Speaker 1: just did was the revised version, because they really are
24:35
Speaker 1: similar to the original version. Basically. The only change is
24:38
Speaker 1: now if it's showing anything, then it's it's active. Right. Yeah. Weird,
24:45
Speaker 1: And uh here's the cool fact of the day. Right. Uh.
24:49
Speaker 1: And any given day, ten volcanoes are erupting. Yeah, that
24:53
Speaker 1: aren't a big deal. Probably, well they are if you're
24:56
Speaker 1: staying next to Yeah, but it's not newsmakers, I would say. Yeah.
25:00
Speaker 1: And then one volcano is thought to have wiped out
25:03
Speaker 1: an entire civilization, Sanderini in Greece. Really yeah, the Minoan
25:07
Speaker 1: civilization suddenly disappeared, and they're starting to think that it
25:10
Speaker 1: was because they melted pretty much. Yeah, well, that's it
25:14
Speaker 1: for volcanoes. If you want to see some really boss
25:17
Speaker 1: volcano pictures, I know where you can just type volcanoes
25:20
Speaker 1: into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
25:23
Speaker 1: You've made it through this one. Pay yourself on the back.
25:25
Speaker 1: But hey, we've all got to understand volcanoes, right all right?
25:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, since I said search bar, that means
25:32
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. So that is not only
25:36
Speaker 1: the end of volcanoes, Josh, that's the end of this
25:39
Speaker 1: is something else. Can you believe this? Can you believe?
25:42
Speaker 1: I know you we're in the future like I thought.
25:46
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be in like spaceships and have pill
25:49
Speaker 1: meals that I could eat. I have pill meals in
25:51
Speaker 1: my pocket right now. Really, what you got? I have
25:55
Speaker 1: pot roasts and turkey and stuff. Did you add water
25:58
Speaker 1: and it becomes a big meal. You just eat it,
26:00
Speaker 1: you see, and it tastes like all that and get
26:02
Speaker 1: pulled up. So uh, you know, at the end of
26:05
Speaker 1: every year we like to say thanks. Obviously we're still
26:08
Speaker 1: on the air, and we wouldn't be if you guys
26:10
Speaker 1: weren't listening. No, we would be, you know, just doing
26:14
Speaker 1: our regular thing right in the articles, crying ourselves, crying
26:17
Speaker 1: ourselves to sleep. Yeah, thank you for listening to all
26:19
Speaker 1: of you, a new people, all of you vets, all
26:22
Speaker 1: of you returning friends, everybody. Happy New Year to all
26:25
Speaker 1: of you very much. Um yeah, yeah, that's all I got.
26:30
Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't want to make a big
26:31
Speaker 1: deal out of it because I just want to keep
26:32
Speaker 1: on going through. Here's to the next year and eleven
26:38
Speaker 1: months in eleven days left of earth? Yeah right, you
26:42
Speaker 1: want me to sing uh all anzig? Please? Can we
26:45
Speaker 1: get can we get Jerry to put it over? Or
26:46
Speaker 1: at leastly there's no rights on all at least Fogelberg's
26:50
Speaker 1: same old Anzig the Satas song in history. Oh that
26:53
Speaker 1: is a good one. Let's hear it shun oh no never,
26:57
Speaker 1: but I do have listen to mail. Well do you
26:59
Speaker 1: know an album that hear it on? Uh? The Innocent Age? Okay,
27:02
Speaker 1: So do you. Was it a good album? Yeah, I
27:05
Speaker 1: mean I actually owned that. I was a little kid.
27:06
Speaker 1: I was like twelve listening to that song thinking it
27:08
Speaker 1: was sad when I was the wealth and that's Dan
27:10
Speaker 1: Fogelberg and uh it's what's the name, same old things
27:14
Speaker 1: on and what's the album The Innocent Age the Seas.
27:31
Speaker 1: So this is listener mail Josh from Kyle and this
27:35
Speaker 1: is about our our Chronica podcast which we got some
27:39
Speaker 1: pretty good marks from from our Jewish friends. Yeah, we
27:42
Speaker 1: did here there, although I got good try. I had
27:45
Speaker 1: a few people that are are converted Jews say, hey,
27:48
Speaker 1: Chuck when he said it's not the same thing, that
27:50
Speaker 1: really hurt my feelings. I wasn't saying for you, it's
27:54
Speaker 1: not the same for me like I would I would
27:56
Speaker 1: feel like a I would still feel like a boy.
28:00
Speaker 1: So it's not the same for you. But in Chuck's
28:02
Speaker 1: opinion of you, it's the same. Yeah, that's that doesn't
28:04
Speaker 1: make you any less Jewish if you're if you've converted.
28:06
Speaker 1: I wasn't saying that at all. I was a kid.
28:09
Speaker 1: I don't want to hur anyone's feelings. Hey, guys, great
28:12
Speaker 1: job on the Hanaka podcast. I'm a seventeen year old
28:14
Speaker 1: from De Plaine, Illinois. It's the home of the McDonald's Museum,
28:18
Speaker 1: right home of the first McDonald's. He says, I was
28:22
Speaker 1: raised atheists my whole life until the fourth grade, when
28:25
Speaker 1: I learned about religion, and as much as research a
28:28
Speaker 1: fourth grader can do, I decided I wanted to be Jewish.
28:32
Speaker 1: I love this guy in the fourth grade. He's like,
28:34
Speaker 1: I want to be Jewish. That's pretty cool, and he
28:37
Speaker 1: did it. I realized that in college and I didn't
28:39
Speaker 1: do it. I ended up converting, being bar Mitzvoued, learned Hebrew,
28:43
Speaker 1: and now plan on joining the Israeli Army. Wow, I heard.
28:48
Speaker 1: I heard about this the real deal. I find it
28:51
Speaker 1: to be an amazing religion, and I loved your podcast
28:54
Speaker 1: on it. I just want to show you something you
28:56
Speaker 1: might find interesting. None gimmal hey shin, which appear the
29:00
Speaker 1: dradle in almost every country in the world nska dol
29:03
Speaker 1: haya sham means a great miracle happened there, while in
29:07
Speaker 1: Israel the Dradel says none gimmal hey hey, which means
29:11
Speaker 1: a great miracle happened here. Cool. So in Israel they
29:16
Speaker 1: have a different radel because it's like could happened here
29:18
Speaker 1: and not there, as I've always found that interesting. Just
29:21
Speaker 1: want to let you in. Thanks for the podcast. And
29:23
Speaker 1: that is from Kyle the New Jew. I really think
29:28
Speaker 1: Kyle was on MPR. I've heard an interview with somebody
29:32
Speaker 1: who had converted in the US and was now like
29:35
Speaker 1: going to Israel to join the Israeli army. Was a
29:38
Speaker 1: young guy like that? Yeah, he was young dude. It
29:41
Speaker 1: might be him. I wonder if it was, we'll have
29:42
Speaker 1: to check it out. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah, he
29:44
Speaker 1: should have come to us first, though, I agree whole
29:47
Speaker 1: hard at time, he's making the rounds of the media
29:49
Speaker 1: secure right hey, by the way, I mean that's what
29:53
Speaker 1: he's saying to everybody, right, Yeah, I was on stuff
29:56
Speaker 1: you should know and MPR. Right, well, chuck again. Happy
30:00
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven to you. Happy New Year. Congratulations
30:03
Speaker 1: sir on another year making it through another year with
30:06
Speaker 1: me having to deal with me. Hey, it's every year
30:09
Speaker 1: gets easier. Is gonna be a breeze? Nice? Um. If
30:13
Speaker 1: you have a New Year's resolution that you think is
30:15
Speaker 1: worth writing down and sending to us, you can also
30:18
Speaker 1: bring it up on Facebook. I'm sure there'll be plenty
30:20
Speaker 1: of stuff there. You can tweet it to us s
30:22
Speaker 1: y SK podcast um, and if you want to just
30:26
Speaker 1: put it in an email. If you're a confidential type,
30:29
Speaker 1: address it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
30:37
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
30:39
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot com. To learn more about
30:41
Speaker 1: the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper
30:44
Speaker 1: right corner of our homepage. The house stuff Works iPhone
30:47
Speaker 1: app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought to
30:54
Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
30:57
Speaker 1: are you