1 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:13,860 A freak cosmic collision. 2 00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:17,360 A fatal shock to the Earth's interior. 3 00:00:17,900 --> 00:00:21,780 Triggers all the world's volcanoes to erupt. 4 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:27,120 This is a class one volcanic zone. In a week, you will be dead. 5 00:00:30,780 --> 00:00:32,900 Could humanity prevail? 6 00:00:38,500 --> 00:00:40,780 Leading minds join forces. 7 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:46,000 To craft scientifically plausible scenarios of Armageddon. 8 00:00:47,220 --> 00:00:54,160 And find the secret to human salvation in the 9 00:00:54,160 --> 00:00:55,900 face of ultimate disaster. 10 00:01:16,460 --> 00:01:17,460 Tickets, please. 11 00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:19,060 Ticket. 12 00:01:19,580 --> 00:01:24,800 There you go. We actually live in an incredibly precarious place in the 13 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:33,320 We live on the outer layers of a ball of molten rock that is itself a tiny speck 14 00:01:33,320 --> 00:01:39,140 around a small star that's one of 200 billion stars in a galaxy that's 15 00:01:39,140 --> 00:01:42,880 its way through a universe of 200 billion other galaxies. 16 00:01:43,740 --> 00:01:44,740 Ticket. 17 00:01:45,840 --> 00:01:50,380 There are all sorts of very fast, very dangerous objects racing around out 18 00:01:50,380 --> 00:01:51,079 in the galaxy. 19 00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:55,020 And if they come into our neighborhood, they will do some very real damage. 20 00:01:55,940 --> 00:02:00,280 Just about all these objects reflect light, so chances are we'd see them 21 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:01,600 from a very long way off. 22 00:02:02,220 --> 00:02:06,280 There are other projectiles we would never see coming, and one of those is 23 00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:07,780 called a primordial black hole. 24 00:02:09,660 --> 00:02:12,840 A primordial black hole does not reflect any light. 25 00:02:13,950 --> 00:02:16,170 Therefore, it's essentially invisible to us. 26 00:02:20,210 --> 00:02:22,490 What time will we be getting to Dayton? 30 minutes. 27 00:02:22,750 --> 00:02:23,750 Thank you. 28 00:02:25,030 --> 00:02:29,310 A primordial black hole is different from these huge black holes we often 29 00:02:29,310 --> 00:02:33,850 about. It's a theoretical space body that we believe is left over from the 30 00:02:33,850 --> 00:02:34,850 Bang. 31 00:02:35,990 --> 00:02:40,130 It's a very, very small object. It can't be smaller even than an atom. 32 00:02:40,490 --> 00:02:44,450 And yet it's incredibly dense and heavy, possessing perhaps one -tenth the mass 33 00:02:44,450 --> 00:02:48,010 of the Earth. And with those properties, if one of them was to collide with the 34 00:02:48,010 --> 00:02:50,810 Earth, it could shoot through us like a bullet through an apple. 35 00:02:57,950 --> 00:02:58,950 Take it. 36 00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:39,240 How big a hole is the primordial black hole going to make in the Earth? 37 00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:45,600 Well, the size of the atom is probably going to make a hole about 100 yards, no 38 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:46,600 more, across. 39 00:03:47,880 --> 00:03:52,320 Really quite a small hole, except it's going to go all the way through the 40 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:53,320 planet. 41 00:03:55,180 --> 00:03:59,300 It's going to hit the Earth at a very high rate of speed, maybe 20 miles per 42 00:03:59,300 --> 00:04:03,260 second. At that speed, it'll transit through the entire body of the Earth and 43 00:04:03,260 --> 00:04:05,360 come out the other side in about... Six minutes. 44 00:04:13,300 --> 00:04:19,660 This is Peter Pacific shipment R1817 from Perth. Position 32 -22 45 00:04:19,660 --> 00:04:21,279 -109 -47. 46 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:26,620 We're seeing some kind of vortex or something just flew out of the ocean. 47 00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:30,400 There's a huge wave. 48 00:04:30,740 --> 00:04:32,080 We're going to cap that. 49 00:04:48,370 --> 00:04:52,610 Now as traumatic as this is, the planet can probably take it. 50 00:04:52,850 --> 00:04:55,230 Earth could probably absorb that kind of impact. 51 00:04:55,490 --> 00:04:58,090 The real problems emerge inside the Earth. 52 00:05:01,480 --> 00:05:05,800 moves through the planet, its destructive power is going to release 53 00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:06,800 amounts of energy. 54 00:05:07,940 --> 00:05:12,400 The order of several hundred gigatons of explosive energy. 55 00:05:14,140 --> 00:05:18,760 The energy relief could be equivalent to setting off as many as 100 ,000 atomic 56 00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:20,240 bombs inside of the Earth. 57 00:05:21,100 --> 00:05:24,800 That's a lot of energy, and that's going to send shockwaves radiating out. 58 00:05:25,270 --> 00:05:29,230 And when those shock waves hit the crust of the Earth from the inside, it's 59 00:05:29,230 --> 00:05:31,890 going to shake up our world in some very deadly ways. 60 00:05:46,130 --> 00:05:50,490 It is a volcanic disaster without precedent. At least five active 61 00:05:50,490 --> 00:05:53,630 around the world have erupted in the last 24 hours. 62 00:05:55,720 --> 00:06:00,220 Near Mexico City, hundreds have died when steaming mudslides flowed into 63 00:06:00,220 --> 00:06:01,220 homes. 64 00:06:01,380 --> 00:06:06,260 An international coalition of geologists is gathering in New York to review data 65 00:06:06,260 --> 00:06:07,520 and present their findings. 66 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:18,120 Good morning. To briefly recap, four days ago, we believe a very small 67 00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:21,060 black hole shot through the center of the Earth. 68 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:29,480 This event has caused a series of shockwaves going through the Earth's 69 00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:37,100 We've seen an unprecedented spike in global volcanic activity. 70 00:06:40,020 --> 00:06:44,320 And this is why those shockwaves are so frightening. As they ripple out from the 71 00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:48,000 Earth's core, they're going to impact all the magma chambers in all the 72 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:49,560 volcanoes all over the Earth. 73 00:06:51,650 --> 00:06:54,830 And that's going to drive those volcanoes straight towards eruption. 74 00:06:58,030 --> 00:07:00,370 People might not even be all that scared at first. 75 00:07:00,670 --> 00:07:03,110 Is this your first time to see raw lava like this? Yeah. 76 00:07:03,630 --> 00:07:05,750 It looks like you're having a lot of fun with it. 77 00:07:06,890 --> 00:07:10,530 Volcanoes are interesting, they're exciting, and some may seek them out for 78 00:07:10,530 --> 00:07:11,530 thrill. 79 00:07:24,910 --> 00:07:28,730 The engine that makes the volcano erupt is something we call the magma chamber. 80 00:07:28,950 --> 00:07:35,650 And a magma chamber is a blob of molten rock that lives inside or under a 81 00:07:35,650 --> 00:07:40,590 volcano. And that molten rock comes from Earth's mantle deep within the Earth. 82 00:07:40,670 --> 00:07:43,930 It can get up to around 2 ,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 83 00:07:44,170 --> 00:07:47,710 And when it gets hot, it will melt and hot things rise. 84 00:07:47,910 --> 00:07:51,730 And so the melt from the mantle rises up toward the surface of the Earth until 85 00:07:51,730 --> 00:07:53,950 it reaches a place where it can't go up any higher. 86 00:07:54,330 --> 00:07:56,190 It sits there, and it stews and it bubbles. 87 00:07:58,570 --> 00:08:02,930 Now there's all this liquid rock bubbling away under immense pressure, 88 00:08:02,930 --> 00:08:06,250 there's gas mixed into the magma, and that makes the pressure even greater. 89 00:08:07,710 --> 00:08:09,990 Gas is always the biggest problem in volcanoes. 90 00:08:11,590 --> 00:08:16,230 And when you get enough gas collected inside a magma chamber, it will blow up. 91 00:08:20,270 --> 00:08:24,430 As the stress wave was to pass through a magma body, it could cause bubbles to 92 00:08:24,430 --> 00:08:28,370 grow as gases in that magma come out of solution, and these bubbles cause a 93 00:08:28,370 --> 00:08:30,610 massive increase in pressure in the magma body. 94 00:08:31,610 --> 00:08:36,110 Many volcanoes that have magma sitting beneath them could be pushed to the 95 00:08:36,110 --> 00:08:37,110 of eruption. 96 00:08:43,150 --> 00:08:47,330 We anticipate that within the next six months to a year, almost every major 97 00:08:47,330 --> 00:08:53,350 volcanic system is going to experience an event of a catastrophic scale. 98 00:08:54,530 --> 00:08:58,710 The key concern now is the world's super volcanoes. 99 00:08:59,230 --> 00:09:05,770 Lake Taupo in New Zealand, Lake Toba in Indonesia, Campi Flegrei in Italy, 100 00:09:05,970 --> 00:09:09,250 and here, of course, in the U .S., Yellowstone. 101 00:09:14,570 --> 00:09:19,390 A supervolcano is one that would erupt somewhere between hundreds of cubic 102 00:09:19,390 --> 00:09:23,970 or thousands of cubic kilometers of material within a short time, days to 103 00:09:24,070 --> 00:09:25,470 That's a lot of stuff. 104 00:09:28,650 --> 00:09:34,170 The explosive power of a supervolcano may be up to a thousand times the power 105 00:09:34,170 --> 00:09:36,130 the atomic bomb that was dropped in Hiroshima. 106 00:09:38,330 --> 00:09:42,750 We think there are around a dozen supervolcanoes on Earth. 107 00:09:44,090 --> 00:09:48,510 If one of them went off, that would have global effect. 108 00:09:50,270 --> 00:09:55,170 It's going to throw the world into financial and biological chaos. 109 00:09:55,470 --> 00:09:59,190 More than one super eruption would throw us back into the Stone Age. 110 00:10:01,830 --> 00:10:07,350 Our top priority now is to try and predict when these systems could erupt. 111 00:10:23,690 --> 00:10:24,690 How can we do it? 112 00:10:24,910 --> 00:10:29,230 How can we get enough inside information about a volcano to know when it will 113 00:10:29,230 --> 00:10:32,210 erupt and how big, how deadly that eruption will be? 114 00:10:32,710 --> 00:10:37,490 And these are questions we can answer by imaging the magma chamber and trying to 115 00:10:37,490 --> 00:10:39,030 understand its shape and dimensions. 116 00:10:47,410 --> 00:10:49,350 It's 236 and 237. 117 00:10:50,410 --> 00:10:53,590 But there is a brand new technology that helps us do just that. 118 00:10:54,250 --> 00:10:56,730 It's basically an MRI for volcanoes. 119 00:10:58,590 --> 00:11:02,550 It creates images using tiny particles called muons. 120 00:11:04,070 --> 00:11:08,230 Muons are subatomic particles that are created constantly in the Earth's 121 00:11:08,230 --> 00:11:11,430 atmosphere as we are bombarded with cosmic radiation from space. 122 00:11:11,990 --> 00:11:15,430 And even as we're sitting here, thousands of these muons will have been 123 00:11:15,430 --> 00:11:16,430 through my body. 124 00:11:16,750 --> 00:11:21,110 A muon detector is placed at the base of a volcano to detect the muons that are 125 00:11:21,110 --> 00:11:25,150 passing through it. And by measuring the difference in the intensity of these 126 00:11:25,150 --> 00:11:27,810 particles, we can build up a picture of what's inside the volcano. 127 00:11:29,130 --> 00:11:32,110 If you have all this information, then you have probably a very good 128 00:11:32,110 --> 00:11:35,110 understanding how close to an eruption a volcano is. 129 00:11:40,270 --> 00:11:44,970 are scrambling to retrieve reliable data on the Earth's super volcanoes as the 130 00:11:44,970 --> 00:11:49,490 world braces for a possible chain of cataclysmic eruptions in the wake of a 131 00:11:49,490 --> 00:11:51,570 collision with a subatomic black hole. 132 00:11:52,550 --> 00:11:56,610 But even as we get a clearer picture of what's churning inside the super 133 00:11:56,610 --> 00:11:59,410 volcanoes, other problems will begin to present themselves. 134 00:11:59,930 --> 00:12:05,010 The Earth keeps a lot of nasty stuff under its skin, and some of it will come 135 00:12:05,010 --> 00:12:07,130 bubbling up in waves that we can't anticipate. 136 00:12:49,100 --> 00:12:53,620 So here's what we're up against. Due to a rare cosmic phenomenon, a collision 137 00:12:53,620 --> 00:12:57,740 with a primordial black hole has agitated the Earth and shaken it up from 138 00:12:57,740 --> 00:12:58,740 inside. 139 00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:04,780 Besides causing a string of violent volcanic eruptions, this event will 140 00:13:04,780 --> 00:13:08,060 attacks from an invisible enemy known as a limnic eruption. 141 00:13:19,020 --> 00:13:24,040 A limnic eruption is essentially the eruption of a volcanic lake. 142 00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:27,020 They're extremely deadly because they're very surprising. 143 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:46,920 And what happens is you get a volcano that has a crater on top of it. 144 00:13:47,080 --> 00:13:50,900 from a previous eruption, and if it's located in an area that gets a lot of 145 00:13:50,900 --> 00:13:53,360 rainfall, that crater will fill up with water. 146 00:13:53,760 --> 00:14:00,020 If the volcano contains a magma chamber that has a lot of gas in it, the 147 00:14:00,020 --> 00:14:06,180 gas bubbles, usually carbon dioxide, will start to bubble out, and they get 148 00:14:06,180 --> 00:14:09,340 the bottom of the lake, and they will just build up there. 149 00:14:09,780 --> 00:14:13,800 This is because the pressure at the bottom of the lake is high enough that 150 00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:17,650 instead of forming bubbles and escaping into the atmosphere, the carbon dioxide 151 00:14:17,650 --> 00:14:20,030 is able to become dissolved into the lake water. 152 00:14:21,350 --> 00:14:25,870 A shock wave from inside the earth will agitate this gas -rich water like it's 153 00:14:25,870 --> 00:14:26,950 shaking a can of soda. 154 00:14:27,450 --> 00:14:31,850 Thousands of tons of gas come out of pollution and bubble right to the 155 00:14:32,770 --> 00:14:37,190 And when this is released catastrophically from the surface of the 156 00:14:37,190 --> 00:14:42,910 massive cloud of deadly CO2 can actually flow downhill, displacing the air as it 157 00:14:42,910 --> 00:14:43,879 goes. 158 00:14:43,880 --> 00:14:46,920 And anybody caught in the wake of this cloud will be suffocated. 159 00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:51,960 It will kill indiscriminately all living things that need oxygen for survival. 160 00:14:52,380 --> 00:14:55,320 The only survivors will be probably plants. 161 00:15:02,520 --> 00:15:06,840 Officials say more than 25 ,000 people are dead on the outskirts of Managua 162 00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:11,300 after an eruption of carbon dioxide from a nearby volcanic crater. Most of the 163 00:15:11,300 --> 00:15:13,360 victims were sleeping when the eruption occurred. 164 00:15:13,760 --> 00:15:14,760 and had no warning. 165 00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:18,320 Searchers are still finding bodies in otherwise undisturbed homes. 166 00:15:26,420 --> 00:15:27,020 A 167 00:15:27,020 --> 00:15:33,980 big limnic 168 00:15:33,980 --> 00:15:37,940 eruption will focus the world's attention on what's coming next, the 169 00:15:37,940 --> 00:15:42,780 volcano. Which ones are most likely to explode? And how big will those 170 00:15:42,780 --> 00:15:43,780 be? 171 00:15:47,180 --> 00:15:51,320 The way that scientists categorize the size of a volcanic eruption is using 172 00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:53,920 something called the Volcanic Explosivity Index. 173 00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:56,880 This is sort of like a Richter scale for a volcano. 174 00:16:02,620 --> 00:16:06,660 An eruption that most people in the United States are familiar with, or at 175 00:16:06,660 --> 00:16:08,740 have heard of, is the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. 176 00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:12,660 And that was a pretty destructive and phenomenal eruption. 177 00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:15,700 Around 64 people were killed by that eruption. 178 00:16:26,830 --> 00:16:32,950 So that 1980 eruption would have had a volcano explosivity index of four. 179 00:16:34,050 --> 00:16:38,830 The explosivity index of a supervolcano would be on the order of eight or nine. 180 00:16:39,010 --> 00:16:42,810 What you have to know to understand these indices is that the steps between 181 00:16:42,810 --> 00:16:47,590 numbers, so from six to seven or from four to five, it's not just one time 182 00:16:47,590 --> 00:16:49,690 larger. It is ten times larger. 183 00:16:50,270 --> 00:16:54,630 So when we're talking of a supereruption with an explosivity index of eight, 184 00:16:55,000 --> 00:16:58,600 That's 10 ,000 times bigger than a Mount St. Helens eruption. 185 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:10,339 Volcanoes don't typically erupt without showing signs of their awakening 186 00:17:10,339 --> 00:17:14,400 beforehand. It is usually possible to give a forecast that an eruption is 187 00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:15,579 becoming increasingly likely. 188 00:17:17,500 --> 00:17:21,140 Magma that is starting to fracture a path to the surface will start to break 189 00:17:21,140 --> 00:17:23,599 rock above it, and these will cause many, many earthquakes. 190 00:17:36,110 --> 00:17:39,910 As earthquakes and other warning signs of coming eruptions become more common, 191 00:17:40,070 --> 00:17:43,590 the pressure will grow on governments to take some kind of action, even 192 00:17:43,590 --> 00:17:48,470 preventive action, to somehow use human technologies to divert or defeat these 193 00:17:48,470 --> 00:17:49,470 volcanoes. 194 00:18:17,350 --> 00:18:21,230 People have tried all kinds of things to try to stop volcanic eruptions, and 195 00:18:21,230 --> 00:18:22,770 none of them have worked so far. 196 00:18:23,010 --> 00:18:27,710 Dropping a nuclear bomb in a volcano would be an extremely foolish thing to 197 00:18:27,870 --> 00:18:31,210 It is possible that you could destabilize the structure enough to 198 00:18:31,210 --> 00:18:32,210 initiate an eruption. 199 00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:42,260 A tiny black hole has collided with Earth, shaking up the planet from the 200 00:18:42,260 --> 00:18:43,260 inside. 201 00:18:44,380 --> 00:18:48,120 And now, just about every volcano on Earth is headed towards eruption. 202 00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:53,960 And a few governments, out of sheer desperation, are trying to do whatever 203 00:18:53,960 --> 00:18:55,300 can to prevent this catastrophe. 204 00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:08,540 There's really nothing humans can do to change the behavior of a volcano. 205 00:19:09,060 --> 00:19:13,640 We have no ability, zero ability to prevent an eruption. 206 00:19:14,260 --> 00:19:18,380 The only man -made device we have that even approaches the forces inside a 207 00:19:18,380 --> 00:19:19,960 volcano is a nuclear weapon. 208 00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:24,440 So if you tried to use a nuclear weapon to stop a volcanic eruption, it would 209 00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:25,440 not work. 210 00:19:37,230 --> 00:19:41,470 At best, you would hope for it to have no effect, but it is possible that you 211 00:19:41,470 --> 00:19:44,490 could destabilize the structure enough to actually initiate an eruption. 212 00:19:57,390 --> 00:20:02,290 In an ill -fated attempt to forestall a volcanic eruption, The government of 213 00:20:02,290 --> 00:20:06,270 North Korea detonated a nuclear device inside Baikdu Mountain. 214 00:20:07,270 --> 00:20:10,870 The effect was catastrophic, triggering a major eruption. 215 00:20:12,370 --> 00:20:17,130 An enormous cloud of radioactive ash and steam has enveloped the North Korean 216 00:20:17,130 --> 00:20:18,130 city of Chongjin. 217 00:20:19,430 --> 00:20:22,870 Experts say there is little hope for the city's 600 ,000 residents. 218 00:20:23,690 --> 00:20:27,290 The Russian government has ordered its fleet out of Vladivostok. 219 00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:32,360 In Japan, evacuation plans are already underway for the Kyushu Islands, where 220 00:20:32,360 --> 00:20:37,300 eruptions from two separate volcanoes could spell death for some 30 million 221 00:20:37,300 --> 00:20:38,300 citizens. 222 00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:54,180 When a volcano explodes, what you'd see is this column of dark material rising 223 00:20:54,180 --> 00:20:55,180 up into the sky. 224 00:20:55,740 --> 00:20:57,500 And that's what we call volcanic ash. 225 00:21:00,060 --> 00:21:04,060 Volcanic ash is not really ash at all. It's made of very fine particles of 226 00:21:04,060 --> 00:21:06,820 glass. It's frozen magma shards. 227 00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:10,880 It would look like a snowfall, except it's not snow, it's ash. 228 00:21:11,140 --> 00:21:14,240 It weighs a lot more than snow. It's going to cause buildings to collapse. 229 00:21:15,540 --> 00:21:17,640 It is also very damaging to engines. 230 00:21:18,220 --> 00:21:22,360 as it will clog up the air system, and in the case of airplanes, can coat the 231 00:21:22,360 --> 00:21:25,120 engines in a fine film of glass, which stops them working. 232 00:21:28,140 --> 00:21:32,740 When volcanic ash falls on power lines, it can coat these lines in a fine layer 233 00:21:32,740 --> 00:21:33,740 of volcanic dust. 234 00:21:33,980 --> 00:21:38,360 When this becomes wet, it actually becomes conductive, and this can short 235 00:21:38,360 --> 00:21:40,740 the power lines, effectively shutting down the grid. 236 00:21:44,460 --> 00:21:47,760 So now we have a giant ash cloud drifting out over East Asia. 237 00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:51,140 And volcanic ash is catastrophic for crop. 238 00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:56,740 You've ruined the food chain for that year and probably for many years in the 239 00:21:56,740 --> 00:21:57,740 future. 240 00:22:06,990 --> 00:22:10,610 If you live within a thousand miles of an eruption, your environment could be 241 00:22:10,610 --> 00:22:11,610 poisoned for years. 242 00:22:11,670 --> 00:22:14,890 The only way you can live through that kind of ash cloud is to seal yourself 243 00:22:14,890 --> 00:22:15,890 away. 244 00:22:16,250 --> 00:22:20,230 You'd have to create for yourself a closed ecosystem, a mini -world that was 245 00:22:20,230 --> 00:22:21,530 sealed off from everything else. 246 00:22:22,050 --> 00:22:24,310 The term we use for this is a biosphere. 247 00:22:24,810 --> 00:22:28,750 A biosphere is essentially something that would simulate life on Earth in a 248 00:22:28,750 --> 00:22:32,470 contained environment that might be able to keep out all that's happening on the 249 00:22:32,470 --> 00:22:36,770 planet and simulate within it all the processes necessary to keep people, 250 00:22:36,830 --> 00:22:37,950 plants, and animals alive. 251 00:22:48,650 --> 00:22:50,450 Let's get down to the bare bones of it. 252 00:22:51,030 --> 00:22:53,330 What do human beings need to thrive? 253 00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:56,960 Air, water, food, shelter. 254 00:22:57,740 --> 00:23:02,720 People have been working on biospheres for actually several decades or longer. 255 00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:08,460 The idea being the self -contained unit totally sealed, grow its own food, its 256 00:23:08,460 --> 00:23:13,260 own medicine. It could live without any contact in the outside world. 257 00:23:13,780 --> 00:23:17,680 Can we do this? Can we build a completely enclosed world? 258 00:23:18,340 --> 00:23:20,160 It might be our only hope. 259 00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:21,620 Just like that. 260 00:23:22,350 --> 00:23:24,450 And our whole world changed. 261 00:23:25,050 --> 00:23:29,830 And there's not a place on this planet you can hide from it. 262 00:23:31,470 --> 00:23:32,690 Or maybe there is. 263 00:23:33,870 --> 00:23:37,710 Maybe there's a safe place, a safe haven. 264 00:23:43,820 --> 00:23:46,820 The question is, who would fund the biosphere? 265 00:23:47,020 --> 00:23:51,580 It could be the government, but it could also be a billionaire who has the 266 00:23:51,580 --> 00:23:56,700 wisdom and the monetary wherewithal to say, you know what, let's do this. 267 00:23:56,940 --> 00:24:01,020 When the volcanism crisis hit, I had a vision. 268 00:24:01,940 --> 00:24:03,620 A vision of a new world. 269 00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:12,200 In a habitat like safe haven, you have to choose your food supply carefully to 270 00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:15,080 maximize the nutrition you get for the space you have available. 271 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:18,700 Ultimately, you might have to think about limiting the population because 272 00:24:18,700 --> 00:24:21,020 everyone has to eat. Now, this isn't surviving. 273 00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:22,960 This is living. 274 00:24:25,740 --> 00:24:29,980 Any biosphere we'd want to construct would have to be built very quickly, and 275 00:24:29,980 --> 00:24:33,840 we'd have to get them up and running on a very short timetable. Within a few 276 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:34,840 months, really. 277 00:24:35,630 --> 00:24:38,050 The volcanoes won't give us very much time to spare. 278 00:24:38,270 --> 00:24:41,530 When they go off, every life on the planet will be in danger. 279 00:24:46,950 --> 00:24:48,550 The Earth is in crisis. 280 00:24:49,130 --> 00:24:53,710 A tiny black hole has punched through the planet and shaken up every volcano. 281 00:24:55,570 --> 00:25:01,950 Now, the U .S. has its fair share of volcanoes, especially in the West. But 282 00:25:01,950 --> 00:25:04,770 crisis like this, all eyes will turn to one place. 283 00:25:05,210 --> 00:25:06,210 Yellowstone. 284 00:25:32,450 --> 00:25:36,630 Yellowstone Park lies above a huge body of magma that has been accumulating in 285 00:25:36,630 --> 00:25:39,190 the Earth's crust at a depth of about 5 to 6 miles. 286 00:25:39,710 --> 00:25:45,590 And this vast area of magma is about 25 to 50 miles across and could be 287 00:25:45,590 --> 00:25:48,230 considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes on the Earth today. 288 00:25:51,630 --> 00:25:56,470 Every time something wiggles or breathes or moves on Yellowstone, we're on it. 289 00:25:56,840 --> 00:26:00,580 We've never seen Yellowstone erupt. We don't know what its signals are. So 290 00:26:00,580 --> 00:26:05,440 watching very, very carefully in the hopes that we would be able to identify 291 00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:06,800 signal of a big eruption. 292 00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:09,400 We've got to get out of here. 293 00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:21,240 Now, after weeks of waiting, warning signs of eruption have been detected at 294 00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:23,820 America's biggest supervolcano, Yellowstone. 295 00:26:27,690 --> 00:26:32,570 Think of the worst disaster you've ever experienced or read about. 296 00:26:36,270 --> 00:26:39,510 Yellowstone going off would make those look like a walk in the park. 297 00:26:41,270 --> 00:26:45,590 Millions of Americans across eight states from the Central West are now 298 00:26:45,710 --> 00:26:49,810 hoping to put some distance between themselves and the volcanic catastrophe 299 00:26:49,810 --> 00:26:51,670 may be coming within the next few days. 300 00:26:51,990 --> 00:26:55,570 The Department of the Interior changed the status of the pre -eruption 301 00:26:55,570 --> 00:26:56,570 evacuation 302 00:26:57,640 --> 00:26:58,640 to mandatory. 303 00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:02,960 Come on in. Welcome to Safe Haven. 304 00:27:03,260 --> 00:27:04,260 Hello, sweetheart. 305 00:27:04,380 --> 00:27:05,219 Head on through. 306 00:27:05,220 --> 00:27:07,480 At a certain point, the clock is just going to run out. 307 00:27:07,820 --> 00:27:11,560 There will be no time left to build anything or come up with a new idea. The 308 00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,520 solutions we put in place are the solutions we're going to live with. 309 00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,460 Even if there are still problems and rough edges. 310 00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:22,460 Communities like Safe Haven will be available only to those few people who 311 00:27:22,460 --> 00:27:25,960 buy their way in. But what about the rest of us? What about the 99 %? 312 00:27:39,050 --> 00:27:43,170 In this scenario, there's really only one thing the government can do, 313 00:27:47,470 --> 00:27:52,750 Many people will decide not to evacuate or not to evacuate until it's almost too 314 00:27:52,750 --> 00:27:57,730 late. If you saved all your life to buy a house and you know that you're going 315 00:27:57,730 --> 00:28:02,090 to lose that house, the decision to evacuate or to follow the order might 316 00:28:02,090 --> 00:28:03,410 as simple as we think. 317 00:28:03,670 --> 00:28:07,570 Sir, this is a class one high risk volcanic zone. 318 00:28:08,010 --> 00:28:09,010 I'm not moving from here. 319 00:28:09,670 --> 00:28:12,210 People are enormously attached to place. 320 00:28:12,470 --> 00:28:17,250 We don't totally understand it. What you don't understand is in a week, this 321 00:28:17,250 --> 00:28:20,530 house will not be here. You will be dead. 322 00:28:20,750 --> 00:28:22,330 It is so strong. 323 00:28:22,730 --> 00:28:24,030 First place, they won't leave. 324 00:28:24,690 --> 00:28:26,570 Secondly, they will try to go back. 325 00:28:27,450 --> 00:28:31,010 The fact is, human beings are as unpredictable as volcanoes are. 326 00:28:36,970 --> 00:28:40,230 When Mount St. Helens was about to erupt, some people chose to stay. 327 00:28:40,510 --> 00:28:44,050 The government had no system, no protocol for forcing them to evacuate. 328 00:28:44,490 --> 00:28:47,330 You don't mind working in the shadow of the mountain, then? No, not at all. 329 00:28:48,270 --> 00:28:49,610 There's nothing to be scared of. 330 00:28:52,870 --> 00:28:55,050 A fair number of those people who stayed died. 331 00:29:00,550 --> 00:29:03,870 Most people, I think, in the world are used to the fact that the government has 332 00:29:03,870 --> 00:29:06,190 not saved them and does not do much for them. 333 00:29:07,630 --> 00:29:10,730 In this scenario, I think a lot of people would look for their own 334 00:29:10,950 --> 00:29:14,670 however improvised those solutions might be. 335 00:29:32,270 --> 00:29:36,730 An average adult requires about 1 .1 million calories annually to survive. 336 00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:44,720 So it's possible to scrounge up enough food to last for decades, but that's a 337 00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:45,720 lot of scrounging. 338 00:29:58,840 --> 00:29:59,840 Hey, Dad! 339 00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,660 The world's landscape is sprinkled with infrastructure that can in a pinch. 340 00:30:09,020 --> 00:30:10,800 be used as improvised biospheres. 341 00:30:11,500 --> 00:30:17,760 There are fallout shelters, grain silos, industrial buildings. A lot of concrete 342 00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:19,440 has been poured in the last 50 years. 343 00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:23,220 And I think this is where everyday people in small groups would try to 344 00:30:23,220 --> 00:30:24,220 their lives. 345 00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:44,520 If you could find a livable space underground with breathable air that has 346 00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:48,960 ash in it, drinkable water and a food supply, you could last a very long time. 347 00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,240 And you might need to be prepared to wait 20 or 30 years. 348 00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:57,960 The main caldera is heaving at an incredible rate. 349 00:30:58,340 --> 00:31:00,360 Yellowstone is going into full eruption. 350 00:31:00,620 --> 00:31:04,820 If you are within range of this broadcast, take shelter as quickly as 351 00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:09,280 We have no way of knowing how long this will last or how bad it's going to get. 352 00:31:29,230 --> 00:31:33,510 It's being called the beginning of the... The Yellowstone caldera has 353 00:31:33,550 --> 00:31:38,170 and a national state of emergency has been declared in the U .S. Assistance 354 00:31:38,170 --> 00:31:42,290 coming in, ranging from medical assistance to technical assistance. 355 00:31:48,170 --> 00:31:55,170 If Yellowstone were to go off, 356 00:31:55,210 --> 00:31:56,210 what would we experience? 357 00:31:56,570 --> 00:31:57,830 Well, within... 358 00:31:58,220 --> 00:32:03,300 A hundred to a thousand miles of Yellowstone, there would be blankets of 359 00:32:03,540 --> 00:32:05,260 meters, yards deep. 360 00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:15,740 It would block out the daylight for a few days in the western U .S. Anybody 361 00:32:15,740 --> 00:32:17,900 living within a couple hundred miles, dead. 362 00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:25,460 Then those particles would be carried towards the east coast. 363 00:32:27,370 --> 00:32:31,530 And most likely they'd make it all the way to the big cities along the eastern 364 00:32:31,530 --> 00:32:33,790 seaboard and even across the Atlantic. 365 00:32:37,950 --> 00:32:42,150 If you had billions of these ash particles rubbing against each other in 366 00:32:42,150 --> 00:32:44,750 atmosphere, that's generating a lot of static electricity. 367 00:32:45,070 --> 00:32:49,310 And so you could have the potential for an electromagnetic pull. 368 00:32:51,830 --> 00:32:56,510 That's a big relief of electric or magnetic energy. 369 00:32:58,620 --> 00:32:59,620 That's bad news. 370 00:33:00,380 --> 00:33:02,840 Computers don't like electromagnetic pulses. 371 00:33:04,180 --> 00:33:09,640 We are so integrated into our cell phones and the Internet, and that will 372 00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:10,640 gone. 373 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:16,600 People will freak out. I mean, I think there's going to be mass hysteria 374 00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:17,960 there will be no way to communicate. 375 00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,840 In a crisis like this, there will be very few places in North America where 376 00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,100 drinking water won't be contaminated by ash. 377 00:33:28,460 --> 00:33:32,700 At this point, by simply breathing, you'll be inhaling pulverized ash 378 00:33:32,700 --> 00:33:33,700 into your lungs. 379 00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:42,440 We will be inhaling huge amounts of quartz crystals, or you can look at them 380 00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:47,800 being glass shards, which will penetrate the lung tissue and stick to it. 381 00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:50,780 We will develop a disease called silicosis. 382 00:33:51,420 --> 00:33:56,380 And its most acute form, acute silicosis, is a very deadly disease with 383 00:33:56,380 --> 00:33:57,380 high mortality. 384 00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:15,020 Yellowstone will deal a devastating blow to the U .S. population and will 385 00:34:15,020 --> 00:34:16,840 threaten the survival of the U .S. government. 386 00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:19,360 We would need... 387 00:34:20,110 --> 00:34:24,969 A lot of help from other countries to get us through that. We would need 388 00:34:24,969 --> 00:34:27,630 resources, food, fresh water. 389 00:34:28,030 --> 00:34:33,070 There aren't too many other sources in the world that could help feed and water 390 00:34:33,070 --> 00:34:34,969 the population of the United States. 391 00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,560 The United States government appealed to the European Union for disaster relief. 392 00:34:44,500 --> 00:34:48,699 Super eruptions of the Yellowstone and Vales Calderas have paralyzed the 393 00:34:48,699 --> 00:34:49,900 American West and northern Mexico. 394 00:34:50,590 --> 00:34:54,870 Fighting has been reported in the port of Oakland as desperate mobs have tried 395 00:34:54,870 --> 00:34:59,010 to commandeer merchant vessels to escape the Bay Area by sea. But the EU has 396 00:34:59,010 --> 00:35:00,010 delayed its reply. 397 00:35:00,070 --> 00:35:02,490 They are nervously eyeing their own supervolcano. 398 00:35:03,810 --> 00:35:08,670 Mites in Europe could be extinguished by one system alone, the copy of Flegretti 399 00:35:08,670 --> 00:35:09,810 Caldera near Naples. 400 00:35:18,990 --> 00:35:22,870 Many people are familiar with Vesuvius on the west coast of Italy, and this 401 00:35:22,870 --> 00:35:26,650 volcano famously produced the eruption that destroyed the Roman town of 402 00:35:29,450 --> 00:35:33,850 However, the Bay of Naples itself is actually a giant volcanic caldera called 403 00:35:33,850 --> 00:35:38,410 Campi Flegrei. This is capable of producing eruptions far in excess of the 404 00:35:38,410 --> 00:35:40,250 of activity that we've seen from Vesuvius. 405 00:35:42,290 --> 00:35:48,230 When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, it killed thousands of people. The main 406 00:35:48,620 --> 00:35:53,040 from this volcano is something we call a pyroclastic flow. 407 00:35:54,920 --> 00:36:00,760 A pyroclastic flow is a red -hot mixture of volcanic ash and gas that travels 408 00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:05,620 across the land at several hundreds of miles per hour and can travel tens to 409 00:36:05,620 --> 00:36:06,760 hundreds of miles distant. 410 00:36:09,790 --> 00:36:13,250 Extremely hot, up to about 1 ,500 degrees Fahrenheit. 411 00:36:13,530 --> 00:36:17,250 One breath would really be all it would take. You inhale something that hot, 412 00:36:17,330 --> 00:36:20,150 it's going to burn your lungs, and when your lungs are burned, they don't work. 413 00:36:22,190 --> 00:36:26,310 If you can see a pyroplastic flow coming, it is very likely that you're 414 00:36:26,310 --> 00:36:29,470 to get out of its way. They literally obliterate everything in their path. 415 00:36:29,770 --> 00:36:31,530 You stand no chance of survival. 416 00:36:32,110 --> 00:36:33,630 Oh, my God! 417 00:36:34,610 --> 00:36:38,870 And what happens in the case of Campi Flagelli, actually, is that people live. 418 00:36:39,450 --> 00:36:40,890 inside the caldera. 419 00:36:42,730 --> 00:36:44,670 It's going to be an enormous eruption. 420 00:36:45,910 --> 00:36:49,810 If Campi Flegrei were to erupt, it would be a lot worse than Vesuvius. 421 00:37:04,530 --> 00:37:07,270 Once Yellowstone and Campi Flegrei have erupted, 422 00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,720 It's just a matter of time before the other supervolcanoes erupt. 423 00:37:22,740 --> 00:37:26,420 And that will be the ultimate test of all our preparations for survival. 424 00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:46,280 When the clock finally ticks down and the supervolcano starts to erupt, that's 425 00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,100 when our worst nightmares become real. 426 00:37:48,460 --> 00:37:51,320 We're facing a real -life hell on earth. 427 00:37:52,460 --> 00:37:58,800 Naples, Italy has been ravaged by the eruption of the Campi Flegrei caldera. 428 00:37:59,660 --> 00:38:04,480 100 ,000 residents are feared dead in the grim echo of the destruction of 429 00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:09,080 Pompeii 2 ,000 years ago. Only the far -sighted evacuation of the city 430 00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:10,320 a more chilling disaster. 431 00:38:12,060 --> 00:38:16,000 That will be the end of one chapter of life on Earth and the beginning of the 432 00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:16,779 next one. 433 00:38:16,780 --> 00:38:18,100 Agriculture will collapse. 434 00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:20,480 Industry will collapse. 435 00:38:21,740 --> 00:38:24,520 And in all likelihood, governments will collapse. 436 00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:33,580 Wildcat Station, New York. If you are in range of this broadcast, stay away. 437 00:38:33,900 --> 00:38:35,640 The city is deserted. 438 00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:39,700 The ash from Iceland and Greenland is six feet deep. 439 00:38:39,900 --> 00:38:41,660 The refugee trail points south. 440 00:38:41,860 --> 00:38:44,680 They say North Carolina is still pretty clear. 441 00:38:46,780 --> 00:38:48,500 We're talking about mass migration. 442 00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:52,700 Even when there are very few options, people are survivors. They're fighters. 443 00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,640 And we'll keep moving, keep hunting for a place that isn't yet poisoned. 444 00:38:56,980 --> 00:38:58,540 A place where we can breathe. 445 00:38:58,940 --> 00:38:59,940 find food. 446 00:39:00,140 --> 00:39:04,860 But volcanoes have yet another lethal trick, and that's the sulfur gas they 447 00:39:04,860 --> 00:39:06,640 eject miles up into the stratosphere. 448 00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:21,000 Sulfur is a very nasty gas in terms of how it affects people and the Earth's 449 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:22,000 climate. 450 00:39:22,380 --> 00:39:26,820 Sulfur can combine with oxygen and water in the atmosphere and create sulfuric 451 00:39:26,820 --> 00:39:30,700 acid. It can also create these little aerosol droplets, little microscopic 452 00:39:30,700 --> 00:39:36,400 droplets. They actually block the incoming solar energy, so the sun's 453 00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,160 never gets to the surface, and instead it bounces back off the top of this 454 00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:41,160 aerosol layer. 455 00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,720 Volcanoes can cause global cooling. 456 00:39:44,780 --> 00:39:49,100 It's called volcanic winter, and Earth is going to become an extremely hostile 457 00:39:49,100 --> 00:39:50,100 place to live. 458 00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:56,380 So plants will die, animals will die, and people will die. 459 00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,860 Most of the life on the surface of this planet as we know it would go extinct. 460 00:40:03,140 --> 00:40:04,640 It just simply will die. 461 00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:15,520 So who will survive? 462 00:40:16,700 --> 00:40:19,000 There's a small percentage who bought their way to safety. 463 00:40:19,670 --> 00:40:21,370 But they're not as safe as they may think. 464 00:40:21,670 --> 00:40:23,170 Some of them won't make it either. 465 00:40:24,030 --> 00:40:25,030 Remember, 466 00:40:26,750 --> 00:40:30,810 the most important lesson we have in self -enclosed living is that it's 467 00:40:30,810 --> 00:40:32,810 unstable because humans are unstable. 468 00:40:34,190 --> 00:40:39,410 In the famous Biosphere 2 experiment in Arizona in 1991, the participants turned 469 00:40:39,410 --> 00:40:40,410 on each other. 470 00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:54,400 I cannot imagine that you're going to have the optimum mix of 471 00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:58,600 personality types in a circumstance like this, where you have a lot of people 472 00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,240 who are just there because they can buy their way in. I think for a while, the 473 00:41:02,240 --> 00:41:04,120 survival instinct is going to be pretty high. 474 00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:06,900 But over time, you know, we're people. 475 00:41:07,180 --> 00:41:11,590 The conflict... and things that arise whenever you have people around would be 476 00:41:11,590 --> 00:41:12,590 really, really tough. 477 00:41:13,550 --> 00:41:16,490 You step off now, or I'll step off. 478 00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:40,540 In Biosphere 2, they experienced a fairly rapid decline in the oxygen level 479 00:41:40,540 --> 00:41:43,240 within the life support system, within the dome. 480 00:41:44,260 --> 00:41:48,280 There was some unexpected chemistry happening because of the type of 481 00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:52,700 they used to build the structure that was keeping basically the closed -loop 482 00:41:52,700 --> 00:41:57,620 life support system from being able to get the oxygen back into the air from 483 00:41:57,620 --> 00:42:00,380 carbon dioxide that the animals and the people were exhaling. 484 00:42:00,980 --> 00:42:05,400 And those are the kinds of things that six months, eight months, Eight years 485 00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:10,060 into the survival of whoever's inside are going to make a big difference as to 486 00:42:10,060 --> 00:42:11,000 whether they live or die 487 00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:19,940 If 488 00:42:19,940 --> 00:42:28,780 you 489 00:42:28,780 --> 00:42:34,350 looked out 30 years after such an event you'd see basically a barren world. 490 00:42:35,010 --> 00:42:41,790 Animals would be virtually all dead. The organisms that would sustain themselves 491 00:42:41,790 --> 00:42:45,930 through such a process most likely will be marine organisms. 492 00:42:46,490 --> 00:42:49,010 The world we know would be gone. 493 00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,640 To think of a few scrappy people surviving, I think it's highly likely. 494 00:43:09,900 --> 00:43:14,220 If you've got hundreds of millions of people, there are going to be a few, and 495 00:43:14,220 --> 00:43:18,120 mean a very few, that might be able to make it through this by basically living 496 00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:19,720 off whatever survives around them. 497 00:43:21,940 --> 00:43:24,940 Life on this planet has gone through many phases. 498 00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,860 Dinosaurs were here for 100 million years before they went extinct. 499 00:43:29,500 --> 00:43:32,600 Humans have only been around for a very short period of time. 500 00:43:33,020 --> 00:43:34,320 But we're kind of different. 501 00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:40,380 Our ability to manipulate the world around ourselves, to find ways to 502 00:43:40,380 --> 00:43:44,160 environments that wouldn't naturally support us, are really incredible. 503 00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:49,800 Even in the face of something so cataclysmic, possibility exists for our 504 00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:51,160 survival and our future.