Volcanoes: Agents of Chaos or Planet Builders?

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In this Season 11 finale of Wildly Curious, Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole blow the lid off volcanoes—literally and figuratively. From earth-shaking eruptions and blue lava to the creation of entirely new islands, this episode dives into the molten madness of how volcanoes destroy, preserve, and even give life.

🌋 What exactly is a volcano?
🌎 Why do they erupt, and where can you find them?
⚡️ What’s up with volcanic lightning, blue lava, and weather eruptions?
🌱 And how do these fiery monsters build ecosystems in their wake?

Plus, the duo kicks off a new miniseries: all things found in volcanoes—from fossilized creatures to ancient civilizations.

👉 This episode is your launch point into that deep, explosive world.

Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to Wildly Curious, a podcast that tells you everything you need to know about nature, and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura.

Katy: And I'm Katy, and today is the Season 11 finale, which is crazy. And we're gonna talk about volcanoes on

Laura: a hot note. right? 

Katy: But we're gonna talk about volcanoes and the surprising things they've made. Buried and accidentally. Made a little bit cooler. 

So, so some things. Some

Laura: some positives. Yeah, there's like a lot of good about volcanoes and a lot of terrible things.

Katy: and a lot of really horrible things. So this is kind of like the kickoff to the season break. So like we said, this is the, the, this finale episode. And then just like we did, when, what was it? Was it ca? Yeah, the caves was the last break, and then we did kind of bogs and stuff. And so this is gonna be the break.

'cause I was like, okay, caves. All right. Fog, what, what else things can we find in other things? Volcano. So for this [00:01:00] episode then we're gonna do just a very basic, broad overview of what a volcano is. What do they do?

Because everybody I think, knows what a volcano

Laura: Yeah. At your core, you've seen a volcano in a picture, , it explodes. And to stay away from that lava, like

Katy: but like third grade science was a long time ago. So we're gonna just give a very brief overview and then in those mini episodes we're gonna cover a variety of subjects just like we did with caves, just like we did with bogs of, I'm gonna pick some, Laura's gonna pick some and it's just gonna be scattered of things found in near around anything related to just volcanoes.

Laura: has already come up in past episodes, guys, like actually quite a bit. Remember in our, how earth formed EPIs. And then just in the dinosaur one we did recently where I was talking about the dinosaur equivalent of Pompeii, where they found all those things, the, all the skeletons and fossils.

Katy: Yeah. Yep. So without further waiting, nature News.

Laura: [00:02:00] yeah, the dire wolf thing.

Katy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gosh,

Laura: weigh in on it because everybody's talking about it these

Katy: Everybody's talking about it.

Laura: if you haven't heard, because your head is under our rock, they have, they, they've claimed

Katy: that you're buried in this. No. Your head is under a rock and not

Laura: that's not a saying. I just made it.

Katy: It's now my new saying.

Laura: What you're head under a rock?

Katy: Yeah. It's so specific. You don't live under a rock, just your head is under a rock.

Laura: the two. Yikes. But that they, the claim is that they have resurrected the dire wolf and Ah,

Katy: De

Laura: yeah. Right. That it's back and it is what it was. But I feel there needs to be com real quick, we'll clarify and then me and Katy can each give our opinion if they're even different.

But basically. It is not exactly how it

Katy: De extinct.

Laura: Because it is not a dire wolf per se, [00:03:00] because a like de extincting

Katy: a hundred percent

Laura: it would be a clone, right? It would just be you have found the DNA, you cloned it, and now you've got a new one. This is the closest they can come because what they found from dire wolves is two deteriorated DNAY.

So they just gotta extrapolate and figure it out. So they decided, they found some gray wolves. They went into the embryos and they messed around with the DNA to make certain tweaks that would make these gray wolves more similar to a dire wolf. So

Katy: so essentially, essentially, essentially they had let's say if you have a total of 10 pieces, all right, it makes up like a DNA we have of the dire wolf. We had max two, three pieces of that DNA. The rest of it is still gray wolves.

Laura: So some people are like, well, but it is now a dire wolf. And some people are like, no, it's just a genetically modified gray wolf, which is the side that I'm on. It's cool.

Katy: I think it's, I think it's really neat. I think where Colossal could be doing [00:04:00] better is they do, 'cause again, I'm in Texas here, they're right, they're not far from me. They're doing some really, really, really awesome stuff. That they're not talking enough about. Now, of course, whenever you bust out headlines like de extinct animals, this is what the media's gonna catch hold of.

I get that. But they're doing a lot of really awesome stuff with genetic variation to, to help populations within species. So they're doing a lot of really cool conservation based things that unfortunately hasn't caught quite, caught the same media attention, like I said. And they're doing some other things too that.

That they're basically, how can I say this? They're like. S yes, they're getting big donors to do this stuff, which again, there's another controversy there. People are like, can't that money go towards conservation efforts now? They are doing a lot of stuff with conservation. They are doing a lot of stuff with, a variety that they did something with frogs, here in Texas.

Like they are doing a lot with conservation. It just happens to be, this is what caught the news, but they're doing, and they're selling a lot of patents and [00:05:00] things. To subsidize that income. 'cause they have people and staff and everything like that. So they're doing a lot of really good and cool things that haven't kind of caught, when they haven't,, been talking enough about, because of course.

Hey, we brought back, 

Laura: Well, right,

Katy: lot catchier for media.

Laura: Plus because of Game of Thrones and the fact that George R. Martin did donate and all this kinds of stuff, but at least, so they've tried this in the past with tweaking some genes and usually the babies die pretty quickly. These at least, have survived at least six months. So that's a good sign.

So we have yet to see what they're gonna look like. 'cause adults, they have in the past, not this company necessarily, but we have brought an animal back from Extinction. It was just extinct five years before that. So because we have the that DNA in pristine condition. We can bring things back, like we could bring white rhinos back if we wanted to in, or whatever.

There are some animals that we could bring back. Right now it's just cool to think about animals from a long time ago.

Katy: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, and I think, again, like I said, the science behind what they [00:06:00] did is really, really awesome. I think them being able to prove that they could do it, I think in their messaging, if they would've been, yes, it wouldn't have been as catchy, but I. A little bit more forward with okay, this is not actually a full de-extinction, but explain what was going on.

I don't think there would've been as well, but again, it's hindsight's f 2020, you could, they would've, caught onto to something else, but they were doing a lot of really cool things with conservation. , and they talk about it on their website. If you guys go check out their websites class or biosciences, go check 'em out.

They're doing some cool things. They did just catch a lot of heat because people are like, you brought this back. What about everything else guys? They are doing a lot of

Laura: What about everything else? Get on it. Also though, there are some things we absolutely should not bring back. People like there's,

Katy: Well, not only, but they're saying like things now that everybody's oh, well, why can't you take all that billions and billions of dollars?

Listen, the, some of their biggest donors are wealthy, multimillionaires, billionaires. Listen guys, they're not gonna donate to [00:07:00] save, some random, they want to donate to do this. All right. Exactly. They have their own agendas, which are gonna be the big what are they gonna be the big stories so that they can get their name on those

Laura: a hundred percent. Yeah.

Katy: Yeah, so what Colossal does is that yes, they are doing that thing to satisfy the donors, but then they're doing a bunch of other smaller, like really cool things. Because they gotta make other money somehow. They can't completely rely on just these donors. So, you know, they're, they're, they're getting there.

I mean, they're really one of the few companies here in the States that's doing something like this. And so I think they're gonna continue to evolve and, trial and error as far as from, because I see it from a science communication side of course. And so I see, you know, this is a big thing, the first big thing that they did, and hopefully next time when they roll out something, they'll tweak their story and storytelling a little bit.

So we'll see. I think it's neat. I think they could have rolled out the communication of it a little bit differently. But again, anytime we roll out something that's this big and controversial, you're gonna have people that are gonna. Slice and [00:08:00] dice it no matter

Laura: I am really excited to see what they look like when they grow up. 

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: or will the muscle like will, how different will their structure be? Or will they

Katy: 'cause I saw that,

Laura: Yeah,

Katy: but I saw that no, I think it's gonna look like a giant wolf because I saw the actual percentage of dire wolf in there is so minimal. I use the example of 10 and it's two outta three. No, it's like way less than that. It's one 10000th. I think Dyer was so it's 

very, very small. So it's gonna look like a, a gray wolf is, this is my prediction anyway, but again, the CRISPR technology they're using, like what they're doing, the implications that it can have for other things nowadays is huge. But guys, you gotta get

Laura: DNA is pretty incredible. I mean, dot some terrifying repercussions too, but also really like some amazing ones.

Katy: Yeah, but you gotta, you, the reality is you gotta get funding somehow. Like they're not just. You know what I mean? Look at what's happening with the government that's slicing and noying everything. You're not gonna get government funding from this. You gotta bring in money [00:09:00] somehow, and it's gonna be through the de-extinction, but they're doing a lot of awesome things and other things.

So hopefully they'll just, this will maybe bring to light some of those other things that they're doing maybe, because it is, it is really cool. But, so yeah. Nature News aliens are still around in case anyone's wondering, .

Laura: Volcanoes.

Katy: Yeah, let's talk about volcano. So just like we do with everything else, Laura and I are just gonna bounce back and forth here, and go over, I'm gonna talk about what a volcano is and we're just gonna break it down, like I said, bounce back and forth.

Laura: Nothing too heavy.

Katy: no, no, this one pretty, pretty, again, third grade science class, if you go way back to then. I don't even remember who my third grade teacher is, but let's start with the obvious question. What even is a volcano? At its core, a volcano is a crack in the earth where molten rock, gas, and ash escape from the inside of the planet.

Laura: It's a

Katy: Simply put, that's [00:10:00] basically it. It's earth's pressure release valve when things get a little too heated. Under the Earth's crust, and literally when it gets too heated, the pressure builds until it finds a weak spot to steam, pop it out lava, and in some cases just explosions. But volcanoes definitely aren't just random holes that are shooting fire.

They're built sometimes very, very slowly, sometimes very explosively by the very material that they eject the lava. When you look at one, you're seeing, of course not just the mountain, but the history of eruptions over time, layer by layer. It's kind of like a geology version of a child's tempered tantrum scrapbook.

Does that make sense?

Laura: Kind of,

Katy: I dunno

Laura: but yeah, I mean, you can see the past story looking at the

Katy: Of it just freaking out and it just being a layered.

Laura: and skinny and then you can see where they [00:11:00] exploded off one side or like the craters that they leave behind or

Katy: Yeah, so it's really cool. So what are the parts of the volcano? So deep below the earth's surface, you're gonna have the magma chamber again. I feel like this picture that back in third grade drawing of a volcano, you have all right, magma chamber, which is the Bolton Rock Reservoir down below the earth's crust, and that magma travels up through the conduit or the main vent, like the chimney of it.

If it erupts, that magma becomes lava. And depending on how explosive things get, you also might see volcanic gases, ash clouds, and chunk of rock blasted into the sky. And I'll go over a few examples later on. So at the top of that, volcano is a crater, which may or may not be perfectly centered, like Laura said, depending on how dramatic the last eruption was.

And not all volcanoes are exactly the same. And their shape definitely tells you a lot about what to expect if they erupt. So there's, I'm very quickly you're gonna talk about three different types. There's [00:12:00] the strato volcanoes, which are your classic cone shaped giants. The tall, pointy, little kind of like scary.

Yeah. The typical volcano. So they are the ones that typically go. Boom, quickly. So you think of your Mount Fuji. Mount St. Helen's is a huge one here in the States. Or in the Disney's a lava U short.

Laura: dude, AOR used to watch that on repeat. Like on

Katy: it is So, it is so good. I could, I don't know if I can handle it on a repeat, but if you guys have not seen that Disney Shore of I Lava U it's so good.

, but these ones typically they pack the powerful punch that you won't forget about. And these are typically the big ones that make the news. Shield volcanoes are very wide and low. They're like giant lava pancakes, essentially. They, they don't explode as much as they like, I hate the word ooze, but

Laura: Ew. Yeah. Yeah, because I just keep thinking, I mean, volcanoes are just like the pimples of earth. So yeah. Now I'm just thinking an

Katy: Ew. [00:13:00] Yeah. Yeah. Ugh. But it's so

Laura: It's true.

Katy: but. It is. No, it is. But yes, think of a lot of the ones in Hawaii that they're massive, but they kind of erupt a little bit of slow and steady of eruption here. Uh, uh and then there are cinder cones. These are the short stack ones. They're like, I don't know. I had really good other examples for other ones, like a speed bump of a volcano. It's smaller, it's, it's steeper. It's made of a lot of loose rocks and usually formed from one single dramatic eruption.

So whenever we say volcano, we're talking about the whole spectrum of all of these different things. , and as destructive as they can be, volcanoes are actually incredibly structured for what they do. It might seem like it's [00:14:00] haphazardly done, but it's really not. So they're messy on the outside of what we see, but inside there is a whole system, a process.

There's a design. There's. Yeah, there's a whole reason behind why these things are, they're not just explosion. They're doing a lot of really cool things with earth that are just seem very dramatic, but there's actually rhythm and rhyme behind it.

Laura: Yeah,

Katy: So yeah, that's what a at, at its essence, that's very scratch the surface of what a volcano is.

Laura: Well, and, and that leads directly into mine, which is where can you find them? And so, like Katy was saying, it seems a volcano is the essence of chaos, right? Like a tornado kind of, it's just all, you don't even know it could erupted any second. Could be now, it could be in a couple thousand years, who knows?

But there are certain, not rules that volcanoes follow, but kind of.

Katy: But kind of, yeah,

Laura: and one of them , is where you can even find them. 'cause volcanoes don't usually just pop up out of nowhere typically.

Katy: typically,

Laura: so[00:15:00] 

Katy: which is also terrifying to think about. If it

Laura: 'cause they can be, but it's not

Katy: it typically just, it typically forms and it's predictable, but it's also science and there's always those rule breakers out there, so it's huh. Yeah.

Laura: What, which, when we talked about the early earth and the formation of Earth and like the geology at its core, like the story of volcanoes is the story of how earth forms, it's constantly melting, breaking down, forming. , it's the process of rocks, like the whole thing.

So if you think about earth, so plate tectonics, I remember specifically having to write a paper on this to get into my ninth grade advanced earth system science.

Katy: Ugh. I'm

Laura: Got this. I had to write it over the summer, like it was like a summer assignment.

Katy: Oh man,

Laura: Nerdy Lara was like, I got it.

Katy: I got this. Yeah.

Laura: But, plate tectonics real quick is just imagine that the earth is just, , it's a liquid ball and it's just covered in little tiny plates.

I think of it like ice on top of a [00:16:00] lake that's been cracked into pieces.

Katy: yeah. That's a good,

Laura: so like things are constantly shifting on, essentially a liquid. We never feel it moving except for when there's earthquakes. But they are always moving. And so these plates, some of them are running into each other.

Some of them are ripping apart from each other, and some of them are just cruising by each other, making friction. So where do you find the volcanoes in two specifically of those spots? When. When plates converge, okay, come together. You can have a couple of things happen, but one of what the things that happens is that one plate goes underneath of another plate.

Those of you who are watching this on YouTube will have an advantage because you can see my gestures. So one plate goes under another plate, and this is called a subduction zone, where the plate goes underneath. So this plate's going underneath. This plate's kind of rising a little bit, but not a lot really.

As this goes down, it's just melting into more magma. So it's just disappearing. It's not it's totally [00:17:00] likes shoving the other one up, but this process is causing a lot of heat and a lot of friction. And this is where a lot of the classic volcanoes form at this subduction zone, because it's just this.

Constant friction and collision. One is just sinking underneath of another one. So this is where a lot of mountain ranges form, because again, you got two things collide. Something's gotta happen. Usually something goes up. So like the Andes Mountains and things like that. But. So if you're at the edge of a plate, which you can look up online, am I at the edge of a plate?

Well, probably you're around volcanoes, but it's because one's going under another, or the other one that can happen a lot is when they diverge. So when these plates are pulling apart from each other. New stuff. It's just creating a void and new stuff has to be made so it's getting thinner, thinner, thinner, thinner, thinner.

So that's letting the magma come up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. And then it just starts kind of oozing out that top right and creating more and more. So it's creating these mid ocean ridges, because [00:18:00] typically where this is happening is. Under the water. Thankfully it's not just happening on land. But it's rip.

The oceans are slowly, right? The oceans are slowly ripping apart, and terrifying. And then new stuff is coming up and forming new land underwater. So in the Mid-Atlantic, there's a plate out there. And so that's what's happening there. But it's constantly forming new things. And then of course you've got your crazy nature outliers, which is just these hotspots.

It's pretty random. They, I don't know if they actually know why that volcanoes, but I guess wherever the crust is a little bit too thin. For whatever reason, when it formed, it was just

Katy: Volcano is just like, I should be here right

Laura: Yeah,

Katy: Like,

Laura: they found a thin spot and the magma was like, this is my chance. And it just 

Katy: Yeah. 

Laura: up. So it's just where a single little plume comes up and Hawaii is the classic example of this.

So just imagine one little spurt. Okay? But remember our plate is moving, so as the plate is [00:19:00] moving, the spurts not moving. It is just like carving a new path through this plate. For whatever reason, this is strong enough to do that. And so you're farming the Hawaiian island chains because they're, the plate is moving, the plume is is steady.

So it's just creating volcano after volcano, after volcano, after volcano. , which is super cool, but again, kind of scary 'cause you just never know where these are gonna, 

Katy: just a boom, a new

Laura: But if you guys have ever heard of well, we'll get into that in a second, but there are some really famous or epic parts of Planet Earth where you can find a lot of volcanoes, which we'll talk about in a bit.

Katy: oh yeah. Yeah. Alrighty, so why do then they erupt? Laura talked a little bit about it, but like most disasters, it comes down to pressure and poor containment. That's really all it comes down to,

Laura: Brush and poor containment.

Katy: like inside the earth, you've got the magma, like Laura said, the [00:20:00] molten rock, which is full of dissolved gases and water vapor, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide.

And as the magma rises towards the surface, the pressure decreases and those gases start to come out of the solution. Essentially. It's basically like a shaken soda

Laura: Right. But now it's right. Or like it was shaken and now it's starting to settle. But the bubbles are all coming up. Yeah. Yeah.

Katy: Yep, it's all coming up. So the type of eruption you get, whether it's slow scenic, lava flow, or full on,

 Apocalypse feeling depends on two things, how much gas is trapped and how thick the magma is. So let's talk viscosity, which I know everybody woke up this morning and is this what Katy, talk viscosity to me here.

Laura: I do love viscosity.

Katy: Yeah, but

Laura: That word is not used enough in everyday language.

Katy: It's really not, it's

Laura: But it does come up occasionally for me. Weirdly enough, it's usually about like maple syrup or something, but, or molasses, but,[00:21:00] 

and then 

Katy: How often do you talk about molasses?

Laura: rarely but maple syrup,

Katy: gonna say often enough. Yeah.

Laura: Viscous.

Katy: viscosity, it's the measure of how sticky thick a liquid is. Honey is more viscous than water. Magma, same sort of I idea. So if the magma is runny, like more like, how do I say

Laura: really it. Yeah. I'm just, , it's a runny one.

Katy: yeah, like in more, like in Hawaii, the gas escapes quickly.

You get the slow, like I said earlier, the ooze. The ooze of the lava. And these are the ones

Laura: why is there more water content in some of them, I guess? Is it be, I wonder, there's gotta be a reason, but. Too, too complicated for now, .

Katy: So you get the slow oozing, like I said, of lava, which is the stuff that's, I don't wanna say it it's spectacular.

'cause this is the one that everybody

Laura: yeah. You can actually get close to this lava

Katy: Yeah. Because it's not [00:22:00] booming, catastrophic kind of

Laura: Viscous, not volatile.

Katy: Yes. Ooh, there we go.

Laura: or a good phrase.

I'm viscous, not 

volatile. 

Katy: But if the magma is thick and sticky, it basically holds onto that. Gas pressure builds and builds and builds, and then when it finally does let go, it, that's not the lava lamp flowing that is like boom, explosion. So let me give you two real world examples real quick that sits on very opposite ends of this lava drama scale here.

So the first one is we keep bringing up Hawaii, but I mean for at least America, that's our,

one of our most well known volcanoes. I'm gonna talk about the other one here in a second. But this one is more on one of the more chill volcanoes. It's constantly erupting.

Laura: you're like, you can [00:23:00] count on it to just never stop using.

Katy: pretty, pretty, ew. I mean essentially, but so gross. , 'cause it's just always flowing essentially of lava. It, it, it builds lands, it lights up the sky like it is. It's really cool. It's a tourist. You can go take selfies. It's very picturesque, but also non-threatening. So this is. This is if you wanna go see a volcano, Hawaii.

Here you go. Now, flip side of that, Mount St. Helen's, 1980. This was not a chill volcano. It was the strato volcano with the viscous magma and a whole lot of trap gas Scientists knew that it was rumbling, but they didn't know like what the pressure was building. Side. And they also didn't know that it was building out sideways like it was.

And so when it erupted, the entire north face of the mountain collapsed literally from , a [00:24:00] blast. It reduced 1300 feet of the summit into a steaming crater and leveled hundreds of square miles of forest in 

Laura: You can 

still see on Google Maps. If you look on Google Maps, the lakes at the edges of the blast are still full of dead trees, and that was in the 

Katy: Yes. Yes. Which is, yeah, insane

Laura: The devastation is still there.

Katy: Yeah. And very vis, very, very visible. And then if we're talking, same direction of Mount St. Helens, not within our lifetime, but even more dramatic is Krakatoa Crack Toa in 1883. So this blast was heard over 3000 miles away, which is insane. But that eruption was so powerful, it changed global temperatures.

Laura: like a mini ice age.

Katy: Yep. Created tsunamis and literally darkened skies around the world. It was like earth, just, I don't know, cleared its throat and everybody [00:25:00] heard it 'cause it was that 

Laura: said, man, you know what though? The other, the only way the earth, if climate change just keeps happening, man. Just need a couple of eruptions. Just

cool it Right, 

down. 

Katy: So why all that to say, why do volcanoes erupt? Because the earth is messy and it has to 

Laura: Give it a freaking break. Okay?

Katy: right? It's doing the best it can.

Laura: and it has to erupt every now and then. As all of us moms are just like

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: Mother Earth is doing the best she can,

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: but she deserves to erupt every once in a while.

Katy: That this would make an amazing cartoon of Mother Earth just being like, ba and just

Laura: Every once in a while, man.

Katy: right? Just loses it All the humans were destroying her and she just fed up with our bullshit and then she just loses her. Cool. Every once in a while, but the gases expand. [00:26:00] Like in the words of Shrek, better out than in, because magma isn't always good at holding things together, and it needs, that gas needs to go somewhere so it finds a weak point and it goes, so it just needs to let go of that steam.

So that's why it erupts.

Laura: Cool. Well, where does it erupt in not just where they form, but some famous spots, all right, which are some fam famous hot zones that shape our world. But. We're gonna bring up Hawaii again. Hawaii is a famous place because of that slow, steady land building, island by island layer by layer. So it's literally this is the perfect example of a hotspot, which is that island chain forming.

You're , that's a hotspot that's not at the edge of a plate. Now on the flip side of that is like the very famous, you can literally see the outline of the edge of one of these tectonic plates. If you look at where the ring of fire is, so of , of course it's a Johnny Cash song, although I don't know how many of our listeners would actually [00:27:00] know that.

 Depending on 

what 

Katy: demographics. I was gonna say, our demographics show that a lot of people should

Laura: Okay, good. Good, good, good. Well over 75% of Earth's active volcanoes encircle the Pacific Ocean. Why? Because it's the plate. So it's all those, the, those zones right around the edge as you just see all of 'em. It's like little lit up, little lit up, hot spots. 

Because of this constantly changing, shifting plate stuff. This is where a lot of the, the big eruptions are happening. So the viscosity must be higher here. And then of course you have Iceland, which is also really well known for its volcanic activity. You can go see volcanoes and Iceland too.

It's if you don't want the heat of Hawaii, go to Iceland. So it sits on the Mid-Atlantic range. So this is the opposite. Remember how we talked about this abduction zone? Now this is the divergent zone, so it's just like the bubbling up because of the tear. So it's tearing apart and creating new land at the same time.

Pretty cool. [00:28:00] Okay, so volcanoes, as Katy was saying, and with these sections of the world that are really high in volcanic activity, why isn't any of that important?

Because it's literally building our world. Katy was saying, there are. Agents of chaos, but they also shape new things. So literally creating new land like we've been saying. So when magma reaches the surface, it cools and then it basically just turns into rock. And specifically if you listen to one of our past episodes, it turns into igneous rock, which is made from volcanoes,

so that's like fresh new rock and fresh new soil and things like that. So for example, a super new, relatively new place is called Cert Sea Island in Iceland, which basically was created in 1963. So it's just boop, new spot. The underwater volcano just erupted for months and then just came right up out of the sea.

Scientists have been able to look at that island and see literally the formation [00:29:00] of a new ecosystem because it just popped out of the ocean. So they can see what would earth have looked like? Brand spanking new for the most part. Of course there's gonna be more interference and work now, but essentially, same with of course Hawaii, all of Hawaii was.

Formed by this. And then not only does it form the rock, but it is also volcanic soil, and it's really good soil. So after the volcano erupts, volcanic ash rains down. Typically, if it's a big one.

And that ash eventually breaks down into really mineral rich soils. It's if you've ever seen where volcanoes are, it's black soil.

 It contains potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, all which plants really need and love. And so it's incredibly fertile soil. So a lot of those volcanic islands are able to grow amazing stuff and are very lush places, not just because of the climate, but also because of the soil. Classic example of that's not necessarily tropical is Mount Aetna in [00:30:00] Italy, it's famous for its vineyards, right?

Like you can grow some awesome grapes and make some awesome wine because that's volcanic soil. But just like all soil, you can eventually drain it from minerals if you're not reestablishing the soil every once in a while. And so people choose to live near volcanoes because of that. If you're a farmer, you're like, well, maybe I'll risk it.

If it means that you can grow some awesome stuff and then every once in a while, sometimes nature just needs a reboot. And so just like with fire we've talked about in the past, a lot of these disasters we see are not good for people, but are good for the planet. So same thing with a fire.

After this eruption and a wipe out, you get to start over with this mineral rich soil. So Katy was saying, with Mount St. Helen's again. This is a story of absolute devastation. And apparently scientists thought it would take centuries to recover. They were like, is blasted.

Nothing's ever gonna grow here again. And within months, [00:31:00] new plants started growing and animals came back because I guess they were like, apparently gophers come, came out of the ground because they survived. Just can you imagine, you pop your head up to the absolute

devastation of your entire, like coming out of a bunker during the apocalypse, you know?

Life is going to find a way.

Katy: Yep.

Laura: So yeah, they can be destructive, but they can also, you can flip that on its end and just with all things in life good.

A lot of time comes with bad. It's not just one or the other. And so sometimes they form new land and give new chances for plants and new species to form and grow and can even create thriving ecosystems.

Katy: So I do have an answer about the oozing and the viscosity here. It mostly has to do with, yes, it's a onic place and everything we've talked about, but it also has to do with the silica and the temperature, and that's 

Laura: so how much silica is in the rock? That was just melted essentially.

Katy: Yeah. Yeah. And then that ends up being so like, let's [00:32:00] say the convergent boundaries that we were just talking about, where one plate goes under the other, like the ring of fire, the crust melts and brings in extra material, including lots of silica 

Laura: sense and thickens it.

Katy: Yep.

Add in lower temperatures. And suddenly that magma gets way stickier.

Laura: silica is what quartz and everything is made out of, so I guess it's right. It's just adding ingredients and you've made a thicker batter. Whereas probably at those divergent zones and in Hawaii where it's just bubbling up, nothing was melted to create that. It's forming from nothing. Okay. That totally tracks.

Katy: yeah. So when magma is high in silica and low temperature, it becomes super viscous, which is too thick to let gases escape easily. That's why strata volcanoes, like Mount St. Helens, Mount Fuji don't just simmer. They

Laura: Right, and they're always, almost always found at those subduction zones because of the, okay. Cool. Cool, cool,

Katy: Yep. Yeah, yeah. All righty. So we went over what volcanoes are, why they are up, but now let's [00:33:00] just talk about a glimpse of what we're gonna be talking about the next few weeks, which is just some weird.

Science of volcanoes. Because we talked a little bit about lava and ash, but there's a lot more to it. So let's talk with something that sounds fake, but it's very real blue lava,

Laura: Yes, I've seen pictures of it.

Katy: yeah, it is pretty neat. So there's a volcano in Indonesia called the Kawai Yen, and when it erupts at night, it glows bright, a bright electric blue now because the lava itself is blue.

Lava is still red molten rock. So what's happening is that this volcano is leaking sulfur gases at such high temperatures. They ignite when it hits the air and the result, boom, blew flames sometimes over 16 feet high, which kind of go across the surface of the lava. And so it looks like it's the lava, but it's really just the that very, very,

Laura: That was like the best part of chemistry class is getting to hold different [00:34:00] chemicals into the

flame and see them change color.

Katy: Yeah. Heck yes. , something else, and we just talked about a few weeks ago was weather volcanic 

Laura: Yeah. 

Katy: So in the middle of an eruption, when a volcano explodes, it hurls ash dust gas into the air, millions of tiny particles all rubbing past each other at insane speeds, and that friction definitely builds up static electricity.

Boom, lightning strikes straight out of an ash

Laura: mean, can you even imagine you're already thinking like this is the end of the world, but it would be it is loud. There's ash raining down, there's lightning. You'd be like, this is definitely the gods

Katy: No. Right, exactly. I can totally see if you have zero information and all this stuff is happening. Blood, brain, volcanoes exploding lightning. Yeah, I would be freaking out too. So there was a spot. It happens most often. The, a volcanic lightning with explosive eruptions like Mount Red DW in Alaska, or Mount Sa Jima in [00:35:00] Japan, where the ash columns are so intense, the clouds basically start, I don't know, they converge and boom and lightning just consistent there. 

All right. So yeah, I just wanted to briefly go over a few of fear of the weird, the weird things here.

Laura: Well, I will take us home with, that's pretty much the story of volcanoes. But if, that kind of, I was trying to think off transition and it just wasn't gonna be good. It was gonna be like, and if that's got y'all hot and bothered, you better listen to the next. But our miniseries is gonna be about.

Volcanoes, but whatever me and Katy wanna talk about, like the bog or the cave thing, right? We set up parameters for each other, essentially, where it's okay, it has to do with a volcano. It could be natural or cultural or like whatever, but it has to do with that habitat or ecosystem or whatever it is.

So , it might be centered around weird things that have been found in volcanoes. It might be the history that was [00:36:00] impacted by a volcano. It could be. Fossilized animals, whatever. Just something volcano related.

Katy: You're gonna have to tune in to find out. 'cause Laura and I love the weirder, the better the

Laura: I don't even know what it's gonna be yet. I,

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: right now your guess is as good as mine.

Katy: Yeah, right. I, I found some good ones so I can promise you some of these are gonna be really good. 'cause , I have some really good ideas of things that I didn't know

Laura: Cool. I, that's what I love, man. That's what I love about this podcast is I think a lot of people are like, why aren't. Why you're doing it and why do you like to keep doing it? And it's because the novelty never wears off because I learn new things every time we do these episodes.

We're scientists and we know some things about a little bit of everything, but it's the deep dives that I'm like, whoa.

Or like a concept that I've never even thought about.

Katy: Or, or just science changes. I mean, glowing toe hairs from bats. That's 

Laura: that 

brand Spanking new heard it on this podcast probably first.

Katy: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So really [00:37:00] cool things happen and science changes the more we find out about the world around us, and so that's why we love it. So yeah, season 11, guys, this is it. Thank you everybody for listening.

Thank you guys for bringing back our YouTube channel. So we're. We f we're not at the number of subscribers we were whenever it got deleted. , I'm not gonna talk about that again, but we are, but we are way higher in views and watch time. And our downloads from the podcast are going, we're in a hundred and seven,

six, seven countries now around the world. 

Laura: Keep on listening.

Katy: Yeah, right. And keep talking to people about it. Our downloads are just skyrocketing. And so yeah. Guys, we just thank you again for wrapping up and helping us wrap up Season 11 crazy. Again, we're not going anywhere. We're gonna keep doing these mini episodes, so make sure you guys hop on over to YouTube if you haven't yet.

Make sure you subscribe to us please. ' 

We're gaining a lot of traction over there and which is translating into views of the longer episodes here, which is, which is great. And [00:38:00] that's what really what we wanna see is just increasing that curiosity. So thank you guys for everything. Good.

Laura: Yeah, we always like to keep you guys on your toes. So season 12 will still bring new stuff, not just new topics, but also like just some new and exciting things that we've been

Katy: Some very new and exciting things. Yeah. So thank you for reminding me on that. So make sure you guys are listening to the mini episodes because we're gonna be teasing, , some things that are gonna be brand new for season 12. I'm excited. You guys should be excited. And all those, the people that then end up supporting us on Patreon, they're gonna get a sneak peek at all of that, all that too. So if you're able to support us over there, 'cause this stuff costs money, go ahead and go support us and help us out.

And until then, next week it's gonna be explosive. That's what I'm.

Laura: See you guys then.

Katy: I, I had to throw in one horribly cheesy 

Laura: Perfect. Bye everybody. 

Katy: bye.