Two Explorers Descend Into An Active Volcano, and Live to Tell About It 66
Discover reports on the unlikely adventure of explorers and daredevils Sam Cossman and George Kourounis, who (with caution employed at least in their choice of gear) "rappelled down the crater inside Mount Marum, which is situated on one of 80 islands that make up the Pacific Republic of Vanautu. And they’ve just uploaded video of this up-close encounter with one of the world’s most volcanically active locations." Warning: the linked video may inspire envy and wanderlust, even if it doesn't expose any deep new science.
Grandparents... (Score:4, Funny)
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And I can totally imagine them coming home and their grandparents asking them "Where did you go this year?" in the most obnoxious wasy possible, like all grandparents do. Good luck explaining this one!
Well they'd be right to be obnoxious and I hope they give these geniuses hell. I watched that video and all I saw was two stupid idiots climbing into a Volcano doing a whole bunch of things you could also have done with a drone and probably better too. I know science sometimes requires risk taking but this was just a dumb stunt.
Re:Grandparents... (Score:5, Insightful)
But building a drone that could work in a volcano would be pretty challenging, lets give it a go!
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Well, its still less stupid than throwing a bucket of ice water over your head and then posting it on Facebook.
No, not really. Which one is more likely to get you killed?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
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Actually, the link does not apply since the unfortunate victim in that case jumped off an 80ft cliff into a quarry. I am not aware of any account where the original challenge, a bucket of cold water to the head, actually caused the participant to expire and go to meet his maker.
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/... [snopes.com]
The link I posted does mention some idiot woman who decided to chuck a bucket of water over herself while sitting on a horse. The expected thing happened - the horse bolted and the woman was killed.
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Yeah. And clicking on Street View or Wikipedia is sooo much better then visiting Louvre, Egyptian pyramids or Kennedy Space Center in person ... And you don't even have to leave your mom's basement.
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I think these are thrillseekers rather than scientists. Not really my cup of tea but if that's what they want to do with their weekends, why not.
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I think these are thrillseekers rather than scientists. Not really my cup of tea but if that's what they want to do with their weekends, why not.
Why not? When these morons get themselves into trouble they have to be rescued. Now it is certainly true that rescue workers get paid risking their lives to get people out of trouble but that does not mean that they like to risk death when their helicopter gets blown into the side of a mountain trying to rescue some idiot base-jumper or in this case being burned alive by lava or choked by acrid fumes trying to get one of these idiots out of the area after he gets himself hurt or if they need a quick evac wh
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Do you realize where this volcano is? Hint: look at the natives in the grass skirts. They're out chasing forest critters for dinner, not gearing up to rescue stupid rich tourists. I really doubt that anybody would come out and rescue them.
Now, if you looked at their camp, it's obvious that they have a number of support folks. They most likely have some capability for self rescue (another fire suit, extra ropes, some burn cream). But they're going to have to do it themselves. Historical factoid: Ove
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Good thing they didn't forget the burn cream.
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Do you realize where this volcano is? Hint: look at the natives in the grass skirts. They're out chasing forest critters for dinner, not gearing up to rescue stupid rich tourists. I really doubt that anybody would come out and rescue them.
Howdy, commentator! I just read your comment about the people of Vanuatu, where I live. Guess what? This whole country is full of 'natives'! Isn't that cool?!
One thing though: Promise me you will never, ever, EVER come here. Because witless, condescending fucks like you tend to get killed and cooked for dinner.
(We're not really cannibals, but we'd do it just to spite you.)
Re: Grandparents... (Score:1)
How far would you go for the ultimate selfie?
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Sure the vid is impressive
Sure I'm envy
But by watching the vid and talk about how envious we are, will be be encouraging others to do similar things --- which might end up in tragedies ?
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk in to an opensewer and die." -- Mel Brooks
I did this before your grandparents were born... (Score:5, Informative)
And I can totally imagine them coming home and their grandparents asking them "Where did you go this year?" in the most obnoxious wasy possible, like all grandparents do. Good luck explaining this one!
Yeah, yeah. Been there, done that. About 375 years ago.
Back when Vesuvius was actively erupting in the 1630s, I decided to take a closer look. While the volcano was still smoldering and active, I hired a local guide to take me to the top, then was lowered into the crater to take some scientific observations and temperature measurements. You wanna read more about it? Here's some info on my book. [ouhos.org] (Of course, science has progressed a lot since then.)
We didn't have fancy videocameras back then, so I had to make make my own drawings [stanford.edu] of what I saw.
Lame (Score:1, Interesting)
They descended (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:They descended (Score:5, Informative)
I watched the video at the link. There definitely were some tricky camera angles at play that made them look closer than they actually were, but there was one shot from immediately behind one of the daredevils, and that one seemed to me to make it pretty clear that they actually were rather close. I also thought it was rather telling that there was only one shot from that angle, whereas there were loads from higher up the cliff with a telephoto lens. Seemed almost to me like the camera guy decided to get the hell out.
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I think all 3 of those were the same degree of closeness, just difference camera angles and zoom.
If you look at the shot at 0:52, you can really see there are only 2 ledges in the volcano. There is the really close one at the very edge of the lava, which you later see getting splashed with lava continuously, and at one point even see a piece breaking off. These guys clearly did not go to that one. Then there is another rim which is probably 80-90% of the way down. That's the one I'm pretty certain they film
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If you watch the video, there's a part where molten rock spatters out to one side, and were they standing in that spot they would have been hit.
In another part, a red hot rock (600 C) hit quite close to them and they took a heat reading.
They weren't bathing in the magma but they came pretty damned close to it (definitely in the danger zone)
The last sentence of the summary is spot on (Score:5, Insightful)
I am so full of envy right now, with a generous side order of awe. Watch that actually brought a tear to my eye.
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It was mostly the music. And the fire. The trek itself was trivial compared to summiting Everest but the visuals were just a lot more impressive.
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The trek itself was trivial compared to summiting Everest but the visuals were just a lot more impressive.
You don't need such fancy protective gear when doing Everest, which is just cold and lacking in oxygen, not outright chemically hostile and hot as hell. (Some volcanoes are even worse. The ones that spew fluorine gas (or hydrofluoric acid) are just awful...)
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I am so full of envy right now, with a generous side order of awe. Watch that actually brought a tear to my eye.
Well, if you can pay the airfare to Vanuatu (3 1/2 hours away from Sydney for about $US 750), only a couple hundred dollars more will get you a walking tour to the edge of the caldera. It's not really a mountain so much as a high plateau with two (yes, two) active calderas [wikipedia.org]. It's a fucking amazing place, a lunar landscape emerging over the last rise after a morning spent walking through jungle. Pretty primeval.
But if you're not in an exercising mood, you can simply pay a pilot to overfly the volcano. I did t
We're worried about CO2 and global warming? (Score:3)
Re:We're worried about CO2 and global warming? (Score:5, Informative)
FTA: "In the belly of the beast, gases like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrochloric acid" HYDROCHLORIC ACID GAS? Screw the CO2, the last thing I want anywhere is air that literally eats you alive from the inside out!
As you tacitly requested, here's your daily dose of depression:
BBC: Sulphur mining in an active volcano [bbc.com]
tl;dr: the workers can't afford masks, so the gases cack their lungs and dissolve their teeth while they're working in the volcano.
You're welcome.
Re:We're worried about CO2 and global warming? (Score:5, Interesting)
God I love capitalism.
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I wonder what the ideal solution is in this scenario. If proper safety gear were provided (as it should be) would it be worn? We have such problems in the US, for example, during the recovery operation at the WTC many of the workers simply didn't wear their masks even when they were provided.
Also, paying too high a wage relative to the local economy may cause issues. Imagine if a dangerous job were available here that paid 10x what a median household income is.
Perhaps the "best" solution would be to pay dou
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Ah, I guess the above anti-capitalist was trolling. I didn't check the values that were quoted. That will teach me.
Looks like $200/tonne [icis.com] is the price ceiling for refined bulk sulfur. Let's say these workers haul 300 kg of *ore* per day. Even if that's pure sulfur that could skip refinement it would only be worth $~70. Suddenly, paying $15/worker/day doesn't seem like a predatory wage.
Troll overstated the value of the ore by an order of magnitude.
Still, the workers should be provided with safety gear.
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They're an inspiration to future Darwin award candidates.
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Sure, blame the humans when clearly the volcano is at fault.
Tourism opportunity (Score:2)
Well look at it this way, guys come to Vanautu, spend money maybe get burned up in a volcano. It's a new revenue generating opportunity for the islanders.
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Every single one of you didn't even catch the fact that the name was spelled incorrectly.
While you were busy pretending to be intelligent, the world was watching you and laughing.
Wrong; I noticed the mispelling in the summary, and I noticed the misspeling in the article. And I noticed the comment about it in the short "discussion" below the article. So when I came here, I did a scan for "spell" to see how many people noticed. What, no matches? So I slid the little sliders that control the level of comments visible, all the way to the right -- and I found your comment. Of course, with with a score of 0, it might be missed by a lot of readers. But I didn't have mod points, so I
prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
National Geographic, "Man Vs. Volcano", part of the Explorer series which aired in 2010. A team of explorers descended three steppes into the mouth of Nyiragongo and took a virgin sample from the world's largest lava lake. When you've seen that show... this is kinda tame.
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Even before that, professor lidenbrock and his nephew Axel descended into Mt Snaeffells in Iceland
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A sample of sacrificed virgins?
(mistakenly posted as AC previously)
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ooh, almost funny :) A virgin sample of lava, as described in the same documentary, is one which has not been contaminated by contact with terrestrial regolith. It is thought to contain if not predominantly then exclusively, the same chemical composition as Earth during its Hadean Phase (when the crust was still molten).
Cannonnnnnnbaaa... (Score:2)
What of the one ring? (Score:1)
Did they cast it into the fires? I have no doubt that if the ring survived that one of them will soon turn up dead...
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mute the audio (Score:2)
Play the video with audio muted. The music is really bad and annoying. There is nothing on the audio track other than the annoying music.
In an alternate dimension.. (Score:2)
- Two Explorers Dead after trying to improve their ePeen.
- Two Scientists visit active volcano and discover new elements.
Why do we always end up with the retarded one?