Natalie Starkey Explains Underwater Volcanoes with Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Chuck, we got an emergency explainer we got to do
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right now. Oh, wow. Emergency. Emergency. Emergency. Emergency. There was
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an underwater volcano that gave a tsunami warning to the
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entire west coast of North America. What's up with that? Okay.
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Sounds to me like a great movie. It does, doesn't it?
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But I don't know anything about volcanoes, but we do
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know someone who does. And that is Natalie Starkey, friend
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of StarTalk. Natalie, welcome back to the show.
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Hi.
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Hi, Neil. Hi, Chuck.
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So good to be here.
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Excellent. Excellent. You're a cosmochemist. I'd love that on a
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business card. Author most recently of Fire and Ice, Volcanoes
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of the Solar System. You are the person we need
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for this show. Good. And it's not a show. This
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is just an explainer. We've only got a few minutes.
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So apparently an underwater volcano erupted recently. Tell us what
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happened here.
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Yeah, it was massive. This is the problem. It is
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currently now underwater. Previously... It was also above the waters.
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There was an island in the middle of the Pacific, Nittonga,
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and it blew its top. And basically, the whole volcano,
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the whole island has disappeared in that one eruption of
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10 megatons. It was absolutely enormous. It created an ash
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cloud that went up to 130,000 feet. So it's a
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really big event.
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Now, this island, although it has a name, but did
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it have inhabitants?
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No, completely uninhabited.
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Not anymore.
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I mean, it's appeared out of the ocean a number
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of times and sort of been eroded away by the ocean.
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So it's always kind of playing with that ocean level
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quite a bit. And so it's never been a big island.
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But what's happened here is that, you know, it's kind
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of it's been inhabited by plants and things before, but
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no humans. But it's just a really crazy setting. It's
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a very, very active volcano. And when it goes, it
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goes really, really big.
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But Natalie, it's just accidental that it's underwater. there are
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volcanoes everywhere. If it just happens to be underwater, it's
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not a special kind of volcano. Is that correct? No.
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I mean, a lot of the volcanoes actually begin underwater.
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We have obviously volcanoes on land, and then we have
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volcanoes that start on the base of oceans and grow
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large enough to become a volcano above the land.
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Like the entire Hawaiian island chain.
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Exactly. They're all undersea volcanoes that then have become so
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large they've risen above the sea. So you It happens
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all the time. Now, one of the issues is when
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you're at that kind of level where you're a little
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bit below the ocean and then sometimes above the ocean
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is that the water from the sea can infiltrate the
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vent of that volcano, which is under the water. And
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when you mix water with really, really hot magma, you're
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going to create what we call phreatomagmatic explosions, which is
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what's happened here. Magma mixing with water.
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Hey, hey, hey, hey. First of all, watch your mouth,
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young lady. Second of all, what the hell? She only
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gets magmatic on StarTalk. That's all. What did you just say?
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What kind of reaction?
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So it's phreatomagmatic. So this is water and magma mixing.
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So you've got to remember this magma is at, you know,
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a thousand degrees Celsius or more. And if you put
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a little bit of water into that, what do you
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think is going to happen? You're going to have a
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massive explosion. And this is how you create, you know,
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you just literally fracture rock and magma into pieces.
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And that's what- No, let me tell you what I
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learned from you, that lava that hasn't come out of
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the volcano yet is called magma.
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Is that correct? Yeah, exactly.
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I got that seat, Chuck. I know what I'm talking about.
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With this eruption, there was no lava with this eruption.
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It just, it didn't even get to that stage. It
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just completely exploded. That magma just completely exploded into the sky. So, yeah.
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So how many of these we have around the world
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that we should keep an eye on?
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I mean, loads of them. Within any year, we have
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maybe 50 or 60 volcanic eruptions. We don't always notice
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them when they're very big like this and they create
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a pressure wave that goes around the world and we
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can detect that and we can see it from space.
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We saw that huge ash cloud from space from satellite imaging.
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You know, it's a big one. You're going to notice it.
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But most of the time we've got eruptions happening that
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aren't particularly noticeable. This was just a very big one
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that created a very big blast and tsunamis.
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When you have a pressure wave through Earth, you guys
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measure that with all your sensors. But if you have
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a pressure wave in the ocean, that has different consequences, right?
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Yeah and actually so there's there's two different kinds of
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pressure waves created when that volcano erupted it literally just
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displaced the air so we saw a wave travel through
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the atmosphere of a pressure wave that was created from
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that explosion but we also think there was maybe tsunamis
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created from the volcano itself collapsing now we're still not
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sure because we haven't been able to get on you
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know to that location and have a look at what's
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actually happening now it's all underwater so we can't really
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see but We think currently that the volcano collapsed, displaced water,
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and that could have created the tsunamis that we think
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have happened. But we're still waiting for that ground data
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from all those regions because Tonga has been cut off
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from communications.
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Wait, you don't know if there was a tsunami? It
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seems to me that would be an obvious, at least
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in the movies, it's kind of obvious when the tsunami comes.
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Yeah, it seems like Tonga was almost inundated with tsunamis.
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And we also saw big waves, you know, hitting the
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coast of America. So for sure, there were tsunamis emanating
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from it. But we don't know the cause at the
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moment exactly. We don't know whether it was the volcano
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itself collapsing to create that, you know, that big wave initially.
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What else would it be?
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It almost certainly is that, but it could have been
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created from that pressure wave initially. It's just, you know,
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before we get that ground teacher, it's really hard. All
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we can see from this volcano is what we can
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see from space at the moment. And we now have aircraft,
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I think from New Zealand, they're traveling over to have
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a look at what's going on and what they can
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see at the moment is there was an island there
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and there's no longer an island. So whatever was there
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has completely blown.
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So Natalie, it's one thing. Okay. Yes. We know you
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care about what might've caused the tsunami. but people affected
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by the tsunami are not asking that same question. They
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just want to know, is the tsunami coming and how
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bad is it going to be? So what measurements do
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we know of so far? And how long did it
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take for that wave to get from its location to
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the coast?
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Yeah, so it wouldn't have taken very long because, I mean,
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Tonga is quite a small, I mean, the islands are
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spread out over a large region, but ultimately it's quite
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in a small part. And so that ash cloud actually
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covered pretty much all of Tonga. The ash cloud itself,
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the extent of it was the same size as the UK.
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So it's really, really large as.
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It came up.
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So the tsunamis that came out from that eruption would
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have hit those islands very, very quickly. It's very easy
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to predict kind of how high those waves are going
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to be. Sorry, no, it's very easy to predict how
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fast they're going to travel, but not how high they're
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going to be, because that depends very much on the
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local kind of topography of the land in the ocean.
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So we know when it will get to certain places,
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those waves, but we don't know how big those waves were.
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It seems now from evidence on the ground that we're
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hearing from the Tongan government that all the coastal areas
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were inundated and a lot of land and buildings have
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been destroyed.
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Just to be clear, you're dialing into StarTalk now from
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the UK, but many people listening are Americans and we
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don't know how big the UK is. You said the
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cloud was as big as the UK. Can you give
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us a state that resembles that?
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Oh, a state in the US, goodness.
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Is it bigger than Texas? That's what I want. Is
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it bigger than Texas? Because if it ain't bigger than Texas,
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it ain't big.
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We have this thing in the UK where we compare
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everything to Wales, and that's going to mean even less
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to you.
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I know, right? It's like....
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It's smaller than California.
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And not the mammalian whales. You mean whales, the.
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The country that's full of sheep and, yeah, on the
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western coast of the UK. So not helpful at all,
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I realize.
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So it seems to me, I mean, we've heard about
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tsunamis in recent decades that were caused by underwater or
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earthquakes that would take place underwater. And this, I guess,
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displaces water, creates a wave. So are volcanic tsunamis... less
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dangerous than earthquake tsunamis?
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They're not less dangerous. They're just less common. So it's
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much less common that a volcano will collapse into the
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ocean or collapse under the ocean and create, you know,
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push water out of the way and create a tsunami.
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It does happen, but it's not particularly common. But the
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earthquake generated ones are much more common. Obviously, we saw that.
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We've seen that quite a lot in the past. But yeah,
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I guess it was what we call the Boxing Day tsunami. Again,
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I think that's another British term I'm talking about. December 26th,
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and there was a movie about that. And that was
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a big, big tsunami that hit. It was Indonesia, wasn't it?
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Okay, so our crack researchers have told us that the
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UK is about the size of Alabama.
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Oh, okay, interesting.
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Yeah, so Natalie, is this, are volcanoes on Earth as
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interesting to you as volcanoes elsewhere in the solar system?
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Yeah, I mean, completely, because we can study them so
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much easier. Like, you know, even this volcano, which scientists
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have used as a case study for studying volcanoes in
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space because it's so inaccessible. The main way we study
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is by satellite, which is exactly the way we study
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volcanoes in space because we can only study them by satellite,
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we don't go there personally. So we can look at
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how this volcano has erupted over time and how plants
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colonize it over time and we can compare that to
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what we see say on Mars and what might have
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happened in the past on Mars. The volcanoes on Earth
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are just brilliant because they give us this testing ground.
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We can get to them much more easily, but they
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allow us to compare what we then see in space.
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But Chuck, you heard she said the plants colonize it first,
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then the Europeans colonize it, then they enslave the plants.
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Exactly.
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And that's how that goes, right? That's how it goes.
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Oh dear.
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Natalie, do I remember some photos of you with like
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volcano outfits on? on entering the calderas of extinct volcanoes
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or dormant volcanoes? Am I picturing that correctly?
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No, no, an active volcano. So I've worked on- Oh, oops,
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excuse me. Yeah, in the Caribbean, I've worked on active volcanoes,
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you know, where you're literally standing next to this vent
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at a volcano that's roaring away with all the gases
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and steams that are coming out of it. And, you know,
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it's an incredibly exciting environment to be in.
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Okay, I have to channel Chuck here and say- Not
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a place where you find the brothers. Not going to happen.
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Not going to happen. You know, there's common sense and
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then there's black sense. Which is even more sensible. It's
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even more sensible than common sense. Let's go into the
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caldera of that active volcano. Won't that be fun? Yes,
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and then the answer is Have a good time. I'll
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meet you back at the cabana when you're done. I'll
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be drinking a coconut when you get back. So Natalie,
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tell me in your book, which is really an amazing
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clearinghouse of information about just volcanoes of all kinds, just
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remind us just before we end here, not all volcanoes
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are hot.
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Right.
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And just remind us how you get a cold volcano,
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because that's the subtitle of your book, Fire and Ice.
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Fire and Ice, exactly. So we have what we call cryovolcanoes,
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the ice volcanoes. And actually, there's possibly more ice volcanoes
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in the solar system that are active than we have
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hot volcanoes, which kind of seems mad because we have,
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that's all we know on our own planet. But, you know,
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let's go out to somewhere like Enceladus or Europa or
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you know, Pluto, but we find in these places, volcanoes
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made of ice. So instead of rock, we erupt water,
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or we erupt ammonia or nitrogen, like whatever these worlds
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are made of, and these are mostly moons I'm talking about,
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we can erupt whatever they're made of onto the surface,
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and that becomes their lava instead of rocky lava or ash.
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So yeah, it's fascinating.
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So what causes the actual eruption on those? I mean,
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is it the same pressure? I mean, I call volcanoes...
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pimple popping on.
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Earth stop you know stop it's like the earth just
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popped the pimple stop you know got a little build-up
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under here let me get rid of it you know
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what happens on these other planets that ice becomes.
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The way i look at it is that actually all
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volcanoes are doing the same thing and they're releasing heat
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from inside of that body so they just it's just
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a way for a planet or a moon to cool
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itself down they all have heat within them That heat
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wants to move because of physics. It just wants to
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move to somewhere colder. And in doing so, it will,
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you know, erupt whatever the material is that that planet
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or moon is made of. So, yeah.
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And so just a matter of pressures at any temperature, right?
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Yeah. And, you know, if you've got liquid, if you've got,
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you know, ice, water ice, and you want to melt that,
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you don't need to heat it to as high a
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temperature as you'd need to heat rock to create lava.
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So you just, it's different temperatures we're talking about, but
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we're still talking about heat moving and moving material in
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the process.
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And pressure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff. All right. Well,
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we got to call it quits there. Natalie, thank you
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for explaining like current events to us. And give me
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the full name of that volcano. Oh, no.
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Okay. So it's Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai. It's the last
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one that I'm not too sure about. But it's basically,
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it's the two names of what was the two islands
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that then got connected with the volcano in the middle.
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So I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Bugs
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Bunny cartoon, but That's very Bugs Bunny. Hunga Tonga. Hunga Hunga.
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That's Looney Tunes. Yeah, that's why they're called Looney Tunes.
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That's a Looney Tunes bit right there.
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I probably butchered the name for any Tongans. I apologize
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how it's probably not pronounced exactly like that.
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And Chuck should be apologizing, but he's a comedian. Well, listen,
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I butcher names on this show every single time we're on.
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So welcome to the club. All right, Natalie, it's always
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good to know you're in arm's reach of us when
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we need emergency accounting of what's going on on this
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planet and others. So thanks for being on StarTalk Explainer,
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as always. All right. Chuck, always good to have you, man.
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Always a pleasure. Neil deGrasse Tyson, another StarTalk Explainer. Keep
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looking up.