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Mystery of the Megavolcano
Saturday May 19 at 10 pm ET/PT & Sunday May 20 at 8 pm ET on CBC News Network
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The eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano brought European flights to a standstill, stranding travellers around the world and costing the international airline industry billions of dollars. Scientists anticipate an even worse scenario if tremors near Eyjafjallajokull trigger an eruption at Iceland's Katla volcano, 10 times stronger and shooting even higher, larger plumes of ash into the air. Mystery of the Megavolcano follows several scientists on a global quest for clues to a massive volcanic eruption that may have had a devastating impact on the earth 75,000 years ago.
The scientists, including a University of Toronto geologist, struggle to make sense of evidence that points to an unprecedented catastrophe, one of the biggest supervolcanic eruptions of all time - an event thought to have unleashed fire, famine, and death upon a quarter of the globe. If their premise proves correct, the ancient supervolcano - and others like it - may someday awaken, with horrific results. The destructive power that could be unleashed by a supervolcanoes goes far beyond that of any eruption in recorded human history. Picture an eruption blasting 16 kilometres into the stratosphere, raining down ash and rock over an entire continent. Imagine a worldwide fog of sulfuric acid droplets released high into the atmosphere, dimming the sun and plunging the Earth into a global "volcanic winter."
These monsters lurking within Earth's crust dwarf the likes of Vesuvius, Mount St. Helens and Eyjafjallajokull. And they are hiding all around us - in Indonesia, New Zealand, Japan, even the United States. In fact, the supervolcano with the world's largest chamber of magma (partly molten rock) sits directly below Yellowstone National Park. If it erupts, as it has in the ancient past (ranging from 2.1 million years ago to the most recent eruption 640,000 years ago), the magma would be enough to fill more than 200 Grand Canyons
Using computer generated imagery,Mystery of the Megavolcano is a geological hunt for clues to bring the epic scale of an ancient eruption to life and science to predict if such a disaster could happen again.
The film is directed by Ben Fox for Mentorn Media (UK).
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