The Trollsvotin volcano in Iceland violently erupts and kills a USGS survey team. Volcanologist professor Dr. Peter Shepherd takes four of his graduate students to study Grímsvötn, a dormant volcano. It also erupts suddenly, but the group is able to escape. While escaping by helicopter, Brianna witnesses Grímsvötn producing pyroclastic surges, an unusual amount of ash, and extremely runny lava. Meanwhile, Shepherd visits Dr. Oscar Vallian, a wheelchair-using volcanologist who recently quit working for the USGS. He explains his story about many dormant volcanoes, and he had formulated a theory known as Exodus, in which all of the Earth's volcanoes could erupt within a short period of time. Vallian leaves for Honshu, Japan, to be on the front lines when Mount Fuji erupts.
Shepherd travels to Washington, D.C., to explain the Exodus theory. Dr. William Kincaid, the head of the USGS, has a conflict of interest with O'Neil and Shepherd and is tasked to review their data. He promises the President's representative, Stephen Daugherty, to disprove the theory. Shepherd returns to his students to explain that the government will not act unless they get proof.
Natalie, a Park Ranger, arrives at work at Yellowstone National Park to be told that Old Faithful hasn't done anything for the last day. In Honshū, Vallian and his companion, Melanie, wait for Fuji's expected eruption. Shepherd plans with his students to go to South America to check out another volcano. That night, Shepherd calls his estranged wife. The next day, Fuji erupts, destroying much of the island of Honshu and triggering large tsunamis. Vallian calls Shepherd to bid farewell before a pyroclastic surge kills him and Melanie. Shepherd spends the night in a bar, mourning his friend. His student Brianna offers comfort and advice while listening to him explain how his marriage ended.
In the morning, news explains that Mount Kilimanjaro has erupted, so the group heads to Pasto, Colombia to do some investigating in a mine. The miners' leader halts the group with a gun, and Peter tells of the group's presence and asks what is going on. He then explains why the mine is closed, saying that some men were working earlier until liquid fire poured from the earth, causing havoc, killing some miners, and resulting in the mine's inactivity. Exploring the mine, they do not realize that they had unknowingly moved from the mine's shafts into attached lava tubes. Students Jacques and CJ take samples while Shepherd and Brianna head back. Sudden tremors result in Jacques and CJ falling. Magma falls from the ceiling as it collapses, and lava spills into the tunnel, killing Jacques, severely injuring CJ, and blocking the entrance to the mine. The others survive, but the magma, which has some iron from the Earth's core mixed in with it, has given CJ severe burns, which will require a skin graft.
The news reports that Mount Vesuvius and Mount Etna have erupted and destroyed most of Italy. Kai tells Dr. Shepherd that the samples from the mine were of the same composition as iron, which is why it looks similar to molten iron and why it moves at speeds normal lava cannot usually reach, and someone from the USGS had hacked into their server. Kincaid admits to hacking and stealing the data and plans to present the findings to Washington as his own. During his presentation to the President and Daugherty, Shepherd and his group interrupt and explain that they have additional evidence that Kincaid had not managed to steal. Dr. Shepherd explains to the President the full Exodus theory. Predicting that the Earth will head into another Ice Age within two weeks, Dr. Shepherd explains his solution that the Earth's pressure is controlled under the ocean rather than letting the Earth choose. He plans to use nuclear warheads at strategic points within oceanic faults.
After the meeting, Shepherd calls his ex-wife again and demands that she leaves Yellowstone National Park as Yellowstone is also becoming more volcanically active as the Old Faithful geyser has given previous signs earlier. Still, she doubts Peter's warning as she states Yellowstone has not had a violent eruption in years though a supervolcano can erupt at any time regardless of its condition. While he's on the phone, Daugherty calls to let him know that the President has approved their plan and they now have all of the resources of the CIA at their disposal to map the ocean and figure out the plan. With the coordinates set, Daugherty lets Shepherd know that he and one of the students will work hand in hand with the naval fleets from two of its flagships, the Hyperion and the Reprisal. Brianna is left at the USGS as the go-between.
Shepherd boards the Hyperion, in the Pacific Rim, by jumping from a helicopter and diving down to the sub. Kai boards the Reprisal in the Atlantic. Shepherd shows the Hyperion captain where the explosions must go in the middle of the Mariana Trench. In the morning, Natalie starts packing up her campground while another Ranger and some scientists examine Old Faithful. Kai contacts Brianna to confirm the coordinates for his sub, which will also be passed on to Russian and British submarines.
Meanwhile, the Hyperion gets bounced around by volcanic activity in the trench, which pummels them with debris. Natalie arrives at the next set of campgrounds, only to find an eruption already taking place, and she flees. The Hyperion suffers heavy damage but is able to reach its coordinates and launch the warheads. It fires its first round of torpedoes, but one goes off track and hits the trench wall. Two more are fired and hit successfully.
At the same time, the Reprisal has also fired its first four torpedoes. However, it takes heavy damage from the resulting debris. Shepherd loses contact with Kai while the Hyperion continues to strike its remaining targets. Natalie tries to flee Yellowstone as geysers start spewing molten magma, killing multiple park visitors. The President explains that the Earth, for the past few weeks, has been experiencing a series of violent volcanic eruptions and that a total of forty-four nuclear-tipped torpedoes are being fired to try and heal the Earth. As Shepherd prays for his wife, the lava flow at Yellowstone stops just before reaching Natalie and a large group of visitors. The Reprisal sinks, killing its crew and Kai. With the last of the torpedoes fired, the plan succeeds, and the Hyperion is able to stabilize. The volcanoes of the world return to normal. Shepherd turns down a position as head of the USGS and reconciles with his wife.
Scott Weinberg of DVD Talk wrote that the film "is as pre-fabricated and ultra-conventional as you could ever imagine", he found the dialogue unbelievable, the direction poor, the plot to be unimaginative, and the effects to be "kistchy at best, hilariously inept otherwise." He summarized by writing "If you rent these flicks for the goofiness, this one's worthy of a rental."[2] David Johnson of DVD Verdict found the special effects to be unconvincing, noting that "any time there's lava onscreen, the film stumbles." He poked fun at the "talkiness of the plot", but found the acting to be "decent enough to make the cataclysm sound halfway believable". Opining that as he might have been able to find the film acceptable otherwise, "a batch of putrid CGI would find its way onto the screen, and the taste soured."[3] Ben Rhudy of Monsters and Critics found the pacing to be slow and the film to be cliché, offering that the film "is yet another prime example of a promising premise marred by a cable TV budget." He noted the DVD release included an awful theatrical trailer that "surpasses the film it represents in both pacing and excitement."[4]
Related Research Articles
A caldera is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the structural integrity of such a chamber, greatly diminishing its capacity to support its own roof, and any substrate or rock resting above. The ground surface then collapses into the emptied or partially emptied magma chamber, leaving a large depression at the surface. Although sometimes described as a crater, the feature is actually a type of sinkhole, as it is formed through subsidence and collapse rather than an explosion or impact. Compared to the thousands of volcanic eruptions that occur over the course of a century, the formation of a caldera is a rare event, occurring only a few times within a given window of 100 years. Only seven caldera-forming collapses are known to have occurred between 1911 and 2016. More recently, a caldera collapse occurred at Kīlauea, Hawaii in 2018.
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
The volcanic explosivity index (VEI) is a relative measure of the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions. It was devised by Christopher G. Newhall of the United States Geological Survey and Stephen Self in 1982.
Rhyolite is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral assemblage is predominantly quartz, sanidine, and plagioclase. It is the extrusive equivalent of granite.
Extrusive rock refers to the mode of igneous volcanic rock formation in which hot magma from inside the Earth flows out (extrudes) onto the surface as lava or explodes violently into the atmosphere to fall back as pyroclastics or tuff. In contrast, intrusive rock refers to rocks formed by magma which cools below the surface.
A shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a shield lying on the ground. It is formed by the eruption of highly fluid lava, which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more viscous lava erupted from a stratovolcano. Repeated eruptions result in the steady accumulation of broad sheets of lava, building up the shield volcano's distinctive form.
The Yellowstone Caldera, sometimes referred to as the Yellowstone Supervolcano, is a volcanic caldera and supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park in the Western United States. The caldera and most of the park are located in the northwest corner of Wyoming. The caldera measures 43 by 28 miles, and postcaldera lavas spill out a significant distance beyond the caldera proper.
Dante's Peak is a 1997 American disaster film directed by Roger Donaldson, written by Leslie Bohem, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, and Charles Hallahan. The film is set in the fictional town of Dante's Peak where the inhabitants fight to survive a volcanic eruption from a long dormant stratovolcano that has suddenly woken up. The film was released on February 7, 1997, under the production of Universal Pictures and Pacific Western Productions. It received negative reviews from critics but was an average success financially. It was the last film in which Charles Hallahan starred before his death nine months later in November 1997.
The fifteen volcanoes that make up the eight principal islands of Hawaii are the youngest in a chain of more than 129 volcanoes that stretch 5,800 kilometers (3,600 mi) across the North Pacific Ocean, called the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain. Hawaiʻi's volcanoes rise an average of 4,600 meters (15,000 ft) to reach sea level from their base. The largest, Mauna Loa, is 4,169 meters (13,678 ft) high. As shield volcanoes, they are built by accumulated lava flows, growing a few meters or feet at a time to form a broad and gently sloping shape.
In volcanology, a lava dome is a circular, mound-shaped protrusion resulting from the slow extrusion of viscous lava from a volcano. Dome-building eruptions are common, particularly in convergent plate boundary settings. Around 6% of eruptions on Earth are lava dome forming. The geochemistry of lava domes can vary from basalt to rhyolite although the majority are of intermediate composition The characteristic dome shape is attributed to high viscosity that prevents the lava from flowing very far. This high viscosity can be obtained in two ways: by high levels of silica in the magma, or by degassing of fluid magma. Since viscous basaltic and andesitic domes weather fast and easily break apart by further input of fluid lava, most of the preserved domes have high silica content and consist of rhyolite or dacite.
The Yellowstone hotspot is a volcanic hotspot in the United States responsible for large scale volcanism in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Wyoming, formed as the North American tectonic plate moved over it. It formed the eastern Snake River Plain through a succession of caldera-forming eruptions. The resulting calderas include the Island Park Caldera, Henry's Fork Caldera, and the Bruneau-Jarbidge caldera. The hotspot currently lies under the Yellowstone Caldera. The hotspot's most recent caldera-forming supereruption, known as the Lava Creek Eruption, took place 640,000 years ago and created the Lava Creek Tuff, and the most recent Yellowstone Caldera. The Yellowstone hotspot is one of a few volcanic hotspots underlying the North American tectonic plate; another example is the Anahim hotspot.
Cerro Azul, sometimes referred to as Quizapu, is an active stratovolcano in the Maule Region of central Chile, immediately south of Descabezado Grande. Part of the South Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its summit is 3,788 meters (12,428 ft) above sea level, and is capped by a summit crater that is 500 meters (1,600 ft) wide and opens to the north. Beneath the summit, the volcano features numerous scoria cones and flank vents.
The Lava Creek Tuff is a voluminous sheet of ash-flow tuff located in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, United States. It was created during the Lava Creek eruption around 630,000 years ago, which led to the formation of the Yellowstone Caldera. This eruption is considered the climactic event of Yellowstone's third volcanic cycle. The Lava Creek Tuff covers an area of more than 7,500 km2 (2,900 sq mi) centered around the caldera and has an estimated magma volume of 1,000 km3 (240 cu mi).
La Garita Caldera is a large caldera in the San Juan volcanic field in the San Juan Mountains around the town of Creede in southwestern Colorado, United States. It is west of La Garita, Colorado. The eruption that created the La Garita Caldera is among the largest known volcanic eruptions in Earth's history, as well as being one of the most powerful known supervolcanic events.
Volcanic gases are gases given off by active volcanoes. These include gases trapped in cavities (vesicles) in volcanic rocks, dissolved or dissociated gases in magma and lava, or gases emanating from lava, from volcanic craters or vents. Volcanic gases can also be emitted through groundwater heated by volcanic action.
Supervolcano is a 2005 disaster drama television film directed by Tony Mitchell and written by Edward Canfor-Dumas. It is based on the speculated and potential eruption of the volcanic Yellowstone Caldera, located in Yellowstone National Park. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of Michael Riley, Gary Lewis, Shaun Johnston, Adrian Holmes, Jennifer Copping, Rebecca Jenkins, Tom McBeath, Robert Wisden, Susan Duerden, Jane McLean, Sam Charles, and Kevin McNulty.
Several types of volcanic eruptions—during which material is expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure—have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are often named after famous volcanoes where that type of behavior has been observed. Some volcanoes may exhibit only one characteristic type of eruption during a period of activity, while others may display an entire sequence of types all in one eruptive series.
The geology of the Pacific Northwest includes the composition, structure, physical properties and the processes that shape the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The region is part of the Ring of Fire: the subduction of the Pacific and Farallon Plates under the North American Plate is responsible for many of the area's scenic features as well as some of its hazards, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, and landslides.
The Silverthrone Caldera is a potentially active caldera complex in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, located over 350 kilometres (220 mi) northwest of the city of Vancouver and about 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of Mount Waddington in the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The caldera is one of the largest of the few calderas in western Canada, measuring about 30 kilometres (19 mi) long (north-south) and 20 kilometres (12 mi) wide (east-west). Mount Silverthrone, an eroded lava dome on the caldera's northern flank that is 2,864 metres (9,396 ft) high, may be the highest volcano in Canada.
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