Venus has some of the largest volcanoes anywhere in the solar system. And furthermore the lava flows are planet-wide. Jay Melosh, planetary scientist University of Arizona
Our solar system is full of violence … Volcanoes destroy but they also create. Volcanoes shape and change our climate. Space probes and telescopes have discovered volcanoes on worlds once thought of as dead. Of volcanoes that exist on other worlds, could there be life too? How the Universe Works s2e1: Volcanoes: The Furnaces of Life, Discovery 2012
Venus: ‘We had a picture of Venus revealed. And boy, were we shocked! We found a scarred surface, a volcanic surface.’ ibid. Michio Kaku
Naples: Flanked by two dangerous volcanoes. On one side, Vesuvius, destroyer of ancient Pompeii. And on the other, Campi Flegrei, an invisible monster that threatens three million people. Now scientists are seeing increases in volcanic activity and are scrambling to unlock the inner secrets of these volcanoes before it is too late. The Pompeii Prophecy: Countdown to Devastation, Channel 5 2019
In the year 79 C.E. Vesuvius exploded and buried the entire city in over a dozen feet of ash. Over the last 150 years archaeologists have been carefully uncovering the remains revealing a scene of carnage and death. A city and people frozen in time at the exact moment an eruption struck. ibid.
People have always been in awe of Mother Earth’s most fearsome phenomenon – the volcano. Some of the most majestic peaks of western American rise along the cascade range: deep within these peaceful looking mountains rumbles a power capable of devastating cities, of destroying cultivated lands, of causing horrible deaths. In Search of s5e7 … Dangerous Volcanoes, 1980
Magellan provided an unprecedented view of the Venusian surface … a world of volcanoes of all kinds. Jim Al-Khalili, Secrets of the Solar System III: Venus: Living Hell? 2020
The awesome power of nature, of the Earth itself … Our destiny has been shaped by the planet we live on. Indonesia 70,000 years ago: Mount Toba, a volcano on the island of Sumatra, erupts. It’s the biggest eruption in 2,000,000 years. Trillions of tons of ash are blown into the stratosphere, blocking out the sun, turning the world cold and barren. Secret History of Humans IV: Violent Planet, History 2020
Welcome to Pompeii: In mid-October 79 A.D. thousands of ordinary people were going about their everyday lives in this ancient Roman city in southern Italy not knowing that absolute devastation loomed on the horizon. Because within just a few days this entire city and everyone in it would be buried. Pompeii’s Final Hours: New Evidence, Channel 5 2018
Vesuvius, a volcano that’s lain dormant for 700 years, is waking up. At midday the mountain explodes with the energy of a nuclear bomb. Within 24 hours the town of Pompeii will be obliterated, not a single person left alive. ibid.
Earthquakes shook the town in those final days. ibid.
A complete Roman town trapped in time. ibid.
I visit a brand-new excavation that’s making fresh discoveries. Pompeii’s Final Hours: New Evidence II
Within forty-eight hours Pompeii will be wiped from the map buried under five metres of volcanic debris. No-one in the city will survive. ibid.
How the city met its tragic end has preserved so much for us to discover today. Pompeii’s Final Hours: New Evidence III
Pliney could see a giant plume of smoke going right up into the sky raining down this debris with thunderbolts flashing across the sky. ibid.
The sheer weight of the pumice made most of the roofs collapse – now some of the people were hiding inside their houses and we know that about a third of the victims died in that way. ibid.
The surge incinerates everything in its path, wiping out the small town of Herculaneum which was ever closer to Vesuvius than Pompeii. ibid.
These are the remains of people frozen in last few second of their lives ... They are unique. Margaret Mountford, Pompeii: The Mystery of the People Frozen in Time, BBC 2013
On the morning of August 24th 79 A.D. just before midday a powerful earthquake rocked the quiet countryside around the mountain. ibid.
What did kill them and fixed their bodies in these strange positions? ibid.
Sicily is full of paradoxes but Etna captures one of the most extreme: the lushness of the foothills versus the convulsive force of the volcano. Locals think of the volcano as female. Graham-Dixon & Giorgio Locatelli, Sicily Unpacked 3/3, BBC 2012
Yellowstone’s deadly secret: deep reservoirs of molten rock or magma … One of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world … Is a supervolcano about to blow in Yellowstone? Conspiracies Decoded s1e8, Discovery 2022
‘A violent eruption had happened: it’s rocks, it’s steam, it’s pretty much Armageddon.’ Ash Cloud: The Week the World Stopped, Channel 5 2022
April 2010 UK Bank Holiday weekend: Within 48 hours there will be chaos. 90,000 flights abandoned. Travel disrupted and people stranded all over the world. For millions of ordinary travellers. ibid.
All eyes are on the astonishing ash-cloud above it which is soaring six miles up into the sky. ibid.
And inter-stellar black holes capable of literally swallowing the Earth. The UnXplained with William Shatner s3e4: The Apocalypse, History 2022
There are at this very moment between 12 and 20 active super-volcanoes scattered across the Earth. ibid.
This film is in memory of Katia and Maurice Krafft, volcanologists from the Alsace region in France. Storyville: The Fire Within, Werner Herzog reporting, BBC 2022
This here is a Katia Krafft at a volcano in Iceland. And this is her husband Maurice. ibid.
This is the place of their death, the southern island of Kyushu in Japan. ibid.
1980 Mount St Helens in the state of Washington … a series of earthquakes and steam-vented episodes beginning in March … May 18th magnitude 5.1; this triggered the largest landslide in recorded history. Ibid.
There is a fascination about the beauty of volcanoes. ibid.
Over the remains of Armero, hovered the stench of carrion. There was silence. ibid.
A huge volcanic eruption may have devastated the Maya. Lost Treasure Tombs of the Ancient Maya II, Channel 4 2018
130 volcanoes in a country less than half the size of the UK. Iceland with Alexander Armstrong, Channel 5 2021
In the shadow of a mighty volcano, on the Italian coast, lies the greatest archaeological time capsule ever discovered: Pompeii. The incredible Roman metropolis where an entire city and even its people have been frozen in time. Pompeii: The Discovery with Dan Snow, Channel 5 2023
In the autumn of A.D. 79, in the middle of a normal day, a volcano, Mount Vesuvius, erupted. ibid.
One hundred miles of coastline was totally covered. ibid.
In 79 A.D. Mount Vesuvius in southern Italy erupted. The scale of the eruption is almost impossible to get your head round. It buried the gorgeous ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum under a blanket of ash up to twenty-four metres thick. But its volcanic debris also preserved these amazing towns and the remains of many of the people. Bettany Hughes, Pompeii: Secrets of the Dead, Channel 5 2021
Pliny lived here, near the naval base on the Cape of Misenum. ibid.
The day before the eruption, these earthquakes must have impacted those left behind in Pompeii. ibid.
Around 11 o’clock in the morning there was the hiss of an explosion and a cloud of ash appeared above Mount Vesuvius.
We are entranced by the beauty of our planet … All of this is so fleeting. For the last four and a half billion years our Earth has been a constantly changing ball of rock, transforming itself over and over again. It’s more fragile than we like to acknowledge. Chris Packham, Earth I, BBC 2023
Five pivotal moments in Earth’s history. Moments of drama, of crisis, and of rebirth. Events that shaped the planet we live on. ibid.
Not only to arise but to flourish and endure. But in fact it’s death that is the only true inevitability. ibid.
Extinction helped create our rich living world. But our planet walks a tightrope. If extinction goes unchecked, the complex web of life crumbles. ibid.
The greatest mass extinction event in Earth’s history. Something caused out planet’s life support systems to fail, wiping out most of the species on Earth. ibid.
253 million years ago … This is Pangea, a super-continent rich with life. Coastal waters team with weird and wonderful creatures. ibid.
The crust fails. The landscape physically torn apart as lava flood on to the surface forming great curtains of fire. This is just beginning of the most deadly volcanic event in Earth’s history … A series of explosions that went on for two million years. ibid.
That magma begins to heat up the coal and salt to a temperature of 800 degrees Celsius. A poisonous cocktail of gasses begins to build until the land above can take no more. ibid.
For life to bounce back the planet needed to cool down. ibid.