 Now, if you live here in London, you might feel reasonably safe from volcanoes. In fact, the closest ones are in Italy and in Iceland. There's an ancient volcano 80 miles away in Cambridgeshire, but it's considered extinct, so don't bother trying to toast any marshmallows. But live volcanoes can be devastating, so scientists are doing everything they can to understand them better. I'm going to find out more down on the Expression Floor. If you know me, you will know that I have an above average interest in a fire, so I was really drawn to this stand first, all about volcanoes. And I'm here with Michal Camino-Harry from the University of Oxford, who can explain a little bit more about this disco floor that we've got. It's not a disco floor, is it? It's not. So this is an Imagenarium. Of course it is. So it shows you're cross-section to the crust beneath a volcano in the Eastern Caribbean. The island is St. Vincent. Beneath the surface we have different magma reservoirs. So we can imagine we have a deeper reservoir in purple. So the purple bit right here is the magma that's very deep. Now we have a mid-crustle reservoir in red, and then a shallower reservoir in orange. And then you have some epic activity, which is the flashing light. And this creates, for these fractures, create earthquakes and connect these different reservoirs of magma. And then as they connect, you can see that they call us. So now you have purple joining the red. And then the red makes us way to the surface as you have more connections beneath... I think an eruption's coming, isn't it? It is. And then with more earthquakes, eventually you have an eruption. That's the sound you're hearing. So it's kind of like a schematic of how we will have unrest going into eruption. That is brilliant. And is this a simulation of an eruption that's happened, you said? So in 2020, last year, friends in Vincent erupted. It started with three months of dorm forming activity and then transition to explosions afterwards. We can also look at this in terms of bird's eye view, area of the island. So we're looking down. This is the island of Saint Vincent, as you imagine. And can I stand on this? You can. It's so inviting. So if I stand here... Yes. I understand that you are going to do things to this and I have to stand where it's safe, right? Exactly. So you can imagine this is the island and you have to decide as a resident where's the best place to build your life. Of course. You're making it into a game, but it is quite serious stuff. Yes. This is a serious science. It's happening about volcanoes. Lives are at risk. Decisions need to be made. Yes. And so using this information but doing it in this way lets people understand it. Yes, exactly. Absolutely. So you have this island and you decided to set yourself up here? I'm going to be here for now. I might move closer. Where the volcano, where the eruption happens? So then this is where the volcano is. Okay. Right. Then you have some earthquakes related to the volcano and then you have some gases. So far you're in a good spot. Because yellow is gas. Yes, this is gas. And the flashing is like the earthquakes that are happening around. I don't know if I'm going to be safe. Let's see. Now you have some pyroclastic flows going that way and then you have some ash clogged windows. Pyroclastic flows being like lava flowing over the... Like gas. Oh gosh. That moves at a very high speed and it kills things instantly. Yeah, which is serious stuff, yeah. So far you've chosen. I've chosen, yeah. But things will always happen this way but so far. And then as activity progresses we see more activity happening this way. Oh, what does yellow mean? So yellow means we might have some lahars coming this way. So when you watch benchmarks with ash. So I should probably evacuate, right? Yeah. I'm going to go over here. So of course that's where scientists become important because they were warned you before. Absolutely. Because you can't necessarily cross over that because it might be a danger zone. Yeah. So this is how the game becomes interactive. And this is how you can get an idea of what are the people living on volcanic islands. Gosh, thank you so much. And yes, this is a game. But even though I'm stood here on a simulation, it is quite nerve wracking. And I suppose it puts it into perspective the important work the scientists are doing. And then people like Macal that are making it really understandable for the next generation. But it's still a lot of fun to play. But back to you, Roma. Nice work, Fran. Now to tell us more, I'm thrilled to be joined by Richie Robertson, a volcanologist from the University of the West Indies. Welcome to Summer Science Live, Richie. It's great to have you here. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Could you tell us a little bit about how you got interested in volcanoes and what led you to the career that you've been following? It's actually a long story, but I'll make it short. I'm from the island of St. Vincent in Grenadines. I'm from the island of St. Vincent. And in 1979, the volcano exploded. It had an eruption. At the time, I was in secondary school. I was in sixth form. And the eruption was so impactful. We woke up early in the morning. The volcano was erupting. And I just happened to be the person that went to my father towards the volcano to evacuate my grandmother. So the impact of the eruption, this spectacular niche of it. And then finally, the fact that when the scientists came in to monitor the volcano to tell us what was happening, I realized that all of the scientists were coming from outside of the island. And there wasn't any Vincentian. She knew about the volcano. And I took it upon myself crazily that I would become that person. And that is where I am now. That's amazing. How long have you been doing this as your career now? Well, I've been doing it since 1987, I guess, officially. So, you know, it's so long I could stop counting the years. But interestingly, one of the things that have happened is that the volcano had an eruption in 2020-2021. And I was able to come full circle and be the person involved in providing that scientific guidance to the government and people in St. Vincent. So do you think is that your favorite volcano or is your least favorite volcano, I guess, in a way? I guess, in terms of how it looks, I think it's really a majestic mountain in terms of systems. I guess it's my favorite, it's one of the favorite ones, but there are a couple of 19 volcanoes that we monitor in the region. So, you know, lots of volcanoes in Dominica, in a couple of the islands are just as interesting. Yeah. And what makes a volcanic system interesting to you? Well, I guess it's a combination of things. I'm particularly interested in trying to ensure that people can live safely in volcanoes. So, I think if a volcanic system is one which has vulnerable people close by, I'm particularly interested in trying to understand it better so that we could provide the guidance needed to get people out of the way in Keynes of Ham. I think for a lot of us when we think of volcanoes exploding is what we've seen in Hollywood films, but could you tell us a little bit more about what the explosions or the eruptions actually look like? Well, the volcanoes in regions like in the Caribbean, which are subduction-vulned volcanoes, are ones that tend to explode. So, when the magma, this molten rock comes to the surface, it breaks up into pieces and it has these big explosions that then send a lot of fine-grained material and coarser grain material up into the air. Those are the spectacular ones that people are, you know, when people think of a volcano, like eruption, they think of an explosion. But there are volcanoes like in Hawaii, like in Iceland, where you have some things there. The magma is not as explosive and it comes out as this sort of really red, flowing mass of rock that people can then sit down in the chairs and look at it safely. The ones that are dangerous are the explosive ones. Yeah, I mean, I always think of, there's a certain amount of beauty to the magmas in there. How close have you been to magma and what has that experience been like for you? Perhaps in hindsight, in my early part of my career, I've been too close. But yeah, I've been in the days of the months, once you're at your option, we were quite close because there's a certain amount of uncertainty and ignorance in terms of what we were doing and we were trying to collect data. Depending on the kind of magma that is coming out, if it's more basalt, it tends to be more runny and it's probably safer to get close to it. But it's still quite hot, so you really should not get within a few feet of it because even as you get close, you could feel that. You can kind of feel this heat coming off. If it's one of the volcanoes, like in our part of the region, subduction zone volcanoes, which are explosive, you should stay several miles away from it because those could produce things that can cause you great harm quite quickly. I was really interested in what you said about scientists coming in from the outside. Can you tell us a little bit about the knowledge that the local people would hold about a volcano that external scientists might not? Well, especially indigenous people, if you bear in mind that they've been the longest-lived people in a particular region, they would have a lot of knowledge of past eruptions. What we know from volcanoes is that the way in which they erupt in the past, often they erupt in a similar way in the future. So if you discount that knowledge, you discount a lot of the experiential knowledge that you could have that could inform us. So yes, the people who live on volcanic islands have a lot of experience dealing with volcanic eruptions, both in terms of how you can respond sensibly, as well as the math things that can happen. So one of the things that we try to do is try to get into that knowledge, try to learn as much as possible, not only from the rocks itself, which is important, but also from the people who live on the islands. Yes, I mean, it is really important, I think, to listen to the local people. Do you have any examples of when things have gone wrong when that hasn't been done? Yes, I do, and to do that, I'll have to go back to my favourite volcano, as I mentioned before, which is Lassoufri volcano in St. Vincent. In 1902, it had an explosive eruption. And one of the things from looking at the past history, is that there were some fisherwomen, some women who got fish from one side of the island, went up the volcano, came down to another village, and they saw the fish there. And what happened is that early on in the eruption, there was an indication that the volcano was about to erupt, and they noticed these changes. And when they went to the village that they were selling in, they tried to alert the people, the people in Georgetown. They even went to the police station and told them, and in fact, one of them was almost arrested because they told them they were being nuisances. So they went back. And only the people in that village only realised what was happening when someone who was a plantation owner went up and saw it. But by then it was too late because the eruption had started and people actually ended up dying. And that's one of the reasons why in our exhibition, in our exhibit, we're focusing on what we say learning from the past. There's a section about curating crises, about past crises, and we're exhibiting some of what we have learned from these past crises. Because for us, geology, the past is a key to the future, not only in the rocks, but in terms of the history from people. And we're trying to learn from these hidden voices, these fish and women that you would never see in the records, trying to learn from what their experience was to tell us what could happen in the future. So, I mean, the moral of the story is listen to women. That's what I'm going to take away from this. Yes, listen to everyone, especially women. Especially women. Thank you so much, Richie. It's been really great to chat to you.