Ring of Fire Page #2

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Volcano Observatory

dr. Norman Banks

is credited with saving

thousands of lives.

Our monitoring data

convinced the governor

who was also a scientist,

that an eruption possibly

of significant magnitude

was developing.

Since the explosive eruptions of 1980

we have had to work very

close to the center of activity.

That is the dome itself

to detect the changes

that allow us to forecast

the next eruption.

You can't predict future

eruptions of a volcano

until you know its character.

Some of the instrumentation we use

can be as simple as our own senses.

But to provide data that's quantifiable

we have to resort to high-tech

equipment such as seismometers

deformation equipment,

and gas analysis.

What we're after here

is to obtain the ability

to save thousands of lives

repeatedly around the ring of fire.

Several weeks after the team

left the mountain

the lava dome exploded

without warning.

Volcanologists foresee even greater

eruptions in the future.

For the forces which

created and destroyed

Mount St. Helens contines

powerful beyond our imaginings.

Deep within the earth above a core

of iron and nickel

is a mantle of lighter elements

heated by natural radioactivity.

Over millions of years

the mantle behaves like a heated fluid.

The thin plates of the earth's crust

float like huge rafts adrift

on the fluid mantle.

The heavier plates of the

spreading sea floor

sink beneath the continental plates

creating earthquakes

around the pacific rim.

The sinking plates release

superhot fluids

which melt the mantle above them.

The lighter magma rises

forming complex volcanic conduits

and immense magma chambers

on its way to eruption.

Through repeated eruptions

this tectonic process

has formed the volcanoes

of the ring of fire.

Mount Sakurajima is one of

hundreds of volcanoes

which make up the

island arc of Japan.

The fire drummers of

Mount Sakurajima

enact the fury of the volcano.

Each year, Sakurajima explodes

in scores of ash eruptions

which blanket the island

and the port city of Kagoshima.

An annual evacuation drill

commemorates the terrible eruption

of Sakurajima volcano in 1914.

The islanders live in harmony

with active volcano

which affects nearly every

aspect of their lives.

Across the bay in the city of

Kagoshima, even the shopping malls

have been designed

with domed skylights

to keep out the regular

storms of ash.

Life goes on for a people living

in the shadow of destruction.

Kagoshima survives, in part,

because of the vigilance

of the scientists

who live and work at

the center of the bay

on the very flank of the volcano.

Here every fluctuation

of the volcano

is carefully monitored by a

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