Life on the Rim: Working as a Volcanologist | Short Film Showcase

At some point, we'll start covering all the roofs and say, "Oh wow, so if I then I'm Ming contact with my camera."

"Yeah, okay, well, you may be right. Simply be there."

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"Go bring her back home! I want that images. It's the reason why I got into geology, to be in the field. Combining the science and the lab work and the analytical work with the field geology is what it's really all about for me. These are not people who stay in their lab. These are people who really go out and look at things and see what's going on, and that there's no substitute for that. That's why this place is so extraordinary."

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"This is the best place in the world to camp, literally! This volcano below a sanito is a laboratory volcano. It erupts every hour. You can get up high and look right down, like, 'Gazoo!' What a rare opportunity! It's a straight shot down the scarp, so when you stand on those rocks down there, you would see, like, one of the most marvelous volcanic phenomena on Earth."

"Did you hear anything in the night?"

"5,000 G?"

"No, I heard a few things, yeah. Oh, boom, bo!"

"Yeah, it's six, uh, seven. Some risks for geologists are mostly that you are outside in the outdoors. It's really difficult. Volcanoes are mountains for us. As a job, it's like, 'Is the volcano dangerous?' No, actually, it's the mountain itself. The mountain is really dangerous. I mean, these things are very unstable, so, you know, it's not necessarily the case they're just going to keep growing up and up and up and up, 'cause they're also going to be collapsing at the same time."

"The hike goes through a little canyon. We know there's rockfall, loose rocks, and a bit of rock climbing, but that was a great, great vantage point as well. You do things for a reason; there is a payoff, right? So, you want to go closer to the volcano because there are better data. How are we going to go closer, or are we not going to go closer?"

"The problem is that natural systems sometimes behave nicely and they tell you they're becoming critical. Sometimes it's really difficult to tell. In most places of the world, it's not a hazard to the general population; it's a hazard to volcanologists who are going close to the volcano to take samples or to do some kind of measurement."

"It's an impressive beast, yeah, that's wild."

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"I don't have any specific ideas in mind; that wasn't the volcano."