starts december 25th on d, w. ah, ah, the gulf of naples on the west coast of italy of breathtaking the beautiful bay. but the tranquillity here is deceptive. this is one of the most dangerous places on the planet. the naples region is dominated by volcanoes, such as vesuvius. in ancient times, it was the cause of a massive natural catastrophe that left thousands of people dead. ah, the volcanoes, direct neighbors, some 4000000 people living in the naples metropolitan area. today, the soviets appears quiet, but the volcano could erupt again at any mom. ah, once we don't know when or how strongly headed with, we do know for something that will happen. the city is exposed to further threats, a gigantic network of dangerous, almost invisible volcanoes. any eruption would have devastating consequences. vulcan, ologist and researchers are in a race against time using up to the minute technology. they analyze any variation that could signal an imminent eruption. can they stay a step ahead of the volcano, hulu, vesuvius, one of history's most notorious volcanoes in the year 79, a. d. it's destructive flames in gulf, the city of pompei and killed its inhabitants. further are options followed. ah, but to day vesuvius is not the most potent threat. 20 kilometers to the west flies, an even greater danger. beneath the expanse of low land is a group of developing volcanoes, historically named the flag green fields, or burning fields. there are more than 50 of them across 150 square kilometers on land and under the sea. lulu on the surface, they are almost invisible. this network is classified as a super volcano. the only one in europe and eruption would be devastating. so far, scientists have discovered around 20 such super volcanoes world wide, and there are signs that this one could erupt soon. vulcan ologist are especially interested in the intense activity in the slough, atara crater every day. more than 2500 tons of c o. 2 and software are released here from the depths of the earth. in the year 2017 and entire family died after walking on the craters unstable surface says si come me nozzle full liquid. look at our data. as his end, the quasi waldo acquitted the with alpha. if you walk on the crater floor, you can actually feel the chasms. because the molten rock is porous, and chasms are created underneath by the emission of gases. under concentrated high pressure, the gases can road the fine particles of the rock and create chasms below the crater level could out at a royalty. nestle told, despite this permanent danger, thousands of people live on the edge of the south tata on its northeastern flank. is the fisher really full morrow field? a nearby tennis hotel was forced to close to be the only me sooner. milton, denser nevada extremely hot and intense steam is being emitted. damn all the temperature must be above a 100 degrees in these emissions. it was producing all the salt a producer. it was easily the emissions cover the walls and floors with a thick, whitish coating and smell of sulphur. a few years ago, the pirelli full morrow was just a small hole. the thermal area now measures around 4800 square meters and a bits more than $600.00 tons of carbon dioxide every day. so many of it is m good luck on, but i know that he's been allowed that crystal basine. if for example, there's an increase in one component compared to another, this can mean and magma is moving towards your surface unit, triple data. so any variations will give us an indication about how the system is evolving and whether an eruption is imminent meant that una elsewhere after detailed analysis, the scientists come to a conclusion that the green fields could potentially erupt very soon and ah, around 40000 years ago a volcanic eruption from this very same site, laid waste to a large area of europe. what's known as the companion in the brakes eruption spewed more than 300 cubic kilometers of magma. a 2nd direction, 15000 years ago, ejected a particular kind of volcanic rock. neapolitan yellow, tough to this day, the stone is a defining feature of the city of naples may be of jani, he splendid the same. b, a dow in a case here we have some splendid examples. the jester novel church is composed of fragments, books of stone extracted from the companion evening retain. whereas behind me is the center kiara church, which you can see is entirely built from blocks of neapolitan yellow top up to some extent to mother was he could say that thanks to the extraction of this man, serial from beneath the city of the outline of naples is the positive image of a negative valley or little to rush into one structure in particular highlights the ingenuity of the romans. a cistern built using volcanic rock. ah chic emily known me to little you jacqueline during a huge freshwater reservoir. it's an impressive technological feet. the pillars of 15 meters tall and the reservoir contains 12000000 liters of water from jojo nearly to the aqua. this enormous ancient cistern was jug entirely out of a tough hill. but neapolitan yellow tough does have one major drawback. it's porous window, but having been there, beads out to liberty though an old one more to more to prove to want sally i had a clever idea. i made a special kind of mortar. yeah. it's a cement based mortar could caught your pesto. it's basically made of 3 elements, a brick fragment, limestone, and the most important element. put. so lana, shit, volcanic, ashleigh, of which there is an abundance in this area. they mixed these 3 things together in one set. it made the was totally water perfume. it quit and not less than enabled the reservoir to contain huge quantities of water, the valley, the equity of up, i'll see below continue. it was denied me. must that? yeah, to day the flag green fields threatened to destroy what the neapolitan have built over centuries. all the while naples, most famous volcano looms ominously over the city. ah, the souvenirs has maintained a brooding and highly visible presence for centuries. its last eruption in 1944 was devastating. ah. the love of flows destroyed entire villages 26 people died. vesuvius has been dormant ever since. but vulcan ologist continue to monitor it just as they been doing since the 19th century. but it 9 double it on a little kind of get a challenge for us neapolitan vesuvius is the ultimate volcano. it has dominated our culture and have always been strongly attracted to it. and for those of us who work a lot on this domain, it's important to note that we find out something new about it every day was within discovery. and when i spent the whole val mount or the veto studies the surety griffey, the geological layers of the volcano on the noisy, the am on us to let you get a few. a could i say, when local knowledge, a study strategic griffey. because if we're reading a written account, turning page after page of the history of the volcanoes eruptions, the de la storia digger lute vesuvius remains dangerous to this day. more than $700.00 earthquakes occur here every year. some 700000 people live in close proximity to the volcano. scientists register every tremor and change. why so silly thought miss, who would r e through so the any this instrument measures the floor so to and the temperature of the gas emissions. my uncle evidently also enables us to have a more general idea about the evolution of the volcano mechanical multi button take up. it's very important to understand the system because it can give us an indication about the possible movements of mach matter current. fact, marty, get it resolved. good on mapquest. there was always is one instrument among many others which enables us to listen to the volcanoes breathing. they let us speed a little gun. the volcanoes breath is the gas is dissolved in the magma when they rise to the surface of the crater, the pressure drops and the gases expand. they formed bubbles, which spread over the surface. go look at v. net up in invisible t. it's a bit like what happens in this bottle, which contains a gas rich liquid, annoying as soon as you alter the pressure by removing the capital, you can see the gas separating from the liquid and rising to the surface, positive a look back at the history of earth reveals more about the origin of volcanoes and magma 250000000 years ago. there was a huge land mass called the pan gea geological activity broke up this super continent into several tectonic plates. these separated and drifted apart to form today's continents. ah, the geological trigger for these movements can be found beneath the earth's crust. this layer is around 30 kilometers thick. nothing compared to the radius of the planet, which is around 6000 kilometers. between this crossed and the earth's core, there's an upper mantle around 650 kilometers deep. this mantle consists of currents of molten rock circulating around each other. they act like a conveyor belt display seeing the plates of beakers crust. this is called convective movement. for millions of years, these plates have been drifting apart by several centimeters per year. they slide separate and collide in italy, the african plates slides under the eurasian plate. the contact points can reach such high temperatures. that part of the mantles rock fuses, bringing about what's known as subduction. the molten rock or magma builds up in the crevices of the earth's crust and forms magma chambers eventually magma combined with gas, will rise to the surface and form a volcano. to balance the structure of the earth's crust, surplus heat and energy is discharged, and magma ejected triggering of volcanic eruption. ah, one of the world's most active volcanoes is located around 600 kilometers south of naples. mount etna in sicily. this volcano, which is more than 3000 meters above sea level, is nicknamed manji bellow, or the mountain of mountains. in contrast to the neapolitan volcanoes, aetna erupts on a regular basis almost 80 times during the last century. in fact, eugenio privy tara has been analyzing it for many years. fulfill me then. i believe it when he saw no fame today, but i'll be that we can find all these lap halima, which is dupree from explosion. so the piece is a small and very light. this is because the foot of air buckles originally gas by demand dilution, that it can also find volcanic ash. and as you can see now, it's like ferry fine black sand emmel. and here is a lovely volcanic bomb, it's quite big, but not as big as some produced by aetna elect bulk that some bombs can be the size of small coffee diet. this rock was produced from within a mac, mccollum in it, and when the gas bubbles reached the surface and expand on to my project into the air, the part of the mcmurry, situated above the gospel, you went into the fi, shit throw yet, darn i. yep. or the, or the video break. diddy. let us did you mark mark asked us over the bowl. aetna is constantly creating new craters book, a new ova is the youngest of the 4 craters on the summit. it appeared in 1968 to the west of the central crater cone. mm mm. unlike the volcanoes of the bay of naples, aetna is situated at the crossroads of several tectonic plates. it's in contact not only with the eurasian, and african plates. also with the micro plates of the geranium and ione, and sees these geological confrontations produce huge quantities of magma which in turn generate intense activity. the magma is relatively fluid, and the gas bubbles move freely. therefore they rise to the surface quicker than the magnetic fluid. in contrast, the magma within vesuvius and the flu, rhian fields is much more viscous. this means it's harder for the gas bubbles to escape, causing a build up of pressure. this could generate explosive eruptions with huge destructive power. the prevailing theory to date has been that in the case of mount etna, small gas bubbles merged to make larger ones. these rise in the vents faster than the mach matic fluid. when they reached the surface, they burst creating many explosions that project the magma into the air. once separated from the gas, the magma spreads and forms relatively slow lava flows known as if use of eruption . but vulcan ologist, so unsettled by some of the latest findings. and wondered if of if, if you are a fan to have your all, i will not let not acre you. one of the most recent discoveries we made about that nanny's is that the chemical composition of the my has been changing over the last few decades fit. that there is now an increase in potassium compared to before, when there was more sodium. this chemical variation could explain the rise and explosive activity that i noticed over the last few years. and the fall in the fuse, if activity i foresee ah hell over. so how is it to the eugenio? i am in the middle checking the signals, but for the moment i can see any significant variations on it. despite its huge surface area of around 1200 square kilometers. aetna is one of the most monitored volcanoes in the world. researchers track its activity in numerous laboratories. the tiniest variations could be precursors to an imminent eruption. and there is another danger lurking not far away. several kilometers north of aetna in the mediterranean is europe's largest active volcano, the underwater volcano. marcy lee is situated at a depth of around 3500 meters. there's another underwater volcano near the elian island chain off the island of panorama. francesco italiano and his team have been observing it since it was discovered in 2002 with another. equip weekly summaries. another can you see, look, you can really see the bubbles that arising to the surface money. these are the most intense hydrothermal emissions that we've seen here in panorama. it's all carbon dioxide and a lot of hydrogen sulfide loudy you can smell the sulfur in the air. and that's the 1st thing we noticed when we came to study pen. arianna, what we didn't expect of the time was that under the sea, there was a whole world we couldn't see from above local minimum. this underwater volcano has actually been extinguished for millennia. southern regardless of face on the rascal breed. okay. it was a huge surprise, discovered that the fluids were rising to the surface in chimneys 3 to 4 meters high. and it was such a surprise because it meant that the fluid finding their way upwards through these ancient structures on for the whole fed by a volcano jelly may. so we deduce little that there was a major hydrothermal system that we needed to take a closer look at and put a for sort of demo for jada banning. over the centuries, these fluids forged more than $200.00 chimneys. oh, they consist of iron oxide and have a red orange color. this mineral forest is only 70 meters below the surface, which makes it an exceptional observation site for scientists or elsewhere in the world. this type of geological formation is only found at much greater ocean depths . oh, it was here that francesco juliano made an extraordinary discovery. so they're going to leave me for a mother. was she v r c. the federal with these grains from iron oxide shells which form around each other creating what we call, what are some of it's the same type of deposit that has been photograph or mars. we know that on earth that either the origin of life is linked to hydrothermal systems, or maybe in which life forms use chemical elements to survive. seeing that we have the same underwater hydrothermal system of mosque could mean that the reforms of light from the red planet to, if he got his will mountain hurry along in the submarine. volcano of panorama is now a giant laboratory. and scientists are only just beginning their investigation in the torrini and see the volcanoes are anything but quiet across the water from the island of canaria. there is another volcano, feared by humans for centuries. the strum boley. it's one of the most active volcanoes on the planet. it spews its incandescent lava day and night, earning the nickname, lighthouse of the mediterranean. at 926 meters high, it's classified as a strato volcano, built up by many layers of hardened lava. woken ologist explore the northern flank of the island. the shot at the photo, the stream of fire. it's a horseshoe shaped depression. with a highly unstable, 36 degree slope. in december, 2002. the stream of fire was the scene of a spectacular event. 20000000 cubic meters of rock crashed into the sea, triggering assumed army with waves of up to 10 meters high. scientists now know what caused this dramatic event. as magma rose to the surface, it warped this section of the volcano which began to swell. the rock began to crack in numerous places, triggering the land slide, which in turn brought on a tidal wave. vulcan ologist mout arossi and his team have developed a new technology to bring this unstable fact under control condition. what's the radar? reading on a stable on the sharon, thanks to this high resolution radar, the scientists can now track the slightest movement in the ground 24 hours a day. better at alexander, we managing to produce images of the movements of the shower del fuko. is it what machine works like a photocopier each? if there have been any shifts of land damaged with these will be picked up by comparing 2 images and study them. and it could mean that there's a risk in the shower than for co collab mike, and it wouldn't be ticklish either for gordie teddy fanatic. the 2000 to sue nami remains bout arossi of a terrible event that took place in the 14th century, as described by the italian rider pet rock just at all and not only in good and day time. there was a huge tremor in naples and a loud noise during the night which woke every one id 8 durant, they illema d now quite in the morning, down at the port corpses and wounded people were scattered in the water cannot start them. will d laptop a new the shit he wrote, broken like soft eggs floating on the water, a job on the meds, a la carte one doll and now pain. so specter can eat do when the theory was put forward that you do could have been the cause of this debbie nami, that's when i decided to come to stumbling because some of it was to look for evidence that a tidal wave had indeed taken place at that precise time they do not send on me. i've been open when ma main forces from room on the island of stromboli, the vulcan ologist found traces of this disaster buried one meter underground. ah little kevin, with a bottle. so all the material we found this brown colored mechanic materials book. mortimer on it. yeah. see what i mean. thing. reasonable. konica flint think that is something the most interesting part is this sand layer. ok. coke yankee. it contains round pebbles and is irrefutable proof that it was indeed created by astronomy. serrato queen anne after all by in a clever cabella k. great louisiana and louise unit, that's unami sub gamble, key music, rambo. eco. bonaparte thought, be she me by measuring the radio carbon in the underlying layer, we were able to data to the mid 14th century tranquil queen. the only thought each coincides with astronomy observed by patriarch and naples. cast out all said rattled up. it's like a novel by measuring the thickness of this layer and its distribution across the island, mount arossi was able to prove that the tidal wave reached a height of over 20 meters. in 2019 tourists were nearly drowned by a similar wave. ah. since then, the whole island has been under a permanent tsunami alert. motto is convinced that we might very well see a repeat of the deadly tidal wave that hit naples in the 14th century. what i say for all she full self, all my silly little ceramic glossy dementia, only calif another son, ami was form because of a landslide on the shower. the photo law, the resulting way, would travel northwards and reached the port of naples in about 20 minutes. if i ginger bear impulsively, not fully alan, she came in to me. it wouldn't take long for the port of naples and surrounding area to be completely destroyed by a giant wave. another potential threat for the region given the threat of the fleet green fields, the soviet aetna, the undersea volcano of pan, ria, and stromboli. some 4000000 inhabitants of the gulf of naples have had to learn to live with omnipresent danger. the catastrophe that devastated the city of pompei 2000 years ago shows what an eruption might do in august of the year 79, a. d, pompei, a city 30 kilometer south of naples, was consumed by ash. the soviet had been dormant for 800 years. but that night, the volcano came to life awe. today, after many centuries of excavation, the remains of pompei or a unique treasure trove for scientists. this exceptional archaeological site has enabled claudio scar party to conduct a detailed examination of the evolution of the russian and its destructive impact on the human population. we look at video mclee, it took dorothy, we can see here it is the whole sequence of events that occur in $7981.00. there are 2 main layers for a lower layer, which is made a promise of with stones of different sizes you barrier. and there's a clear separation and the upper straw t. m is composed of layers of ashley, is that these are the 2 main phases of the erosion she valley fantasy. the little sure these observations have enabled scientists to partially reconstruct the 1st phase of the eruption. a massive column from deep inside the volcano, rows at an average speed of 400 meters per 2nd. it contained millions of tons of ash and to pumice. the energy released was $100000.00 times greater than that of the hiroshima bomb. according to the scientists calculations, the eruption ejected around 4 cubic kilometers of stone and lava. the plume of smoke reached 32 kilometers into the sky. that's almost 30 times higher than vesuvius itself. at this altitude, the column assumed the form of a pine tree witnessed by that are plenty. this kind of a rupture is now known as a pliny interruption. pumice and ash then rained down on pompei people, had no time to flee, and were buried in an instant. the corpses eventually decomposed, leaving a hollow imprint in the compacted ash. scientists later filled the cavities with plaster. these plaster casts of the people of pompei show their desperate attempts to escape the deadly ash with dish, yamuna, fat, chevy jam, or you can see the expression on the face and the position of the body. this is vitally important because it allows us to capture the person's last moments love and to understand what actually caused that bad quality. so know you ain't again other than the novel i'm off. did he wasted was the best after 19 hours of this devastating ash rain, the eruption entered its 2nd even more deadly phase. as the gas pressure dropped, the 32 kilometer plume of smoke imploded. this triggered an avalanche, a fire called pyro plastic flows, traveling down the sides of the volcano at hundreds of kilometers an hour in the ruins of this roman villa, archaeologists covered victims from the 2nd phase of the eruption. one person seemed to be desperately trying to protect another by putting an arm around them. ah, those services was over the linton. the do not look before they went out. these victims found themselves inside a cloud, which was probably dozens, if not hundreds of meters there. about a cloud of ash, if you could miss or, and volcanic gases, you probably reaching temperatures of a 100 degrees that they were undoubtedly suffocated by the density of the ash, which was found in the pirate plastic flows with the gland to milk. and they would have died within minute is judy akani not cloudy, or scar, party scientific approach is to examine the remains of the past in order to anticipate the future. and he is not the only scientist to ask the worry in question. could naples ever become another pompei i wasn't. there isn't the case. fossil, it never gets interesting. is that generations born off to the last eruption in 1944 o'clock, i have never seen the volcano erupt, added on, or they've never seen the famous cream of smoke above vesuvius. visual, and so they see a volcano to calm, dorman gun, and the doesn't need to be fit the that on the country. it's a very active volcanoes. it was which could erupt intensely at any time. and we don't know when in september or with how much force renewed year, we know for certain that it will happen a in the bay of naples, the highest priority remains the surveillance of the flag green fields. after sunset, scientists begin their monitoring work. they are looking for the slightest tremors, changes that could affect the lives of millions to night and recon maroka and her assistant are observing the picture rally for moral with the thermal camera. if and i mean, violet, gabriella, i think that would alga alike i'm in, i'm a good vital that the sun's rays don't influence the temperature of the mag magic chamber. so that's why we work at night. i think with, at the moment we can see the maximum temperature is 85 degrees. if we move the camera to focus on the flu, morell's own. but we can see that there's a huge amount of energy val and considerable gas emissions. where the something which wasn't happening 10 years ago, and i couldn't believe it's impossible to go there now. lesson. so that's why we use jones. you did exactly the vulnerable this drone can fly up to an altitude of 100 meters and cover the entire piece. yarelly area, which is growing rapidly via demolition here for example, we have a surface area of around a kilometer from we can see straight away which are the zones with the greatest thermal anomalies in over time. we can work out if these abnormal zones are rising or falling and temperature, which is then gives us an idea of the situation of the magnetic system and rica now repeats these procedures every month as the signs of the volcanic activity become more concerning. but erections aren't the only dangers linked to the volcanoes. the town of foot slowly is located close to the pressure really for moral. a very rare geological event occurred here in the 1980s known as brady se ism brady say as a means that the ground rises and falls very slowly. when magnetic fluids and flat layers of rock rise, the rock is warped and lifted upwards. this deformation creates cracks. if these reached the surface, they can cause earthquakes. the heat from the magma can then escape through the foam rolls. when the magnetic fluid subside, the rock is warped in the opposite direction and the ground collapses. almost as though the volcano was breathing with vulcan, ologist moto, devito believes the situation has become even more dangerous since the 1980s. ah, only the slam ended his elbow a little the meal i see a very slow uplift began in 2006 stage. my stage accompanied by seismic activity and then from 2018, the rhythm has been more or less constant with an important increase which is still going on today. hello, she thought the total defamation from 2006 to the present day is around 70 centimeters in the central zone. a put wally mapquest on me that this is certainly one of the reasons that i'm worried, but i can't give it a time scale. we can't know or say if the next to russian will take place to morrow . and 6 months or 20 years up, the man he fuzzy made. if it had been danny scientists believe that if an interruption did take place, it could look like this. and a rubbed of column around 15 to 20 kilometers high. rejecting huge blooms of magma and tons of ashes, which the wind would carry to naples and beyond. it's estimated that there would be just 30 minutes to evacuate. the 4000000 people living near by at the put so all the civil protection center security teams are on maximum alert in the event of interruption of the flag green fields. this is the area facing the greatest threat gratitude. thank you everyone for your assessment of the situation. if i don't think we should as finish the stromboli vulcan ologist motor rossi is also responsible from monitoring operations in the region. every 2 months he meets civil protection professionals and volunteers to plan for the potential evacuation of thousands of people of them and think well obviously if the conditions were such that we had to pass to a level orange alert, evacuation plan for the whole of the flag rhian zone did happen in 2 ways, either autonomously using their own vehicles or by assisted evacuation for those physically incapable of leaving on their own home and get out and get them back to them. although everything's ready on paper so far, the plans haven't been put to the test in towns with winding frequently congested streets. oh, this isn't simply a logistical problem. despite the ever present danger, locals feel a deep sense of attachment to the land. or if it is familiar with bonnie, lemme yet i prefer to die here where i was born and where all my ancestors were born. because i'm an old puts your law. no, it's in my blood. it's not something you can explain. you born, you live and you die. hell, what the scientists say is both true and whoring, but we're staying here still and what will be lumpy humans have always lived here alongside the volcanoes. the burning mountains are an integral part of their culture. if an eruption does one day appear, eminent, scientists want to be able to issue a timely warning ah, in the pano rear region, with its active underwater volcano, they've made an unexpected discovery that were on the vault line. this time biologists are exploring the area my long time and can you see where we are on what we should be there? suddenly yes, this is the chimneys on with on 2015 a shuttle. to better understand this zone with 200 chimneys scientists are using a remote controlled underwater vehicle or r o v. it's equipped with a high definition camera and an articulated arm which can be operated from the ship . the device enables unprecedented exploration of the hydrothermal vents. westfield yummy. get be almost all okay. but these are the chimneys that we discovered 5 years ago. one of them. yeah, let me go visit us. the work with striking is all the living creatures surrounding them. because around the chimneys, there are fairly extreme conditions. for example, a very acidic ph level. and c o 2 emissions, which are higher than in others, owns only masonic anything. i got on the, on my job and he spent all on the entire area is full of life. and so it seems organisms have adapted to their environment. media was on a doggy jobs and then it's an astonishing ecosystem. in such extreme conditions with high gas levels, life ought not to be viable. the biologists explain this by the presence of bacteria, which feed on the minerals produced by the gas, by transforming them into energy. the bacteria sustained the whole area. a clear sign that in a volcanic environment where explosions can be deadly, new life can emerge again. one of the scientists, primary goals, is to continue research into this paradox of nature. the bay of naples and area of volcanic turbulence where the end of one world could mean the beginning of another a joy ride through fascinating worlds. into uncharted debs, our guides know their way around with a strict, a interesting trip to some pretty wacky places. curiosity is required to borrow to day in 30 minutes on d, w. we go behind the scenes of a legendary winter time show. an iconic ice skating spectacle celebrates a big birthday. holiday on ice is turning 80. see world class ice skaters. and there enchanting perform your with the minutes on d w. i could have done more st. you i just click away. find out basic documentary on youtube. yeah. when that morning. see the world as you've never seen it before. describe now t d w document. ah ah, this is dw news live from bowbin bone chilling temperatures in the united states. millions of americans hate with snow wind and ice, a massive arctic storm. it's causing power outages, flight cancellations, and where the warnings of.