- 2 days ago
A powerful volcano that once obliterated Neanderthals is showing signs of life again, while eerie skyquakes are rattling the globe, with some experts fearing that these unsettling phenomena could soon be heard near you. Both events remind us of the unpredictable and dangerous forces shaping our planet.
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00:00Imagine standing in the middle of Europe 40,000 years ago.
00:04The landscape is rough, cold, and unforgiving.
00:07Fast food is scarce, and there's no internet.
00:11Suddenly, from out of the woods steps a figure, stocky, strong, and with a face that is quite unusual.
00:18This human looks similar to us, but something about them is different.
00:22Their brow is heavy, their nose is broad, and their body seems to be built to fight nature itself.
00:28Well, congrats!
00:30You've just met a Neanderthal.
00:32You might have thought that Neanderthals were basically ancient humans, but that's not really true.
00:37We come from the same genus called Homo, but we, all modern humans, belong to one same species called Homo
00:45sapiens.
00:46However, there used to be lots of human species before, and Homo neanderthalensis was just one of them.
00:53And they actually were kind of cooler than us.
00:55So, what in the world has happened to them?
01:00Neanderthals lived for a long time, for about 360,000 years, across Europe and parts of Asia.
01:0640,000 years ago, the place we now call southern Italy was sitting on top of a huge disaster.
01:12A massive supervolcano called Campi Flaigre.
01:16This big boy is huge, about 9 miles wide.
01:20That's about 10 to 20 minutes in a car to get across it all.
01:23But there were no cars then, remember?
01:25At the time, it was quiet for a while.
01:28But one day, suddenly, it blew in what became one of the biggest volcanic eruptions Europe had seen in 200
01:35,000 years.
01:36The catastrophe was so crazy that ash, gases, and debris altered the climate across the entire continent.
01:43What comes next is usually called a volcanic winter.
01:46Average temperatures drop, the sky gets darker, and life becomes even harsher than it already is.
01:52The eruption, known as the Campanian Ingrambrite, caused Europe to cool by as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit.
02:00Doesn't sound like much?
02:02Well, the drop of even 1 degree would cause winters to become harsher, causing horrible snowfall, rains, and floods.
02:09Crops would struggle to grow, leading to food shortages.
02:13The weather would go wild, too, with storms and droughts.
02:16Kind of like now.
02:18Except multiply this by 7.
02:20Events like these cause some huge chaos in modern times.
02:24You can imagine what it did to the Neanderthals.
02:28But in reality, a simple volcanic eruption shouldn't destroy an entire species, right?
02:34Well, yes, the truth is, the Neanderthals were already hanging by a thread back then.
02:40And all because of us.
02:42They've been in a tough spot for a while.
02:45They lived in places that are now parts of Europe, Western Asia, and the Middle East.
02:50Modern humans, us Homo sapiens, entered Europe and were giving them some serious competition for food and shelter.
02:57Homo sapiens were sneaky dudes.
02:59Better at finding food, easily adapting to different environments, and using more advanced tools.
03:05We were pushing Neanderthals out, trying to get the same resources.
03:09We literally made their extinction a slow and very unpleasant process.
03:14So, while the volcano definitely made things worse, it wasn't their only problem.
03:19And they didn't completely disappear after the eruption.
03:22Some of them hung on in isolated places, like Gibraltar, for another 12,000 years.
03:28That's because it's likely most of the severe cooling actually happened farther east, away from where the Neanderthals were trying
03:35to survive.
03:36And it didn't hit their homes as hard as we thought.
03:39In fact, the eruption may have even helped them, at least for a while.
03:44Some scientists say that the volcanic fallout might have slowed down modern humans' expansion into Neanderthal territory
03:51and gave the poor fellas a little more time to survive.
03:54So, the Campyflegre eruption was a nasty event, but it only delayed the inevitable.
04:01Campyflegre is a wild card.
04:03It's also known as the Fields of Fire.
04:06The air itself there is thick with legend.
04:09The Greeks and Romans believed this volcano was the gateway to the underworld.
04:13Even an ancient Roman poet, Virgil, mentioned this in his famous story, The Aeneid.
04:20The hero, Aeneas, must descend into the underworld, and this place is exactly where he starts.
04:26Back in the day, this landscape was full of Roman villas, spas, and fishponds.
04:31The elite had the time of their lives there.
04:34What they didn't know, though, was that they were standing on treacherous ground that could go crazy at any moment.
04:42The Campyflegre is not your typical volcano.
04:45You'd imagine a single towering peak, but the landscape looks deceivingly calm, with small features popping up here and there.
04:53But if you flew above it, the site would be insane.
04:57A gigantic circular basin, peppered with volcanic cones and craters, like scars from the Earth's violent past.
05:05The danger here lies in its subtlety.
05:07The ground beneath your feet is constantly shifting, even when you don't notice it.
05:12Every so often, the land rises, only to sink again, sometimes by several feet, as magma or gas moves beneath
05:20the surface.
05:21It's incredibly creepy.
05:23The risk is almost invisible.
05:25The Campyflegre is a massive depression formed by two colossal volcanic eruptions.
05:31One of them was the one that cooked Neanderthals, and another happened 15,000 years ago.
05:36The most famous eruption, though, happened in the 16th century, and it was horrifying.
05:43The year was 1538.
05:46For years, the people of Pazwale had noticed something unsettling.
05:50Land that once sat below the waves was slowly rising.
05:54What was once the sea had become new ground.
05:57Rumblings from deep within the Earth were terrifying, but had become a normal part of life.
06:02Earthquakes started in the early 1530s, small at first, but in just eight years, they became the norm.
06:10Until one day, on September 28th, horrifying tremors shook the ground.
06:15By the next evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, a massive crack ripped open the Earth near the
06:21ancient Roman town of Tripurgoli.
06:23From this gash spewed fire, smoke, and a rain of volcanic ash miles away.
06:30It was thick and muddy, lightly mixed with underground water.
06:33The ground trembled as hot pumice rock was thrown high into the air.
06:38And then, a new mountain began to rise from the land.
06:41This was the birth of what we now call Monte Nuovo.
06:46Eventually, things seemed to calm down, as if the Earth was catching its breath.
06:50For days, things seemed quiet.
06:53Locals relaxed a bit.
06:55They began to approach the new, mysterious volcano, a crater with something that resembled boiling within it.
07:01People visited it like a new attraction.
07:03But then, just days later, the disaster struck again.
07:08At night, without warning, a new mountain went wild.
07:11A blast from the southern flank hurled scoria, chunks of jagged volcanic rock, into the air.
07:17This one was fatal for 24 people.
07:20The debris found afterwards was huge and coarse.
07:24For centuries after, the only signs of life from the Monte Nuovo were small fumaroles, jets of gas seeping from
07:31the Earth.
07:31But then, even those faded away.
07:34Now, it's just a lush green cone.
07:37A pretty sleeping giant.
07:41But the ground near Naples, Italy, is still alive.
07:45The Campi Flegre sits quietly for now.
07:48But it might not be for long.
07:49It's showing signs it might be waking up again.
07:53This supervolcano looks like a hellish landscape, with its boiling mud pits, geysers, and steam vents.
08:00Romans and medieval Christians once believed it was a gateway to the underworld.
08:05And who can blame them?
08:07What's spooky is that recently scientists detected unusual activity under the surface.
08:13In 2012, Italian authorities raised the alert level on the volcano from green to yellow, meaning that it needs close
08:21monitoring.
08:22There are certain changes that usually happen before an eruption.
08:25The magma below starts releasing gases, which could weaken the rock above, eventually triggering a disaster.
08:34Unfortunately, no one can predict exactly when or if it will erupt.
08:39But if it does, the consequences could range from a minor inconvenience for locals to a global catastrophe.
08:46Its last tiny eruption happened in the 16th century.
08:49And it wasn't too bad.
08:51But if history repeats itself, like it was with Neanderthals, we're all cooked.
08:56An eruption like that could lead to global cooling, crop failures, and widespread famine.
09:02Right now, a group of scientists is trying to get a clearer picture of what's happening beneath the surface.
09:08The Campi Flegre deep drilling project is working to drill a 10,000-foot borehole, hoping to check out the
09:15magma chamber up close.
09:16But at least for now, the supervolcano remains quiet.
09:21And let's hope it stays that way.
09:27For hundreds of years, people in the U.S. have reported hearing strange, loud booms.
09:33These mysterious sounds are called skyquakes.
09:36And yep, it's a real thing.
09:38If you've ever heard a loud, distant booming noise that definitely wasn't a thunderstorm or a car engine backfire,
09:46congrats, it looks like you've experienced a skyquake yourself.
09:50People report them all around the globe, from the U.S. to India and Japan.
09:55They go under different names.
09:57And we still don't know why exactly they happen.
10:01Sometimes, these booms come together with earthquakes.
10:05People heard them during the New Madrid earthquakes in the early 19th century and up until January 2020.
10:11Those who've experienced them describe skyquakes as a rushing or rolling noise.
10:17Famous American writer James Fenimore Cooper described it more poetically as
10:22the lake speaking to the surrounding hills, which sent back the echoes of its voice in accurate reply.
10:30Sometimes, these mysterious booms happen in cold weather instead of during earthquakes.
10:35One of the skyquake hotspots is near Lake Seneca in New York.
10:39They call them the Seneca Guns.
10:42The booms can be so loud that they shake windows and doors.
10:46Back in August 1886, after an earthquake in Charleston,
10:50people heard these noises for several weeks,
10:53happening at the same time as many aftershocks from the earthquake.
10:59In 2020, scientists from the University of North Carolina looked at old news pieces,
11:05especially from North Carolina, where people have often reported these sounds.
11:09They hoped to match the noises with earthquakes' data,
11:12but they didn't find any link between the sounds and earthquakes.
11:16One of the researchers said they believe the noises are happening in the air, not underground.
11:22The team looked at infrasounds, which are low-frequency noises that humans can't hear.
11:27They found signals lasting 1 to 10 seconds that matched the times when people reported
11:33hearing the booms, but nothing is certain here.
11:37Some people think that solar flares, underwater tsunamis, or caves collapsing under the sea
11:42cause skyquakes.
11:44Others believe the sounds come from planes making loud sonic booms.
11:48But that doesn't explain old records of skyquakes from the past before planes were even invented.
11:54Some scientists think a type of meteor, called a bolide, causes these booms.
11:59These meteors blow up when they hit Earth's atmosphere.
12:03If this happened above thick clouds, the sound would get louder and travel far,
12:08but we wouldn't find anything on the ground.
12:11Another idea is that gas might be escaping from the bottom of deep lakes, like Lake Seneca.
12:20If you think skyquakes are bizarre, let me introduce you to fog bows.
12:25They also go under the name of white rainbows, ghost rainbows, or cloud bows.
12:30They form in a similar way to regular, colorful rainbows, but are much wider.
12:36Rainbows happen when there are big raindrops in the sky,
12:39and you can always spot them on the opposite side of where the sun is shining.
12:44Fog bows are made by tiny droplets in fog, or clouds, instead of big raindrops,
12:50and they also appear opposite the sun.
12:53If you want to see a fog bow, you need to look for it in a thin fog when the
12:58sun is bright.
12:59You might catch one when the sun starts to shine through the fog,
13:02or if you're near the ocean, where fog often forms.
13:07Because the water droplets in fog are so tiny,
13:10fog bows don't have bright colors like rainbows.
13:13They might even look all white, or just have faint colors.
13:18Some fog bows are hard to see at first, because they blend into the mist.
13:22But once you spot them, they're easy to recognize.
13:27The next rare weather phenomenon you gotta watch out for is thundersnow.
13:32You guessed it right, it's a special type of thunderstorm that happens during a snowstorm.
13:38Unlike regular thunderstorms that often strike in the spring and summer,
13:41thundersnow is much rarer because it happens in the strongest winter storms,
13:46like big blizzards, and at the same time, needs warm air, which isn't a frequent combo.
13:53So, for thundersnow to happen, there needs to be moisture in the air,
13:58some instability, and something to lift the air, like rising winds.
14:02Just like in normal thunderstorms, lightning can appear when you hear thunder.
14:08Thundersnow lightning usually goes from cloud to cloud instead of hitting the ground,
14:12and the thunder sounds different too,
14:14more like a low rumble instead of a loud boom,
14:17because the snow muffles the sound.
14:20You aren't so likely to get struck by it,
14:22but it's still important to stay inside when you hear thunder to stay safe.
14:29Northern Lights fans, this one is for you.
14:32Scientists noticed a new kind of glow in the sky that looked like a purple streak.
14:37They nicknamed it Steve as a joke, but later gave it a more scientific name,
14:42Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement,
14:45Steve for short.
14:47Steve is actually a fast-moving stream of super-hot gas
14:51that always moves west and only shows up before midnight.
14:55They wondered if something like Steve could happen after midnight,
14:59but moving in the opposite direction.
15:01And now, scientists think they found the anti-Steve
15:05by looking at data from a research station in Norway.
15:09In December 2021, they took a picture of a bright purple streak
15:13stretching for 620 miles in the sky,
15:16and it only appeared after midnight.
15:20Satellites from the European Space Agency
15:22also measured the conditions in this part of the sky
15:25and found that the ions were moving eastward.
15:29Steve's late-night twin hasn't been officially named yet,
15:32but it would be cool if it was called SAM,
15:34which is short for Steve After Midnight.
15:41If you've ever seen snow on a sunny day
15:43when falling from the sky without a single cloud,
15:46it must have been diamond dust.
15:48It's a special kind of weather
15:50with millions of tiny ice crystals forming close to the ground.
15:54These ice crystals float slowly in the air,
15:57kind of like how dust floats in your house.
16:00When sunlight hits these crystals,
16:02they sparkle like diamonds.
16:04Unlike regular snow,
16:06diamond dust can fall from a cloudless sky,
16:09which is why they sometimes call it
16:10clear-sky precipitation.
16:13It happens because of temperature inversion.
16:16Normally, it gets colder as you go higher up from the ground,
16:20but in a temperature inversion,
16:22the cold air stays near the ground,
16:24and warmer air sits above it.
16:27The warm air has more water vapor,
16:29and when it mixes with cold air near the ground,
16:31it turns directly into ice crystals,
16:34and diamond dust is born.
16:35For this to happen,
16:37the air near the ground has to be really, really cold,
16:40way below freezing temperature.
16:43Diamond dust can fall for days,
16:45but it's so light that it usually doesn't pile up on the ground
16:48like regular snow.
16:52A fall streak hole,
16:54also known as a hole-punch cloud,
16:56is next on our list.
16:58This big, circular, or oval-shaped gap
17:01sometimes appears in certain clouds.
17:04These types of clouds float high up in the sky
17:07and are often made of tiny water droplets
17:09that are colder than freezing,
17:11but they haven't frozen yet.
17:13These special water droplets are called supercooled,
17:17and they need a reason to freeze.
17:20Ice crystals give them that reason.
17:21When a plane flies through the cloud,
17:24it can bring those ice crystals into the cloud.
17:26Once the ice crystals are there,
17:28the supercooled water droplets freeze quickly,
17:31get bigger,
17:32and start to fall from the ground.
17:34This creates a hole in the cloud,
17:36and as more nearby droplets freeze,
17:39the hole gets bigger and spreads outward.
17:44Any tornado is scary,
17:46but a fire tornado takes the horror to a new level.
17:50These bad boys are spinning towers of flame and ash
17:52that form when there's extreme heat,
17:55strong winds,
17:55and uneven ground.
17:57The intense heat from the fire
17:59causes hot air to rise quickly.
18:02Cooler air from the sides
18:04rushes in to replace it
18:05and creates strong winds.
18:07When winds from different directions meet,
18:09it makes the fire spin like a tornado.
18:12It gets stronger
18:13and can even create its own weather.
18:16It pulls in flames,
18:18ash,
18:18dirt,
18:19and anything in its path.
18:21The winds can reach speeds
18:22of over 140 miles per hour,
18:25and these fire tornadoes
18:27can last for more than 20 minutes.
18:29Oh my God.
18:30Ooh,
18:30I don't want to tell you a little bit about it.
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