Geosociety Screens Volcanic Eruption

As stone-faced geologists warned that the sky threatened to rain millions of tons of volcanic ash, the audience couldn’t help but laugh.

In its largest event to date, the Harvard College Geosociety offered a sneak peek of the Discovery Channel flick SuperVolcano last night.

Over 100 viewers munched on pizza as they previewed the film in a packed Carpenter Center theater.

The fictional film speculated on what might happen if the magma dome underneath Yellowstone National Park, which actually exists, were to explode.

In the armageddon-style plot, geologists are alerted to the growing danger. They reel off projections of the worst-case scenario: a massive storm of volcanic ash covering the entirety of the United States and killing millions of individuals by collapsing roofs, immobilizing cities, and crashing airliners.

The audience found the plot lighthearted at first, laughing at the unintentional mockumentary-like tone.

But when the swelling magma chamber prepared to blow, the humor quickly subsided. And the audience turned quiet as a modest eruption turned into a worldwide catastrophe.

The Discovery Channel will air SuperVolcano this Sunday night at 8 p.m.

The viewers, an eclectic mix of a earth and planetary science (EPS) concentrators, professors, and other interested students, approved of the movie.

Hooper Professor of Geology Paul Hoffman, who has mapped the remnants of hundreds of volcanic ash flows, praised the film for its accurate depiction of what the after-effects of such a “super-eruption” would look like.

“What I liked about it was the emphasis on the ash,” he said. “It would have been easy for them to ignore this, being overwhelmed by hot, glowing avalanches.”

Hoffman said the film was accurate.

“I was impressed that they fairly did a good job with the numbers, they did a fairly good job of keeping it factual,” he said.

Hoffman also said the film sufficiently recognized recent advances in volcano-predicting technology.

“I think this indicates the importance of monitoring active earthquakes and improving the ability to predict when big eruptions occur,” he said. “The success we’ve had so far has saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives, so there’s no reason not to continue to improve our ability to do that. There’s no doubt that within our lifetime, major eruptions will occur in the U.S.”

Although Frances C. Moore ’06, Geosociety social chair, beamed over SuperVolcano’s generous depiction of geologists, she said that the flick’s creators could have given them an even higher pedestal.

“I more particularly favor those [films] where the geologists save the world. But the geologists were definitely prominent,” said Moore, an aspiring geologist herself.

The Harvard Geosociety was founded at the start of this school year in order to bring together EPS concentrators as well as other students with a passing interest in geology, according to President Kristian J. Bergen ’06.

The Discovery Channel offered free screenings of SuperVolcano at several other colleges as well, Bergen said.

Although Hoffman assured several members of the crowd that the U.S. was safe from such an enormous eruption, a few students left incredulous.

“I think it’s a smart way to go about creating awareness,” Thomas R. Noriega ’07 said. “I’m scared to death now.”

—Staff writer Matthew S. Meisel can be reached at meisel@fas.harvard.edu.