Supervolcano (docudrama)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007) |
| Supervolcano | |
|---|---|
 "Scientists know it as the deadliest volcano on Earth. You know it...as Yellowstone" |
|
| Directed by | Tony Mitchell |
| Produced by | Sara Cropley Victoria Goodall Michael Mosley Ailsa Orr Fiona Scott Rosie Taylor |
| Written by | Edward Canfor-Dumas Julian Simpson |
| Starring | Michael Riley Gary Lewis Shaun Johnston Adrian Holmes Jennifer Copping Rebecca Jenkins |
| Distributed by | BBC (UK) Discovery Channel |
| Release date(s) | March, 2005 (UK) |
| Running time | 115 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | Unknown |
| IMDb profile | |
Supervolcano is a 2005 BBC/Discovery Channel docudrama centered on the fictional eruption of the volcanic caldera of Yellowstone National Park.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The film begins with a group of hooded people in caribou parkas riding through the snow on Yamaha snowmobiles. Arriving at a nearly buried building, inside they find a video recorded journal of a man who appears to be dying. The man in the video reports that the Yellowstone caldera eruption has affected nearly everything in the United States, burying much of the country under several feet of volcanic ash.
The film then goes back five years to before the incident, where tourists are seen viewing Old Faithful and exploring the hydrovolcanic features of the Yellowstone National Park. Inside the visitor's centre, the same man from the video journal, Rick Lieberman, a USGS scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (Y.V.O), is seen presenting to a crowd on Yellowstone's seismic activity. He states during the presentation, using a fictional holographic projector known as Virgil, that Yellowstone is on the verge of an eruption, though neither major nor hazardous.
Later throughout the film, more and more signs of seismic activity occur, all indicating towards the imminent eruption of Yellowstone (such as geyser explosions, earthquakes, tsunamis and Old Faithful going silent), though Rick and most of his colleagues try not to cause public panic by saying that these seismic activities do not necessarily indicate an imminent volcanic eruption. However, media speculation raises public alarm, helped in part by Rick Lieberman's brother-in-law, who is selling a book on supervolcanoes called 'Super Bangs'. As seismic activity increases, a leaked government e-mail acknowledging a possible eruption causes widespread panic.
Rick's team is caught by surprise while researching at the USGS field office next to Yellowstone when the volcano violently erupts, spewing tonnes of rock and pyroclastic material into the sky. Two of his colleagues, Nancy and Matt are killed as a result of attempting to outrun the pyroclastic flow, and only an injured Jock survives the eruption, escaping via helicopter. Rick is away at a conference and is caught in the ash cloud as he returns.
Tension begins to rise at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (F.E.M.A.) as more and more vents open above the underlying magma chamber throughout the week long eruption. On Day 3 the ash destroys the second Y.V.O. base in Bozeman, killing another colleague, Dave. People are literally being drowned in the volcanic ash and the death toll rises to hundreds of thousands. Slowly, thermal images begin to reveal a contour of the new caldera produced by the vents and authorities begin to realise the seriousness of this problem. Very soon, the authorities become desperate, trying to find a way to save the trapped Americans in the central and western half of the country. At F.E.M.A. Jock raises tension by saying that even after 2,500 cubic km of magma had come out, that it could still go on because Yellowstone has a maximum capacity of 25,000 cubic kilometers, ten times the amount already ejected. And Rick, while in contact with F.E.M.A. mentions that the entire caldera could explode after the collapse. Luckily, things take a better turn just as all hope is nearly lost; the caldera collapses upon itself, indicating the decrease in pressure within the magma chamber, and it doesn't explode.
As it turns out, the film ends with three quarters of the United States covered in nearly one centimeter of volcanic ash on average as a looming cloud of suspended, lighter ash gets carried over the globe, engulfing the northern hemisphere of Earth, and as a result, plunging it into a volcanic winter. The southern hemisphere however, gets a dose of the ice age while the rest of it is in drought.
The film ends the same way it started, only this time, the man is revealed to be Rick, shown with his brother-in-law and a US Marine. He later flies in a helicopter back to Yellowstone to see what has happened to the volcano that he has been studying all his life. What he sees is a frozen landscape resembling Antarctica, where no vegetation nor animals are visible; a frozen lifeless world, but he states his optimistic views on it also, saying that although it is the ending of much life, life would also begin as a result of this event.
Finally, the last scene shows the camera panning out from the area where Yellowstone erupted in a series of satellite images. Eventually showing the cataclysmically large resulting landform caldera relative to the size of the United States.
[edit] Cast
- Michael Riley as Rick Lieberman
- Gary Lewis as Jock Galvin
- Shaun Johnston as Matt
- Adrian Holmes as Dave
- Jennifer Copping as Nancy
- Rebecca Jenkins as Wendy Reiss
- Tom McBeath as Michael Eldridge
- Robert Wisden as Kenneth Wylie
- Susan Duerden as Fiona Lieberman
- Emy Aneke as Johnson
- Jane McLean as Maggie Chin
- Garwin Snadford as Bob Mann
- Sam Charles as William Lieberman
- Kevin McNulty as Joe Foster
- Shelagh Mitchell as as Fiona's Mother
[edit] See also
- Superstorm, a 2007 miniseries by the same producers.
- Supervolcano
