Supervolcano (film)

Supervolcano

Cover art
Genre Disaster
Written by Edward Canfor-Dumas
Julian Simpson
Directed by Tony Mitchell
Starring Michael Riley
Gary Lewis
Shaun Johnston
Adrian Holmes
Jennifer Copping
Rebecca Jenkins
Theme music composer Ty Unwin
Country of origin United Kingdom, Canada
Original language(s) English
Production
Producer(s) Sara Cropley
Victoria Goodall
Michael Mosley
Ailsa Orr
Fiona Scott
Rosie Taylor
Running time 115 minutes
Budget US$5.5 million
Release
Original network BBC One
Original release 13 March 2005

Supervolcano is a disaster television film that originally aired on 13 March 2005 on BBC One, and released by the BBC on 10 April 2005 on the Discovery Channel. It is centered on the speculated and potential eruption of the volcanic caldera of Yellowstone National Park. Its tagline is "Scientists know it as the deadliest volcano on Earth. You know it...as Yellowstone."

Plot

The film begins with a group of hooded people in caribou parkas riding through snow on snowmobiles. Arriving at a nearly buried building, inside they find a video recorded journal of a man who appears to be dying. He tells he is Richard Lieberman, the scientist who was in charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

The film then goes back five years, showing a press conference where Rick and his colleagues are with their boss, Michael Eldridge are trying to persuade the press that their new simulator, VIRGIL, can help determine any possibility of an eruption. A woman named Maggie Chin asks about the possibility of a supereruption, which Rick dismisses as the possibility of such an event is in the odds of 1 in 600,000.

The next day, the USGS observes a 6.9 earthquake which causes a tsunami wave to slam into the Fishing Bridge area of the park. This prompts Maggie to press again, asking Rick if a supereruption is still possible, which he says is not so as the earthquake was not caused by volcanic activity. However, this does not stop her from appearing with Kenneth Weilly on KCVZ news to discuss Ken's new book on volcanoes. He tells the difference between a regular volcanic eruption and a super volcanic eruption. He then goes on to say that the Yellowstone volcano has shown a pattern of erupting every 600,000 years, and an eruption has not happened in 640,000 years, saying the eruption is overdue. Rick, who is observing the interview, is angered at Ken's words and it is revealed the two are brothers-in-law.

The USGS are swarmed with calls, to which all say that the eruption is not imminent. Rick and Ken have an argument about Ken's appearance on TV which Rick passes off as Ken creating a mass panic in order to sell his book, while Ken accuses Rick to holding back vital information when he of all people knows that everything might not be as tranquil as it seems. Their argument is interrupted by Fiona Lieberman, Rick's wife and Ken's sister. She reflects that Rick is cautious of what he says in public due to the press convincing people Yellowstone was going to erupt due to the discovery of a bulge in Yellowstone Lake some years before.

Wendy Reiss, the undersecretary of FEMA, visits and asks Rick about the worst case scenario if Yellowstone does release a supereruption. He shows her a model, revealing devastating results of the ash fall over the US. She asks him if the eruption will happen, to which he says "Is it going to happen? Yeah, it is. Now, is it going to happen in our lifetime? I don't know. And that is the most honest answer anyone can give you."

A hydrothermal event at the Norris Geyser Basin draws yet another calamity with the press. Specifically Maggie once again as she tries to press Rick into saying the event is an indicator of volcanic activity. Rick once again tells her that it was not a volcanic event, and he leave the conference. Afterwards, he runs a simulation with his team of possible eruptions on VIRGIL, and they learn that even a moderate eruption may destabilize the rest of the magma chamber under Yellowstone and cause a supereruption. The team decides they need better images of the chamber and to see what was happening at ground level, and go to a cabin in the park that is 25 km from Norris and begin to gather information.

The team begins to get on edge due to earthquake swarms, rising levels of carbon dioxide killing trees, as well as events before the hydrothermal event. These all could be indicators of volcanic activity, but they know that they are not sure fire signs either. They close the park, but to their horror, they find harmonic tremor near Norris. This is indicating an eruption is imminent because magma is now on the move. Not only that, but shortly after the harmonic is detected, animals begin to flee the park in droves and the team witnesses bison fleeing. Rick, worried about what is happening, sends his family to London to visit Fiona's mother.

Later, KVCZ news reveals from a leaked email that the USGS suspects an eruption anytime soon. FEMA, in wake of the national panic, flies Rick to DC to hold a conference to deny the possibility of a supereruption. However, Rick is unable to make that statement due to the model telling them otherwise of the magma chamber. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Joe Foster, pressures Rick into doing so, and Rick has no choice when the time for the conference comes.

Rick then gets on a plane to head back to San Francisco, and runs into his brother-in-law on the same plane. Meanwhile, the USGS in the field office in the park has finished plugging in the data for the eruption. They are horrified to discover that the top of the magma chamber alone has more than enough eruptable magma to destabilize the chamber and trigger a super eruption. As they realize this, the volcano suddenly erupts violently, severely damaging the field office and injuring Jock.

FEMA picks up the eruption due to satellite feeds and begins to handle the disaster. The team at the field office monitor the eruptive column but they are forced to abandon the office and flee due to the pyroclastic flows. The flow kills two members, Nancy and Matt, who were fleeing by truck while Jock escapes via helicopter. Rick manages to contact Dave, another team member who has left earlier from the eruption to set up a backup office in Bozeman. They coordinate to figure out the vent's size and Dave hooks up with FEMA. Rick alerts the captain of his flight, and sits with his brother closer to captain's cockpit. Meanwhile, FEMA manages to get a jet close to the vent, and discover that it is blowing ash not only eastern across the US, but also across major commercial air routes, prompting them to clear airspace over the USA and put everyone on standby. They also advise all federal buildings to seal up and recycle their clear air and protect any power generators from the heavy ashfall. Rick's flight goes directly into the ashcloud, and they make an emergency landing in Cheyenne. They get caught under the ashfall, and go to find a military installation.

However, Dave with his link to FEMA, is horrified to find more vents beginning to open in the caldera. Before he can observe more than five vents opening up, however, the motel he is staying in collapses due to heavy ashfall, destroying the backup office, and killing him.

Rick manages to make contact with FEMA, where he determines that the vents are going to merge into one massive caldera. He then says that the eruption they are looking at is on the scale of one of Yellowstone's previous - The Huckleberry Ridge Eruption. The first and largest. However, before he can say more, the signal is lost from power loss as Cheyenne loses electricity because of the ash.

After three days, FEMA meets with Joe Foster of Homeland Security, and they try to come up with a plan to save the 25 million trapped by the ashfall. Rick, who manages to get a link back to FEMA, says that they cannot possibly hope to do so; the ash will make it impossible for planes to safely pick up people or make drops of supplies. People will starve to death by the millions waiting to be rescued. He suggest that FEMA tells people to walk through the ash to safety before his link is lost.

By this time, the world began to wake up to the fact that this eruption was not just the United States' problem, but that this was a global disaster.

Rick, still stuck at the military installation, records his journal that is seen at the beginning of the movie, and reflects if he could have done something different. FEMA finally determines it has no choice but to follow Rick's advice and they follow through with the Walk to Life program. Rick convinces his brother-in-law and the man named Johnson they are trapped with to walk through the ash to Cheyenne.

One week after the eruption began, the ground begins to fall into the empty space left by the ejected magma, thus signalling the end of the eruption. This scale of what Yellowstone has done has thrown the world into a volcanic winter. The US has been rendered uninhabitable, up to 80% covered by ash, and of that, 20% is totally unusable even after extensive clean up operations. FEMA reveals that Rick's Walk to Life program saved 7.3 million people of the 25 million trapped by the ash.

The film then returns to the hooded people, which reveal that among them is Rick Lieberman himself, alive and well. He tells the audience that he chose to come back to the bunker so that he could face the reality of what nearly happened. He also wanted to see Yellowstone park, and he reflects that this is not only how life ends, but how it begins. Nature would recover from this disaster. And one day, Yellowstone would erupt again, "but not on his watch."

The film then ends with a satellite view of Yellowstone's caldera, zooming out until the Pacific coast is revealed for scale reference.

Cast

See also

External links

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