"Keep it coming." "Set me down the computer." "My name is Richard Lieberman." "I am the scientist in charge of," "I was the scientist in charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory." "I' m not sure what day it is." "And I' m not precisely sure the eruption is over." "I' m trapped here in some kind of military installation in some godforsaken part of Colorado." "We've got no food, we've got no power and the ash fall has contaminated the water supply." "The air is so thick with it that we can barely breathe." "These men that I' m with, they think if we stay put that we are going to be rescued, but I honest to god believe that if we just watch and wait " "we are as good as dead." "Before it all happened, many visitors to" "Yellowstone were blissfully unaware that it was volcanic." "After all where was the cone shaped volcano," "like Mt St Helens or Vesuvius?" "They didn't realise that they were actually standing on top of it." "That beneath their feet was one of the largest volcanoes in the world." "The truth is, we were only just beginning to understand the workings of the Park ourselves." "And VlRGlL, the Virtual Geophysical Imaging Laboratory, well, that was going to help us." "Maggie Chin, KCVZ News Salt Lake City." "Hello." "Hello." "Your model is very impressive, sir." "Ah thank you Miss Chin." "My question is, will it help?" "Help what, Miss Chin?" "Well in the last decade we have seen more and more ground uplift at Yellowstone." "Twelve feet, I believe, is the conservative estimate." "Well that estimate is not conservative." "Nonetheless, many of your colleagues in the scientific community believe that it's one of many signs that an eruption is coming." "I am going to let Rick Lieberman, scientist in charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, deal with that one." "Rick." "Thank you." "This is a sequence of Yellowstone's geological behaviour over the past 1 00 years." "OK there we go." "You see, what we have beneath our feet here at Yellowstone is a type of volcano, a type of hidden volcano, referred to as a restless caldera." "Caldera because you' ll notice it resembles the shape of a cauldron and restless because it spends much of its life doing like what you see it's doing right here." "It's huffing and puffing as the magma and the hydrothermal systems beneath the ground rise and fall." "For reasons that we actually don't fully yet understand." "So this uplift that you have mentioned," "Maggie, is very simply just a part of everyday life here at Yellowstone." "So we are definitely not looking at an imminent Super-eruption?" "Let me say this, the chances of a so-called" "Super-eruption are on the order of something like one in 600,000." "In fact it's more than twice as likely that an airplane will crash into your back yard." "So." "Haven't we just seen extra ground uplift at Norris?" "Yes we have as a matter of fact, but that may well be hydrothermal, you know?" "A build up of water." "I' ll tell you what Miss Chin, you give me ten bucks right now and" "I will offer you odds of 600,000 to one." "So if this thing does go up you'd make a killing." "OK." "Listen, I need the co-ordinates of the Taiwan quake." "Yes, Kao-Hsiung region, hey. 57 yup, 33." "Ok." "This thing takes up far too much space you know?" "Hey, thanks Matt." "Guess what this is?" "You tell me." "Pumice." "It comes from deep inside a volcano that's so hot the rocks all melt." "But when the volcano blows up, pshew it gets blown high into the sky." "And guess what?" "It floats." "Oh it does." "In my coffee" "How neat is that?" "A rock that floats." "Hey OK pal, that's enough." "Hey I found out about flights." "They said it's fine at seven months." "Oh come on Fi." "Honey we just flew to Yellowstone and back." "Yes I know but A you were with me and B you weren't in the air for like 1 1 hours." "Then I don't get to see my mum this side of Christmas do I?" "What is it?" "Shit." "We got a quake." "What?" "I' ll call you, I' ll see you guys soon." "This is Matt." "What's the damage?" "Oh some broken glass, for sure." "Nothing major." "OK what have we got?" "Be in touch." "6.9 10km beneath the South Arm Fork." "OK I' m running a simulation." "6.9 at what?" "10km beneath the South Arm Fork" "That's confirmed 6.9, standing by for more data." "Get me the web-cam images of the Fishing Bridge area." "Over say the last five minutes." "Oh go back." "Tell Matt he needs to get to the other end of the lake." "Where are you going to be?" ".... in my office." "Fortunately due to the remoteness of the area, damage was limited." "But tragically nine bodies have been recovered so far." "Three of them children." "All from the Fishing Bridge area of the Park." "As well, 43 people have been taken to hospital with various injuries, some of them life threatening." "I am going to hand you over to Mr Rick Lieberman of the USGS then we will take some questions." "Rick." "The earthquake, a 6.9 on the Richter Scale, occurred at 12.13 local time, centred at a depth of 10km beneath Mount Sheridan at the southern end of Lake Yellowstone." "The earthquake triggered a landslide off the" "South Arm Fork which in turn caused a tsunami wave to hit the northern shore here a few minutes later." "All indicators suggest that this quake was not volcanic, but was tectonic in its nature, caused by a grinding together of the earth's plates along a known fault line." "The pattern of after shocks of decreasing magnitude is consistent with this type of seismic activity." "Any questions?" "Is it true Old Faithful has stopped?" "Yes that is true, however a ground movement can both block and unblock hydrothermal features." "Has there been any effect on the uplift at Norris?" "No, not that we have seen at all, no." "Are you still sure that there is not going to be an eruption," "Mr Lieberman?" "As I have said Miss Chin, this earthquake was not caused by volcanic activity." "As far as we know." "We are increasing our alert status to Yellow, which as you know, does mean 'watch'." "Does that mean you are not ruling out an eruption?" "Look, Miss Chin, Yellowstone has sometimes as many as 3000 earthquakes every year, none of them followed by eruptions." "Everything points to this being a one-off tragic accident." "The truth?" "We had the Hebgen Lake earthquake in 1 959 couple of miles from Yellowstone." "7.5 on the Richter Scale." "Massive landslide, 29 dead." "And it didn't indicate a damn thing." "Again in 1975." "96, it didn't either.." "...I mean hell, I'm a politician not a scientist, the USGS guys tell me it's another Hebgen Lake," "I have got to take their word for it." "You know?" "You go on the available facts." "Problem was that with a place the size of Yellowstone, well we didn't have all the available facts." "Richard Lieberman, YVO." "Hey, it's me." "You had better take a look at KCVC News." "I will do that, thank you, I' ll call you back." "Bye." "Well Maggie I think that we ought to make a clear distinction between a regular volcanic eruption and a Super-eruption." "Mount St Helens was the most violent eruption in American history." "Killed 57 people and it erupted about 1 cubic kilometer of volcanic ash and rock." "Watching the great man huh?" "Yes." "Now let's say this cube here represented the amount of volcanic material ejected by Mount St Helens." "Now in volcanic terms it's a tiddler." "Krakatoa..." "Tiddler." "The Indonesian volcano that erupted in 1883 was 17 times larger than Mount St Helens, killed 36,000 people and it's represented by this cube here." "Finally we have this." "This is 2,500 times the size of Mount St." "Helens, this is a Super-volcano, this is currently sitting underneath the ground at Yellowstone Park" "And when was the last time one of these Super-eruptions happened?" "About 74,000 years ago in a place called" "Toba on the other side of the world, Sumatra." "Now the volcanic eruption there was so vast it created a volcanic winter, plunged the world into darkness and all but wiped out the human race." "It missed one though didn't it?" "And Yellowstone has produced eruptions on this sort of scale before?" "Oh yes, three times in the last 2million years." "And do you think that the activity that we are seeing there right now may indicate that it's about to happen for a fourth time?" "Yes I do believe that these events are cyclical." "Three caldera-forming eruptions in the last 2.1 million years means on average one eruption every 600,000 years." "And we haven't had an eruption like that at" "Yellowstone for 640,000 years." "In other words, we are overdue?" "No." "Yes I believe we are overdue." "Oh." "Jeez wept." "The warning signs are there if you care to read them." "Thank you Dr Wylie." "You' re welcome" "Thank you Dr Wylie." "My god." "I know he's your brother in law, Rick, but the guy' s a total numpty." "It's not a good thing, right?" "No that's not good, no." "We were trying to monitor something so vast that it was almost incomprehensible." "The Park itself is over 2million acres and somewhere within that was the volcano." "But for the longest time we couldn't figure out where." "Then in the '80s NASA took some aerial photographs of the Park." "And these photographs revealed the volcanic crater for the first time." "It turns out that we'd been looking on the wrong scale." "This crater measured 85km by 45." "Big enough to hold the largest city in the world," "Tokyo, population 18million." "Yes I did see Mr Wylie on the television." "No, no, approximately every 600,000 years sir." "I mean with a conservative margin of error we could be out by 100." "And I am telling you sir, we are not hiding anything, alright?" "Everything we know is out on our web-site." "How' s it looking Matt?" "Oh it's looking good, normal." "Like to make a couple more passes though." "No sir, I' m afraid that drilling down to try to siphon off the magma wouldn't work." "No." "In fact it could probably cause the whole thing to go off." "I don't like that, can we get down there?" "It's all true, this thing's ready to blow in a matter of days, if not hours." "And everybody, absolutely everybody' s going to die." "Horribly." "Ha, oh you' re welcome, your holiness." "Ha." "Nice." "CO2 levels are good up here but ground level CO2 that's killing those trees." "Is there or is there not a magma chamber underneath Yellowstone National Park?" "Yes Kenneth." "Yes and is this magma chamber of sufficient size that if there was an eruption there it could potentially be rated as a Super-eruption?" "Yes." "Exactly." "Could." "Well I' m not saying that there will, I' m saying that there's a chance." "No what you said on television was 'overdue'." "You know that's what you said." "'Overdue' you said." "Caught up in the moment I expect." "Well you and a few million other people I guess." "Hey let's not do this now." "Look sis, I have a legitimate scientific viewpoint." "He thinks he's..." "Look have you ever actually been to Yellowstone?" "It's not necessary." "Your excellent web-site provides all the data, I just interpret it." "Oh no you misinterpret, that's what you do." "Can we not do this now?" "Please." "Look all I' m saying is you do not go on television and create a mass panic over one potential scenario, just in order to sell a book." "Oh come on." "You don't go on television and tell everybody that everything's going to be just fine when you know damn well it might not be." "Kenneth." "No but just." "No, both of you, I said not now." "God I' m sick of this." "Do you have nothing else?" "You haven't seen your nephew in over a year." "I' m sorry." "Hello Will." "How' s school?" "Seamless." "Sorry." "When I first met Rick he was a geology student, part of a team studying Yellowstone Lake." "They discovered this enormous 2000 foot log bulge beneath the Lake." "Everyone got very excited about it, press got hold of the story and convinced a lot of people that Yellowstone was going to blow." "It created this huge panic and then nothing happened." "It made Rick very cautious about what he said in public." "Then when he got the job as scientist in charge, people paid even more attention to what he said." "So, it's a boy right?" "Mmm, a little boy dragon." "Huh." "And with a new feature." "Show me." "Some sort of anomaly above the magma chamber, just below Firehole Creek Basin." "Oh yes." "Could be water or gas." "Or an intrusion of magma through a fault line opened up by the quake, right?" "Impossible to tell until we get a clear image." "...Oh thanks." "We are still processing all the data from the Kao-Hsiung quake." "Oh god that was days ago." "Yes I know." "Listen Matt's found a section of dead pine to the north east of Sour Creek Dome." "You got a visitor." "Hang on, north east of Sour Creek Dome along a ring fracture of the caldera rim." "CO2 or heat?" "CO2 suffocating the roots." "The magma's only two to three kilometres deep at that point." "Yes or less if it's rising." "Alright so, who is it?" "Wendy something from FEMA." "Wendy Reiss?" "The under secretary in charge of the" "Federal Emergency Management Agency is here, you told her to wait in my office?" "You' re fired Dave." "You can't fire me." "Yes you' re lucky that's true." "I' m sorry." "Ms Reiss." "You have caught me off guard." "I' m Richard Lieberman." "Yes Rick, I recognise you from the television." "Oh." "Please call me Wendy." "Thanks, well, sorry about the mess, Wendy." "No problem." "It's been a busy couple of days." "Please sit down." "Yes, I' m just going to cut to the chase Rick." "I want to know if we should be worried about this." "Er, based on the data that we' re getting, yes there are indicators that there could be an eruption." "Or it could be business as usual at Yellowstone." "And if there is an eruption then there is a good possibility that it's going to be a moderate one." "This isn't enough Rick." "If there's even the slightest chance of this happening," "I want to know what that means." "I want to know what we can do about it." "How much do you know about Super-eruptions?" "Super in front of eruption I don't imagine means better?" "Can I show you something?" "Please." "See the magma chamber that sits underneath Yellowstone, well here, we think it's roughly the same dimensions as the caldera rim itself." "We think it's around 40km wide by 80km long and around 8km deep." "You think." "Yes, it's a very difficult thing to get a clear picture of." "In fact the only way to even attempt to see a magma chamber is ironically enough by relying on earthquakes." "Have a seat please." "Thank you." "It's called seismic tomography." "What we do is we plant an array of seismographs throughout the Park and then when an earthquake occurs the seismic shockwaves from these events travel through the earth." "Now these waves move slightly slower through the molten rock than through the solid rock, so we can use these slight differences in arrival time here at the seismometers to begin to calculate and plot the rough dimensions of the chamber." "It's kind of like sonar." "And that tells you how much magma is down there?" "Well what we are trying to determine essentially is the nature of this magma." "Is it eruptible magma?" "Is it too viscous, is it too sticky to go anywhere?" "Or is it molten enough, is it liquid enough that it can escape?" "You know we also want to know how it's situated in the chamber, is it kind of spread out in individual pods or pockets throughout the chamber?" "Or and this is what we don't want, is it accumulated in one place?" "Sufficient enough that it could trigger a Super-eruption?" "OK let's talk worst case scenario." "OK." "Well we have run some projections based on the first Super-eruption at Yellowstone at 2.1 million years ago." "Essentially because this is the one we have the most data available on." "Now if the next one were to behave in a similar way, then we would be looking at between two and 3,000 cubic kilometres of rock, gas and ash erupting across the United States in a pattern that looks like this." "Zone 1 represents 1 00km radius around Yellowstone." "Basically everything in this area would be completely wiped out by pyroclastic flows." "That's the rock and ash that spills from the side of an erupted column?" "That is a pyroclastic flow." "These surges can travel up to 700km an hour." "So yes these journalists were very, very lucky." "Yes this woman was caught at the edge of a pyroclastic flow, you see these surges can reach up to 800 degrees Celsius." "Anyway yes that's what happens to anyone that's within the first 1 00km radius of a volcano.... ...Now out here in Zones 2 and 3, virtually everyone and everything in these two areas will be trapped by extremely heavy ash fall." "That's roughly 3million people." "Yes." "And here out in Zone 4 we' re talking about ash fall of around 15cm." "15cm that doesn't sound like a lot but you add rain to 15cm of volcanic ash and that is certainly enough to collapse a roof." "And then you know in Zone 5 it gets down to around 5cm of ash fall." "This is a huge area, covering most of the grasslands." "Any animals that happen to be grazing there." "And that's also the grain belt of course, so that's all the food gone." "And then Zone 6 we tail down to around 1cm of ash, extending out to the Eastern Seaboard." "A centimetre." "I read it takes just one millimetre to close an airport." "Yes." "See the thing that people don't understand about volcanic ash is it's not like ash from your backyard barbeque, it's rock." "It's abrasive, it's pervasive, it's destructive, it shorts out electrical equipment, it clogs machinery." "You name it." "It's also extremely tiny, it's 100 microns across, it's so tiny you can inhale it and when you do it combines with the moisture in your lungs and forms a cement-like mixture." "You essentially drown in what's basically liquid concrete." "Anway that is the worst case scenario." "So you tell me." "I mean if an event like this were to happen, what is FEMA going to do?" "Is it going to happen?" "Is it going to happen?" "Yes." "It is going to happen." "Is it going to happen in our lifetime?" "I don't know." "And that is the most honest answer that anybody can give you, Wendy." "I don't know." "I' ll beep Rick" "Well contact the other stations, re-establish an exact location." "Mr Lieberman." "Yes hang on, hang on." "Mr Lieberman." "Yes." "Are you still denying the possibility of a Super-eruption?" "Norris, as I've said to you before Miss Chin," "Norris was a hydrothermal event and by no means a sure fire indicator of volcanic activity." "And certainly not on the scale that you are referring to." "Nevertheless we have issued a Code Red warning because we don't take these things lightly." "Yes thank you." "Daddy." "Yes." "He's getting famous." "But you can't rule out a Super-eruption can you?" "He looks hot." "It's twice as likely as an asteroid strike, according to some experts." "And half as unlikely as being struck by lightening" "Miss Chin and how many of us lose sleep over that?" "That's all the time we have, thank you." "Thank you very much." "Too much politics and not enough science." "OK are we ready to run this simulation?" "Let's do it." "Alright, so what I'd like to do is run through a couple of potential scenarios here." "Hey Rick we've got another quake just over a mile south of Norris." "OK how big?" "1.9." "1.9 OK." "Now this anomaly that we have discovered near Norris, now this could be water and gas as we know, or worst case scenario, it could be a new pod of eruptible magma." "So I want to concentrate our simulations around this area and see what the potential damage could be." "OK?" "So option number one, let's say that we've got one cubic kilometer of eruptible magma." "OK?" "And drop it." "Run it." "No eruption." "Based on option one, it seems not." "Alright then let's keep all the other parameters the same, but increase it by five." "So we' ll make it five cubic kilometres." "OK how big is this?" "Moderate, VEl-2." "VEl-2." "And duration?" "Over approximately three days." "With that amount of magma it could have been a lot bigger." "OK let's increase it by another factor of five." "And make it 25 cubic kilometres." "OK." "Whenever you are ready." "VEl-5." "Mount St Helens size." "Right." "So 1 0 times more magma, 1 000 times more eruption." "Potentially." "OK so let's increase it by another factor of five and make it 1 25 cubic kilometres." "And this time let's just run it this time just from the hydrothermal blast." "Sure." "VEl-5 again." "OK." "VEl-5. again." "Oh what happened?" "Computer glitch?" "OK tell me what we just saw." "Alright I' ll say it." "If we have a reservoir of melt down there that's larger than 1 25 cubic kilometres then this model is telling us that even a moderate eruption near Norris could destabilise the rest of the chamber and trigger a..." "VEl-8 Super-eruption." "That's great, great, and if frogs had wings then they wouldn't bump their little green arses hopping around then." "Ha ha." "If, if there was a pocket of melt over 125 cubic kilometres in a possible eruption at Norris may trigger further eruptions which maybe, just possibly could register as VEl-8." "Brilliant." "Great." "Jesus you' re letting yourself be spooked by a video game." "Oh..." "Rick?" "Yes." "Hey it's Nancy." "You'd better get up here right away." "OK so where's this uplift concentrated?" "Here, Firehole River Basin." "It's miles from Norris." "Hang on, the question is, is this rising magma or is this ground water?" "I could make a plausible case for either." "Yes I know you could." "Another 2.2 to the north east of Norris." "That's the third today, so we've got another swarm coming?" "I need the SRl data for the entire Park." "Can we get more instrumentation down at Firehole River Basin?" "If we steal them from elsewhere." "Well, steal them." "The ground uplift, earthquake swarms, rising levels of carbon dioxide and the hydrothermal event." "All of these things can be indicators of volcanic activity." "Equally they can mean nothing." "We closed the Park to be safe, but that didn't stop the hoards of people coming to check it out for themselves." "Hey Rick, Rick." "Hang on." "Hey." "Miss Chin." "Can we come in?" "Look, I've got to cover this one way or another." "It's my job." "OK." "Do you want to cover this?" "Alright then you need to understand what it is that you are covering." "Yes it's me, get me Matt." "Come on in, Maggie." "Guys." "I' m sorry guys, not the crew, OK?" "Come on through." "Just not the crew." "It's me, right, we are going to give Maggie Chin the tour." "Take a look up there." "You are looking at the north western rim of the giant caldera." "Where the ground fell over 1000 feet after the last Super-eruption." "So we are in the volcano?" "Sure are." "I thought we'd take a little drive to the other side." "So, what can you see?" "Yellowstone Lake." "OK." "Now look out across the lake to that range of mountains on the far side." "The Absarokas?" "That's right." "How far would you say those mountains are from here?" "How far?" "1 0 miles?" "Roughly 1 5." "Now those mountains are where you will find the eastern edge of the giant caldera." "The western edge is about another 1 5 miles behind us." "And north to south it's even further, it's over 50 miles." "So that's about 45 minutes of driving and we are still only in the centre of the volcano crater." "What's your point, Matt?" "My point is, if this thing erupts you' ll die." "If you think you are going to win some award or get promoted because you knew about this first, you won't." "There won't be anyone around to give you your pat on the back." "Maam, you need to get some perspective." "Where is it?" "Norris." "Do you want to suggest a change of alert?" "Yes you know another Red is going to create more panic." "This is as sure as we get." "I know." "This is imminent." "I know." "You want me to plug the data into VlRGlL?" "And find out what?" "Hang on, hang on please." "No really, and find out what?" "Please." "Let's do that and just see if..." "Jesus Rick." "Look there's going to be an eruption, OK we know that." "I don't need you to tell me what harmonic tremor means." "So now you need to advise an upgrade to the alert status and you need to let people know." "OK so if I upgrade to a Red everyone's going to think that we've got a Super-eruption on our hands." "I am not going to be held responsible for some kind of mass panic here." "OK it is our responsibility." "Jock." "No shut up Dave." "It's our job, it's our duty to let people know, to tell them what we know." "So get your arse off the fence." "And you tell me what going on TV and telling Joe Six-Pack that the end of the world is nigh." "You tell me how that's going to help this situation?" "What do you think our purpose is here?" "I will brief FEMA and I will brief the State but just before they evacuate the whole of America, they are going to want to know how big the thing's going to be." "Well at least the ship's got a bloody captain now." "What is going on?" "Nothing is going on, whatever you say." "Oh come on, what, no mention of it for weeks and all of a sudden we' re going to England?" "It's not like that." "I' m not supposed to be suspicious?" "Look you said that you wanted to go and see your mum, right?" "Oh Jesus Rick, just be honest with me." "I' m being honest with you." "Are you?" "Yes." "If this is going to be a big eruption, you've got to come with us" "Look it's going to be exactly what I said that it's going to be." "You know, this little girl may never meet her father because of the decision you are making right now" "Come on, we all believe that this is going to be a moderate eruption." "And yes, things are going to go a" "little crazy in this country for a while." "That's because everyone's nervous right now." "God Rick." "That's why I'd just be happier if you both were in London, when all that's going on." "And then when things calm down then I' ll come." "I' ll see you." "Can we go on the plane now?" "Yes you' re going to go on the plane now." "You take care of your mum OK?" "OK." "You call me when you get there." "I will." "Get on the plane." "I love you." "See ya." "I' m going to refer you to our San Francisco FEMA office and I want you to talk to Lisa Cochrane." "She will be the one to direct any activity at that point." "OK" "One moment." "Bring the centre screen volume up." "A leaked e-mail seen by KCVZ confirms that the" "US Geological Survey expects an eruption any time soon." "Possibly within hours." "And possibly with devastating consequences for America and the world." "Oh god." "I' m Maggie Chin with KCVZ News, reporting to you live from Yellowstone National Park." "Sir, this is Rick Lieberman." "Hi." "Rick, Joe Foster, Secretary for Homeland Security." "Michael you know of course." "Hi." "Governor Marshall should be joining us at any moment." "I didn't expect to see you here." "Hello everybody." "Billy, glad you could join us." "Half my State's about to be vaporised, I thought I should be, you know?" "Everyone please have a seat." "I' ll get straight to the point." "This leak hasn't just caused chaos here, but around the world." "Well it certainly didn't come from USGS." "Nor from FEMA" "Yes alright people, the buck is well passed." "Wherever it came from, the media have got hold of it and now have got to address it." "So Rick, what I' m going to ask you is very simple." "I need you to make a statement ruling out the possibility of a Super-eruption." "Ruling it out?" "Nothing bigger than Mount St Helens." "People would accept that and it's what the evidence suggests." "I can't." "I beg your pardon?" "I' m sorry I can't, I can't say that." "Why the hell not?" "Because our computer model now suggests that even a small eruption could destabilise the magma chamber and trigger a Super-eruption." "Rick I understand that but you are talking a remote possibility." "No I' m talking about..." "What I am talking about are hard facts." "Fact one, there are food riots." "People are fighting each other to leave the country." "Fact two, the dollar is on its knees, Wall Street has crashed." "Your country is going down the toilet and you are telling me you are not prepared to make a statement to help stop that?" "Please with all due respect sir..." "Governor Marshall?" "Rick, every highway, every lnterstate in Montana," "Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, the Dakotas," "Iowa and Nevada's turning into a god-damn parking lot." "Now everybody' s trying to get the hell away from Yellowstone, nothing's even happened yet." "Yet." "The point is Rick, even if the worst does happen, we are clogging up the roads, screwing up the airlines, it's not going to do any of us any good." "Yes I appreciate that, Wendy, I do." "But until I have something definitive, please don't make me make statements that..." "Rick, you know as well as I do that harmonic tremor can stop as well as start." "Mike." "It is your responsibility." "My responsibility is to tell the public and the land-holders what is happening at Yellowstone." "You know that." "You used to know that" "Actually Rick, as a federal employee, your responsibility is what's best for the country." "Now you have evidence of an eruption but, and I have heard you say this yourself again and again, chances of a Super-eruption are virtually zero." "No you are right, but I..." "Then I really don't see what the problem is here." "Thank you all, see you in 10 minutes." "Tremor' s strong and constant," "I'm plugging the co-ordinates into the seismic image." "Should give us a clearer idea of where the magma is." "Good." "You got everything you need, Dave?" "I think so." "Right." "Well, enough to get me going until you guys join me tomorrow." "Oh we' ll be out here first thing." "Alright." "Don't leave it too long." "Don't worry." "OK." "You out of here?" "I' m out of here, see you tomorrow." "You take care man." "Ladies and gentlemen, as you know..." "Rick's on TV." "...America and the world has been watching with growing anxiety the developing situation at Yellowstone National Park." "After a full briefing from the US Geological Survey and in particular the scientist in charge at Yellowstone Volcano Observatory," "Rick Lieberman, I can assure you all that after weeks of intensive monitoring at Yellowstone, they have gathered no evidence to suggest a so- called Super-eruption is imminent." "Instead the USGS believes that a small to moderate eruption - an event comparable in size to the eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980 - may be due." "At this moment we are taking the appropriate precautions in line with this scale of eruption, the evacuation of the Yellowstone vicinity is currently underway." "For those in the States bordering" "Wyoming we ask you to follow standard state advice, remain." "indoors, seal all doors and windows and stock up on sufficient food and water for three days." "I ask my fellow Americans to stay calm and to use your usual good sense at this time." "Thank you" "Mr Lieberman, Mr Lieberman," "Mr Lieberman up until now you have been extremely measured in your statements about Yellowstone." "Do you agree with Secretary Foster in what he's just said now?" "Yes yes I do." "Thank you." "What?" "They have nailed the poor bastard to the wall." "Final call for passengers on flight HA356 to San Francisco, boarding at Gate 24." "Thank you." "Boarding pass please." "Right hand side sir towards the rear of the plane." "OK thank you." "You sitting up here?" "Yes, no l' m back there." "Important business in Washington and USGS has you sitting in the back of the plane?" "I recommend a sweet publishing deal, big TV star like you." "Oh yes." "I take it you had a gun to your head this afternoon?" "Yes you could say that." "Fiona and William?" "Oh they are on a plane to London." "See you." "OK guys, the last number' s in." "Fingers crossed." "Just what are we looking at here?" "1500 cubic kilometres of melt." "1500." "That's just the top of the chamber." "Sir please sit down, the captain hasn't turned the fasten seat belt sign off yet." "Sir there are no cellphones permitted." "...Field Office..." "I have to ask you to turn your phone off." "Jock, I think he's over here." "Argh." "Don't touch my arm." "This is it, Matt, it's started."