ERUPTION DANGER! A catastrophe is looming in Italy... 🌋 (Marsili underwater volcano)

imagine you are on vacation on the Italian Coast enjoying the Sun the sea and a delicious pizza suddenly the Earth shakes a deafening Rumble is heard and a gigantic wave races towards you this could soon become a bitter reality and the culprit is a volcano that most of you have never heard of because it is not the flan Fields stay tuned to the end to learn all about the dangers of Europe's largest underwater volcano Welcome Friends [Music] Chow toi today we're talking about Italian volcanoes again but you've probably never heard of this one if you're as fascinated by volcanoes as I am and want to be informed immediately about every eruption why not subscribe and activate the Bell it's absolutely free you'll never miss a video again and you'll be helping me immensely graa so now let's dive into the depths of the tyranian sea or more precisely to an underwater volcano called marcili never heard of it don't worry you're not alone although marcili is the largest active underwater volcano in Europe it leads a shadowy existence in the depths of the Mediterranean but that could change suddenly because marcili has the potential to trigger a huge catastrophe but let's start at the beginning where is this mysterious volcano located marcili is located about 150 km south of Naples and just as far west of Calabria imagine drawing a line from katania to Naples somewhere in the middle of this line deep below the surface of the sea marcili lurks and when I say deep below the sea surface I mean it the summit of Marc is still 450 to 500 M below sea level from there it extends another 3,000 m to the seabed by way of comparison if marcili were a land volcano it would be higher than mon Blanc the highest mountain in the Alps and that's not all Marcel is not only High it is also incredibly vast it covers an area of 70x 30 km which is about the size of Lake constants a volcano the size of Lake constants and higher than mon Blanc hidden under the waves of the Mediterranean a destructive lava giant that most of us have never heard of now you might be thinking so what if there's a big volcano under the sea who cares Marcel is anything but inactive it is an active volcano that could erupt at any time and if it does it will be very uncomfortable for the coastal regions of the Mediterranean how dangerous is marcili really to understand that we have to look at what could happen if it erupts there are essentially two scenarios that are causing scientists to Rack their brains scenario one the big slide imagine you're building a sand castle on the beach piling up the sand higher and higher until the Castle becomes unstable and collapses something similar could happen on marcili its flanks are extremely Steep and unstable and if part of the volcano were to slip it could trigger a huge underwater Landslide and what happens if millions of tons of rocks suddenly start moving underwater that's right a tsunami scientists have calculated that such a tsunami could generate waves up to 20 M High by way of comparison that's the length of about 77 panopoly these waves would reach the coasts of southern Italy within a few minutes and just imagine you're sitting comfortably on the beach in seilo Sicily and suddenly a wall of water as high as a multi-story building comes towards you not exactly the kind of cooling you want on vacation is it scenario 2 the big explosion the second scenario is a classic volcanic eruption even if Marcel is under water it could still erupt explosively imagine opening a shaken bottle of sparkling water underwater what happens large bubbles form rise to the surface and burst now imagine the same thing but with molten rock under enormous pressure the result would be a huge underwater explosion that could also trigger a tsunami we saw how violent such an underwater volcanic eruption can be in 2022 with the hunga Tonga eruption in the South Pacific here are the original recordings and now imagine what you seeing here in the narrow Mediterranean mamam Mia but it gets even better or rather worse marcili is not just any volcano it is the largest active underwater volcano in Europe its magma chamber the area where the molten rock collects is gigantic it covers an area of about 8 square km which is about the size of a ,100 football fields and this huge magma chamber is full to the brim with hot pressurized magma now you might be wondering wait a minute if marcelia is so dangerous why have I never heard of it before that's what scientists are asking themselves too because although Marcil has been known for almost a century it has only been intensively researched in recent years and that's despite the fact that it poses a real threat to millions of people the problem is that monitoring underwater volcanoes is extremely difficult and extremely expensive scientists have to monitor a volcano that is not only underwater but also hundreds of kilometers from the coast which is no easy task geologist Carlo doglione president of the Italian Institute of geophysics and volcanology says we don't have an underwater monitoring system that allows us to fully understand the volcano's activity it's like having a sleeping giant that we know is dangerous but we can't even take its pulse we don't know if it's fast asleep or about to wake up and that's worrying to say the least and it's going to get even more worrying because you know what the special thing about Marcel is it's not the only underwater volcano in the area it's part of a whole chain of underwater volcanoes that stretches along the coast of Sicily and southern Italy so it's more like we have a whole bunch of sleeping Giants right on our doorstep okay that all sounds pretty scary but surely something is being done to protect us well the good news is that work is being done the bad news is that it's going very slowly a 2020 study looked at the tsunami risk in the Southern tyranian Sea researchers concluded that we urgently need a better monitoring system not just for marcili but for all the major underwater volcanoes in the region they also call for an automatic warning system that can alert the population in the event of a tsunami but even if we had a perfect monitoring system would it be that effective at best it would give us a warning time if we detect signs of an impending eruption or Landslide then the coastal areas could be evacuated but we are talking about a warning time of maybe 20 minutes imagine you only had 20 minutes to get out of your house and to safety that's not much time is it that's why experts like physicist glaa galotti say that educating the public is at least as important as technical monitoring if people know how to behave in the event of a tsunami it could save thousands of lives so dear vacationers in Sicily if you suddenly see the sea receding on the beach don't run to the water to pick the delicious sea urchins that are surfacing run in the other direction as fast as you can it's best to run up the slope of Mount Etna in the hope that it won't erup then either but there is also good news in all the doomsday scenarios marcili could be not only a threat but also an opportunity because where there is volcanic activity there is also geothermal energy some scientists dream of using marcili as a huge underwater power plant the volcano which poses a threat to millions of people could at the same time produce electricity for just as many people and it gets even better Marcel is not only a potential energy source but also a kind of underwater Treasure Trove high concentrations of precious such as gold silver and copper are found in its rocks it's as if we had a sleeping Dragon underwater sitting on a pile of gold except that this Dragon could wake up at any time in Spitfire which brings us to an interesting question what weighs more heavily the potential danger or the possible benefit should we leave Marcel alone and hope that he continues to Slumber peacefully or should we try to plunder his energy in his treasures even if that means that we might wake him up it's a classic dilemma risk versus benefit and it shows once again how complex our planet is Marcel is both a threat and an opportunity a danger and a potential it reminds us that we should never underestimate nature but also that it offers us incredible possibilities if we learn to work with it instead of against it write to me in the comments and tell me what you think should we use Marcel for energy or resource extraction or should we just leave it alone whatever the future holds for marili one thing is certain it will keep us busy for a long time to come whether as a sleeping giant that could wake up at any time or as an underwater power plant of the future marcili remains super fascinating and who knows maybe one day it will be as famous as Vesuvius or Etna the only difference is that it's underwater and we can't see it but believe me it's there and it's waiting I found the thought kind of sweet that marcili is sad that nobody knows him and so I created an AI song about it which turned out surprisingly well listen to [Music] it the ocean's Crest Mar the hidden guest the volcano with a fiery core yet the world knows him no more now theous famous names my hides in the Flames his mighty and Grand by the [Music] land if you want to listen to the whole song or download it as a summer hit you can find the the link in the description not only under the Mediterranean Sea are secrets hidden researchers have just discovered something incredible under Greenland something that was frozen there for a long time and is now changing our view of Greenland and the climate of the entire planet forever the spectacular original recordings can be found in the video shown be sure to click on the top right and at the bottom left you will find another exciting video feel free to click on it otherwise I would say see you in the next video take care friends