Dans le ventre de la bête

Volcanic eruptions are always spectacular with their huge flows of incandescent lava and fragments of magma projected several tens of kilometres away into the atmosphere. Still one may wonder what they are caused by. From the pressure cooker to a glass of beer and the honey pot, Sylvie Vergniolle, a volcanologist at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (Paris geophysical institute - IPGP), has put together a small selection of cooking metaphors to help us understand how volcanoes work…

In the time scientists have been studying volcanoes, have they learned to detect the warning signs of an eruption? To what extent is it possible to anticipate these natural disasters? And today, what is the most monitored volcano in the world? Those are the questions answered by Sylvie Vergniolle, a volcanologist at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (Paris geophysical institute - IPGP).

En Islande, l'équipe de muographie de l'Institut des 2 Infinis de Lyon (IP2I - Lyon) installe un détecteur à muons afin d'imager le volcan Snaefellsjökull. Jacques Marteau, physicien des particules lauréat de la médaille de l'innovation du CNRS 2022, présente ce procédé innovant qui permet d'obtenir une image de l'intérieur des structures traversées, comme avec les rayons X en imagerie médicale. La muographie devrait permettre de vérifier l'existence d'un système hydrothermal actif au sein du…

This is a technology that may revolutionise the study of submarine faults. Off the shore of the Sicilian town of Catania, a team of scientists has installed an underwater fiber optic cable that crosses the North ALFEO fault in four places. The deformation of the cable enables the researchers to monitor the activity of the fault via a computer. To verity these results, an oceanographic mission has collected a wealth of information on the fault, which was discovered only 10 years ago

In the large family of volcanoes, there are grey and red volcanoes. There are those that explode and those that produce fluid lava flows. But are these differences significant for scientists? Sylvie Vergniolle, a volcanologist at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (Paris geophysical institute - IPGP), discusses the similarities between the Fuji-Yama in Japan, the Soufrière in Guadeloupe and the Montagne Pelée in Martinique. In addition, she explains how the Piton of la Fournaise of…

The Tonga mission takes you on board the Atalante, a French oceanographic vessel searching for shallow submarine volcanoes in order to understand and predict the effects of fluid emissions on marine life and the climate. The expedition, led by two researchers, Sophie Bonnet (oceanographer, IRD) and Cécile Guieu (oceanographer, CNRS), is analysing and studying the effects of the addition of trace elements from shallow hydrothermal springs to determine the potential impact on marine productivity…

The Pavin Lake is the youngest French crater lake (6000 years). Its volcanic origins give it a very concave shape, which is responsible of a unique phenomenon in France: the lake deep waters never mix with the superficial waters. In this film, a multidisciplinary team of scientists presents the results of several years of research.

The center of the earth is essentially composed of molten iron. The rotation of the earth produces movement in this molten mass which conducts electricity, thus generating the earth's magnetic field. Scientists have established that this magnetic field has frequently reversed itself over time. Ancient lava flows provide very valuable evidence for the history of the earth's magnetic field and for continental drift.

Mount Merapi is one of the permanently active volcanos on the island of Java, with a dense population living and working on its very fertile slopes. Every year since 1977, French specialists under the direction of Haroun Tazieff have come to sound the volcano and monitor changes.

While large, relatively young volcanoes can be found on Venus, those on Mars are very old. The Earth also has many volcanoes on its surface but its great originality, compared to its two direct neighbours, lies in plate tectonics. Why are Mars and Venus so geologically different? How can we explain why the red planet's magnetic field quickly went out? What were the consequences on its evolution? Francis Albarède, a geochemist at the Earth Sciences Laboratory in Lyon, explains.

Gabriel Gohau is a historian at the REHSEIS laboratory in Paris and relates our ancestors' representation of our planet, its oceans, its sky and its volcanoes. From Aristotle, four centuries BC, to Leonardo da Vinci, in the 15th century, the Earth hardly changed in scholars' minds. It was unthinkable that it was anywhere but the centre of the world. What discoveries have changed certainties?

The oceanographic research project PHARE (standing for Peuplements hydrothermaux, leurs associations et relations avec l'environnement, that is, "Hydrothermal populations, their associations and relations to the environment") was implemented between April 30 and June 3, 2002 in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico on board the Atalante, an oceanographic vessel belonging to IFREMER. The task of the CNRS researchers and IFREMER was to study animal communities living in the area of…

Two microbiologists, Daniel Prieur and Patrick Forterre study Thermophilic bacteria which are microorganism that thrives at relatively high temperatures (100°C or even more). Those bacteria proliferate near warm spring. A shorter version of this film is available, called "Extreme bacteria".