Kamikaze
Drones Are Dropped Into the Mouth of a Volcano, and the Footage Is Awesome
Scientists use photos shot by
the machines to create the first 3-D map of one of the most extreme locations
on Earth.
By Taylor Hill
In a video posted by National Geographic, explorer Sam Crossman and his research team begin to descend into the depths of Marum Crater, an active volcano in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.
When Crossman can’t get any closer to the 1,000-plus-degree heat—even with his aluminized fiberglass heat suit—he sends in the drones.
The squad of flying robots outfitted with GoPro cameras shot footage unable to be captured by humans that was more than just visually awe-inspiring.
The drones took thousands of photos and rendered a first-of-its-kind 3-D model of the inside of an active volcano. Marum Crater is one of only seven active lava lakes in the world. It measures 1,300-feet deep—the height of the Empire State Building—and more than 7.5-miles wide.
While the recordings survived, the drones weren’t so lucky. The extreme heat and toxic gas damaged many of them, while others fell into the lava lake.
Still, they did their job, capturing the 3-D images and even processing which layers of the volcano contain particular minerals.
For team member and geobiologist Jeff Marlow, that was key in helping determine where the team should look for signs of life in the volcano.
“We were there to investigate how quickly microbial colonization happens on rocks,” Marlow says in the video. “When you’re looking for extreme locations, it doesn’t get much better than an erupting volcano on Vanuatu.”
They knew that life can’t exist in the lava lake itself, but the instant the rock cools below 120 degrees Celsius, it could be a “habitable” environment. If they can see how microbes near the mouth of volcanoes start and where, they may have a good indication of how life has formed near hot spots such as this across time.
“Getting a handle on how microbes colonize this particular substrate is a good example of what will happen across the planet and has happened across the planet throughout geological time,” Marlow said.
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