SAM COSSMAN, EXPLORER AND FILMMAKER:
It’s a glimpse into the center of the Earth. It’s like listening to the heartbeat of the planet. The physiological effects are significant in that you have every force down there trying to kill you.

I wanted to share Marum Crater that’s located in the island national of Vanuatu by bring a team with me and documenting this place in a way that’s never been seen.

The drone that we used is called the Phantom II Vision Plus.  We also had GoPros  mounted on to these particular drones with gimballed devices so that no matter how much they shook the video remained stable. 

We were able to take a series of thousands of photographs around the top of the crater and then process those using a specialized software to render the first of its kind 3D model  of the volcano from inside.

We were fortunate in that we go the footage that were looking for, and unfortunate in the fact that we lost our drones.  They fell to their demise: some into the lava and other just from the incredible amount of heat and unstable air. 

You have sulfur dioxide and toxic gases that are super- heated, and just an incredible radiant heat that exceeds a thousand degrees Fahrenheit standing right next to it. 

 

JEFFREY MARLOW, GEOBIOLOGIST, CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLGY:

Well, if you’re looking for extreme locations it doesn’t get much better than an erupting volcano on Vanuatu. We were there to investigate how quickly microbial colonization happens on rocks.

We certainly wouldn’t imagine there is life in the lava lake itself.  Just way too hot for anything to happen.  But the instant the rock cools to below to about 120 degrees Celsius, it’s considered an inhabitable environment.   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.

Having the cameras everywhere, particularly during the sampling at the very edge of the lava lake,  is critical because we can go back and see exactly how far we were from the edge, exactly how closely distributed these newly formed rocks were.  This isn’t something you can measure in the moment.

3D reconstruction of the crater itself will be very useful in figuring out which layers are iron-rich, which layers are sulfur-rich. Within the caldera as a whole there’s certainly life, coating the walls as you go down on some of the surfaces down at the bottom. Almost certainly a high microbial constituency.

 

SAM COSSMAN, EXPLORER AND FILMMAKER:

 The greatest scientific value is just having video graphic support that can be used in tandem with other research that’s happening in the world.  I really believe that there is the opportunity to merge those worlds of exploration and tech and coming back and reporting on all kinds of information that has not yet been discovered.