Last edited Mon Sep 8, 2014, 11:37 AM - Edit history (1)

United Artists should put it in a James Bond movie... ya know if they ever remake Dr. NO or something. That is one BIG BANG BABY!

Make sure you watch it on large screen..its awesome!

The evidence of the shock wave in the clouds above is amazing. Can you imagine what Vesuvius must've been like? Something on the order of a thousand times more powerful than what we see here.

That about sums it up.

Look at the edges of the island at about 30 seconds into the clip, after the shock wave has passed. You'll see these big splashes in the ocean all along the island's edge. Considering the distance, I'm guessing those splashes are approximately one hundred feet high. They must have been created by ejecta shot out of the volcano when it erupted and that raced down the slopes of the volcano to the water's edge.

Out of curiousity, I did some rough calculations, which may be of interest. Using Google Earth, I was able to estimate the distance from the crater of Mt. Tavurvur to the shore seen on the right in this clip. Accounting for some uneven terrain, it's about 1.1 miles. I then used the Speed = Distance/Time equation to determine average speed of first the shock wave and then the ejecta.

AVG SPEED OF SHOCK WAVE
S = 1.1 mi/5 seconds (0:12 to 0:17 in the clip) = 792 mph (1,275 kmh)

AVG SPEED OF EJECTA
S = 1.1 mi/18 seconds (0:12 to 0:30 in the clip) = 220 mph (354 kmh)

Just think of that for a moment: a wall of boulders, most larger than automobiles, racing across more than a mile of terrain at more than 200 miles per hour. Yeah, probably not a good place to be standing.

(Sorry about the self-delete above. My calculations were a bit off so I deleted the post to redo them.)