28-462: Whakamaru Caldera was created in a massive supereruption 335,000 years ago and is approximately 30 by 40 km (19 by 25 mi) in size and is located in the North Island of New Zealand . It now contains active geothermal areas as well as the later Maroa Caldera . The Whakamaru Caldera covers an area larger than the younger Taupō Volcano to its south and indeed the rims overlap. To its north
56-508: A Royal Television Society Award and a Grierson Trust Award. Other Emmy winning programmes are: "Chernobyl's Sarcophagus" (1991), "Assault on the Male" (1993) and "The Fall of the World Trade Centre" (2003). In 1988, Horizon won a BAFTA for Best Drama, "Life Story" (about the elucidation of the structure of DNA ), another in 1996 for Best Documentary, "Fermat's Last Theorem" (which also won
84-414: A distinctive narrative form, typically employing an underlying "detective" metaphor, to relate scientific issues and discoveries to the lives of its viewers. Many episodes of Horizon are structured in a format that starts with a tease or menu laying out what the show has in store, followed by two "acts" with a "plot twist" around 25–35 minutes into the show. The twist frequently propels the story line from
112-409: A focus on an individual scientist's human and intellectual journey of discovery through to explore the impact of that insight while, at the same time, providing a change of "texture" and filmic pace. Often, episodes of Horizon end up with a montage of "talking heads" as experts and people affected by the implications of the science covered are intercut to create a sense of summary. Until early 2008,
140-412: A million years ago, but the period 320,000 to 340,000 years before the present have been characterised as: The Maroa Caldera eruptions can be regarded as a separate sequence of rholite eruptions commencing from 305,000 years ago continuing to as recently as 14,000 years ago: Supervolcano A supervolcano is a volcano that has had an eruption with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 8,
168-914: A special episode on the Artemis program in conjunction with the American series Nova and the Open University was announced. Horizon has enjoyed high viewing figures, even though it covered subjects as complex as molecular biology and particle physics . It has shown a change of direction since June 2006, offering a more light-hearted approach, though the subjects it covers remain serious. For instance, an episode broadcast in 2019 entitled "We Need To Talk About Death" features Kevin Fong talking to palliative care clinician Mark Taubert and some of his patients who are facing terminal illness. The down-side to Horizon ' s recent focus on "Pure Science, Sheer Drama" and
196-458: Is an ongoing and long-running British documentary television series on BBC Two that covers science and philosophy . The programme was first broadcast on 2 May 1964 with "The World of Buckminster Fuller", which explored the theories and structures of inventor Richard Buckminster Fuller and included the Horizon mission statement: "The aim of Horizon is to provide a platform from which some of
224-555: Is sometimes used for caldera supervolcanoes, such as the Blake River Megacaldera Complex in the Abitibi greenstone belt of Ontario and Quebec , Canada. Though there is no well-defined minimum explosive size for a "supervolcano", there are at least two types of volcanic eruptions that have been identified as supervolcanoes: large igneous provinces and massive eruptions. Large igneous provinces, such as Iceland ,
252-511: The Laki fissure , which is approximately 40 km (25 mi) long. An estimated 14 km (3.4 cu mi) of basaltic lava was poured out during the eruption (VEI 4). The Ontong Java Plateau has an area of about 2,000,000 km (770,000 sq mi), and the province was at least 50% larger before the Manihiki and Hikurangi Plateaus broke away. Volcanic eruptions are classified using
280-569: The Siberian Traps , Deccan Traps , and the Ontong Java Plateau , are extensive regions of basalts on a continental scale resulting from flood basalt eruptions. When created, these regions often occupy several thousand square kilometres and have volumes on the order of millions of cubic kilometers. In most cases, the lavas are normally laid down over several million years. They release large amounts of gases. The Réunion hotspot produced
308-486: The triggering of a small ice age ) and threaten species with extinction . The Oruanui eruption of New Zealand's Taupō Volcano (about 25,600 years ago) was the world's most recent VEI-8 eruption. The term "supervolcano" was first used in a volcanic context in 1949. Its origins lie in an early 20th-century scientific debate about the geological history and features of the Three Sisters volcanic region of Oregon in
SECTION 10
#1732869731399336-573: The volcanic explosivity index . It is a logarithmic scale , and an increase of one in VEI number is equivalent to a tenfold increase in volume of erupted material. VEI 7 or VEI 8 eruptions are so powerful that they often form circular calderas rather than cones because the downward withdrawal of magma causes the overlying rock mass to collapse into the empty magma chamber beneath it. Based on incomplete statistics, at least 60 VEI 8 eruptions have been identified. Horizon (BBC TV series) Horizon
364-557: The BBC's in-house production division, BBC Studios , and the BBC invited independent production companies to pitch to make episodes of the strand. There have been 57 series and more than 1,200 episodes produced. Horizon has investigated an eclectic mix of subjects and controversial topics. It opened the awareness of consumers to the use of whale meat in pet food in 1972 ("Whales, Dolphins, and Men"), and produced award-winning documentary-dramas such as Life Story in 1987, which dramatised
392-617: The Deccan Traps about 66 million years ago, coincident with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event . The scientific consensus is that an asteroid impact was the cause of the extinction event, but the volcanic activity may have caused environmental stresses on extant species up to the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary . Additionally, the largest flood basalt event (the Siberian Traps) occurred around 250 million years ago and
420-535: The United States. In 1925, Edwin T. Hodge suggested that a very large volcano, which he named Mount Multnomah , had existed in that region. He believed that several peaks in the Three Sisters area were remnants of Mount Multnomah after it had been largely destroyed by violent volcanic explosions, similarly to Mount Mazama . In his 1948 book The Ancient Volcanoes of Oregon , volcanologist Howel Williams ignored
448-541: The discovery of the structure of DNA . A 1978 programme about the silicon chip documented the decline of the Swiss watch industry. In 1993, an Emmy -winning episode about decreasing male fertility ("Assault on the Male") was given a special screening at the White House . The format of the series has varied over the years. The first ever Horizon was "The World of Buckminster Fuller", produced and directed by Ramsay Short,
476-703: The largest recorded value on the index. This means the volume of deposits for such an eruption is greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles). Supervolcanoes occur when magma in the mantle rises into the crust but is unable to break through it. Pressure builds in a large and growing magma pool until the crust is unable to contain the pressure and ruptures. This can occur at hotspots (for example, Yellowstone Caldera ) or at subduction zones (for example, Toba ). Large-volume supervolcanic eruptions are also often associated with large igneous provinces , which can cover huge areas with lava and volcanic ash . These can cause long-lasting climate change (such as
504-410: The length was standardised at 50 minutes, which was extended in the latter half of 2008 to 60 minutes. Some episodes are adapted from documentaries by other broadcasters such as PBS's Nova , and episodes of Horizon are in turn adapted by PBS (to American English) and other broadcasters around the world in their own languages. No new episodes were broadcast between July 2022 and 2024. In January 2024,
532-768: The more recent eruptive centres have sometimes been grouped as the Mokai Ring Complex or Maroa Volcanic Centre . It contains to its north east the more recently active Maroa Caldera with the Ben Lomond Dome being outside the southern border of the Maroa Caldera but definitely a feature of the Whakamaru Caldera. Domes within the caldera include the Western Dome Complex, including Pokuru which defines its north western borders (which likely overlap with those of
560-407: The occasionally forced narrative this engenders has led to some accusations of dumbing down in recent years, with one former editor writing a newspaper article about how the programme concentrates too much on human stories, and not enough on the science. One programme "Chimps are people too" was entirely presented by a non-scientist, Danny Wallace . Editor Andrew Cohen addressed the reasons why
588-400: The older Mangakino caldera complex ), Forest Road Dome, Puketarata (near Te Pouwhakatutu, which is the last Maroa Caldera eruption, now known to be 11,300 ± 1,700 years ago), Ngangiho, which is 629 metres (2,064 ft) high but beaten by Ben Lomond 744 metres (2,441 ft), and Marotiri 733 metres (2,405 ft) just to the west of Kinloch . The first eruptions may have occurred half
SECTION 20
#1732869731399616-499: The possible existence of Mount Multnomah, but in 1949 another volcanologist, F. M. Byers Jr., reviewed the book, and in the review, Byers refers to Mount Multnomah as a "supervolcano". More than fifty years after Byers' review was published, the term supervolcano was popularised by the BBC popular science television program Horizon in 2000, referring to eruptions that produce extremely large amounts of ejecta . The term megacaldera
644-570: The programme went down this route on the Horizon web page. In October 2014, a three-part special – "Cat Watch: the New Horizon Experiment" – was broadcast, following up on Horizon ' s 2013 "The Secret Life of the Cat". At the end of the first hour-long broadcast the findings of the experiment so-far were summarised on screen by presenter Liz Bonnin as: "Our cats can cope with change but you have to introduce them to it gently". Private Eye
672-442: The world's greatest scientists and philosophers can communicate their curiosity, observations and reflections, and infuse into our common knowledge their changing views of the universe". Horizon continues to be broadcast on BBC Two , and in 2009 added a series of films based on the rich Horizon archive, called Horizon Guides , on BBC Four . In December 2016, it was announced that Horizon would no longer be made exclusively by
700-420: Was also the writer. The first Horizon in colour was "Koestler on Creativity", produced by Robert Vas , was shown on 5 December 1967. The Public Broadcasting Service 's (PBS) Nova series was created in 1974, after Michael Ambrosino, who had served a year-long fellowship with the BBC, was inspired to create an American program based on the same model . Since the early 1990s, Horizon has developed
728-467: Was coincident with the largest mass extinction in history, the Permian–Triassic extinction event , although it is unknown whether it was solely responsible for the extinction event. Such outpourings are not explosive, though lava fountains may occur. Many volcanologists consider Iceland to be a large igneous province that is currently being formed. The last major outpouring occurred in 1783–84 from
756-407: Was critical of the scientific value of the programme saying: "By all means, if the BBC wants to, make a series called The Secret Life of Cats ; but don't insult the history of television by branding it, however obliquely, as a Horizon ". In the period of "Pure Science, Sheer Drama", Horizon won an unprecedented series of the world's top awards, including a BAFTA , an Emmy for Best Documentary,
784-403: Was shown on 5 February 1964. It set the style; running time 50 minutes, no in-vision presenter, interviewees speaking off camera (in practice, almost always to the producer/director whose questions were usually edited out). Until the 1980s Horizon , in common with all BBC documentaries, was shot on 16 mm film. Only rare programmes had a specialist writer – in most cases the producer/director
#398601