Reading. EXTREME SCIENTIST (Elem)

EXTREME SCIENTIST: RANDY WHITE

Randy is a member of a team of people that make up the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP). They’re usually called the ‘volcano crisis assistance team’ and they were the models for the heroes of the recent popular film, Dante’s Peak. They visit volcanoes and try to answer the same three questions: 1) Will the volcano erupt? 2) How big will the eruption be? and 3) How much time do we have? Their main aim is to save lives.

Randy and his team visit volcanoes that have shown recent increases in seismic activity. ‘People call us when they think their local volcano is waking up. That’s when we go into action. Our entire team can be on a plane in 24 hours. That’s probably the main reason we are often called to the scene of a volcano site.’

Randy’s team set up their equipment and show some local people how it works and what to watch for. When the volcano monitoring station is in place, Randy's team moves on to the next potentially active volcano site and they do it all again. They keep in contact with the local people and sometimes revisit the sites to check everything is all right.

He visits volcano sites about three or four times a year, but more often if there’s increased volcanic activity. Randy and his team were involved in predicting the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines. An estimated 20,000 lives were saved when his team predicted the time, the size, and the place of the eruption, the largest in the world in almost 80 years! Randy says he and his team have successfully predicted several other recent volcanic eruptions in Latin America.