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  • Today we're on a glacier in Iceland.

  • - ( grunts ) - ( laughs )

  • Dan: This is the Strokkur Geyser.

  • It goes off every five to ten minutes.

  • Oh! That was a good one.

  • Dan: Oh, that's big there, look at that.

  • Gav: That is massive.

  • Now I've got something different in mind.

  • Of all the Phantoms we've ever used,

  • this is the biggest.

  • Dan: I'm nervous for his drone and the camera.

  • Might get hit.

  • Holy crap.

  • Oh! Jesus Christ!

  • ( chuckles )

  • Well, looking back on that,

  • I think that was the most challenging conditions

  • I've ever shot in.

  • And it smelled really eggy.

  • Smells a bit like eggs.

  • Sorry, that was me, that one.

  • - Oh, was that you? - Yeah.

  • By far the sketchiest position

  • that Phantom camera has ever been in

  • is hovering above a hole in the Earth

  • and then getting battered with water.

  • Dan: Oh!

  • Jesus Christ!

  • Holy crap.

  • The amount of stress running through my body

  • - when I was watching that. - Oh, God.

  • It's quite cool that we had the opportunity to have the camera

  • flying above what we were filming.

  • - Yeah, it's never been that high, ever. - No.

  • I also thought it would be very cool if we brought along

  • a thermal camera to see the difference in temperature

  • between us and the water, so let's take a look at that.

  • Would you like to tell us about this camera?

  • Yeah, this is a FLIR thermal imaging camera.

  • This is actually a cold camera

  • and what is basically does, it measures temperatures.

  • Dan: This is like 80 to 100 degrees.

  • Rudd: Yeah, basically every pixel is a temperature measurement,

  • so you can be really detailed on what you want to measure.

  • So should we have it so that it's further back and I'm in the frame?

  • - So I'm just shivering... - Yeah, let's see what that looks like.

  • Shivering and then, yeah.

  • Well, I guess I'm not operating, I can be in there with you.

  • - Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. - Hey.

  • All right, let's do it.

  • - It's a bit cold, isn't it? - It's pretty chilly.

  • - What is it, like one degree? - Something like that.

  • - And it's raining as well. - Yeah.

  • Shouldn't be long though until it goes off.

  • I like this one 'cause it's only like every five minutes

  • this one goes off.

  • Check this out, ready?

  • - Oh! - There you go.

  • All right, how was that?

  • ( chuckles ) Look at our little faces.

  • Dan: ( laughs ) I look like I'm evil.

  • My eyes are warmer than the rest of my face.

  • Gav: You're leaking heat through your eyes and neck.

  • Oh, yeah.

  • - Dan: Oh, that's crazy. - Gav: Isn't that cool?

  • - Yeah, that's wicked. - Then all the steam.

  • - That's really cool. - Yeah.

  • And this is the software that the FLIR cameras use.

  • So we can actually see some values.

  • Firstly, let's just see how cold my nose was.

  • 56...

  • What is that guff number?

  • Fahrenheit, you got to change it, you got to change it.

  • Let's get on Celsius.

  • I like how your nose is so much colder than your face

  • 'cause it's so far away from the blood flow.

  • Got a 14 degree nose.

  • ( Dan laughs )

  • But my eyelids are 23.

  • All right, let's play on.

  • And what you got to remember is it's actually really cold outside,

  • so it's so quick to turn into cool water.

  • You see how quickly it fades off

  • and becomes your greens and your blues.

  • It's wicked.

  • Looks like a rainbow got nuked.

  • It does.

  • Yeah, all this stuff that's still bubbling

  • is the hottest.

  • Yeah, 60. 70 degrees there.

  • Oh, something I've always wanted to find out.

  • Yeah?

  • Gav: Let's have a quick look at your heart.

  • - Ooh. - Cold as ice.

  • - Cold as ice, five degrees. - Yeah.

  • With an asterisk so it's probably like...

  • Can't, it's too cold.

  • 'Cause we filmed it in RAW,

  • it meant that we can edit this as we're going

  • in this software.

  • Well, let's see what the highest temperature it hits

  • through the whole thing.

  • Spot in-- 87, that's pretty high.

  • 86, 85, 83, 82, it's going down.

  • So at the beginning of the eruption

  • was the highest temperature.

  • Around here, yeah.

  • 87.

  • 87.9, about 88.

  • 88, and that's probably... yeah, around there.

  • It's the hottest it's been.

  • So pretty much as soon as it's burst its bubble,

  • that's when it's the highest.

  • - Gav: All right. - Dan: It immediately turns cooler.

  • Think we've learned a lot of good stuff there.

  • So I've never actually seen anything like a geyser in real life.

  • It's kinda surreal.

  • Although, I don't actually know what's happening, so...

  • I mean, we spent all day there and it's still kinda confusing how that worked.

  • - A complete mystery. - Yeah.

  • So now we've got John Cotter with us,

  • who's a professor of geography and environmental science,

  • who can hopefully take us through exactly what's happening.

  • We also have this lovely experiment.

  • Do you want to run us through this?

  • ( music playing )

  • Okay, well, water's gonna be flowing downhill.

  • And as it flows downhill, it's gonna start seeping into the ground.

  • So as it's coming down,

  • deep below there has to be some kind of a boiler.

  • And so that water's gonna get in there,

  • it's gonna start heating up.

  • And once that starts boiling like that,

  • it's gonna start getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

  • And as it rises, that heavier, more dense water

  • is just gonna come and flow underneath it,

  • and that gives it a little bit more spring.

  • And once that spring starts, you've got a jet heading upstream.

  • It's amazing that they're so deep and so narrow.

  • - Yeah. - Gav: It's Phantom time.

  • John, do you want to explain how this experiment works for us?

  • Okay, let's start with the hot plate down here,

  • this represents the magma

  • that's gonna be heating up the water.

  • And these bubbles are getting bigger and bigger

  • and coalescing at the top of the beaker.

  • Once that bubble gets big enough,

  • it's gonna have enough momentum to start climbing.

  • So if you're on the surface looking down on this thing,

  • what you're gonna see is this bubble starting to rise

  • that tells you that blast is right on the way.

  • Man: Here we go, back up.

  • - And... - Oh, about to go.

  • - Oh! - John: Spectacular.

  • Why did we go to Iceland?

  • - Sounds like you after a curry. - Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing,

  • I was gonna make the same joke, but I thought it'd be in poor taste.

  • Gav: And you see the water go back down, that was cool.

  • So it's gonna do it again and build up again

  • for a second eruption.

  • ( music playing )

  • Oh, yeah. It's a very realistic scale.

  • Dan: Wait, why am I way fatter than you are?

  • - Gav: I don't know. - Dan: I just spotted that.

  • Someone's made like a-- whoa!

  • Gav: I like how oddly similar this tiny experiment is.

  • Dan: It's exactly the same.

  • It was the same thing, you get the bubbles of water coming up,

  • building up and then erupting, it's exactly the same.

  • Gav: That's what's great about the universe,

  • - it's quite consistent. - Dan: Yeah, that's true.

  • Gav: So, John, is this exactly what you expected from this experiment?

  • John: I think it's very good

  • except these tourists need to stand a little further away.

  • Gav: They're too close, oh, yeah.

  • ( laughter )

  • Well, we cleaned the ceiling.

  • - With boiling hot water. - It's spotless now.

  • Yeah, it's great. Thanks very much, John, for your help.

  • - Appreciate it. - I actually really feel like I've learned something there.

  • Glad to have had a chance to meet you. Take care.

  • - Very nice to meet you too. - Thanks.

  • Hopefully you enjoyed that episode.

  • Feel free to subscribe to the "Slow Mo Guys"

  • and check our other episodes from "Planet Slow Mo."

  • The Slow Mo Guys-er.

  • Slow Mo Guys-er.

  • Why did we only just think of this?

  • - That's great. - Yeah.

  • Doesn't really work the way we pronounce it, but...

  • - Fine. Yeah. - That's all right.

  • Buttons are over there.

Today we're on a glacier in Iceland.

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