Imaginez un volcan si puissant qu'il aurait pu anéantir des groupes entiers de Néandertaliens—et maintenant, il gronde de nouveau ! Les Campi Flegrei, près de Naples, en Italie, ont connu leur dernière éruption il y a des milliers d'années, mais les scientifiques détectent des signes qu'il pourrait ne pas en avoir fini. Ce "supervolcan" a jadis libéré des cendres et des gaz qui ont assombri les cieux et modifié les climats, mettant possiblement fin au monde des Néandertaliens. Aujourd'hui, avec de nouvelles secousses et des températures souterraines en hausse, c'est comme un géant endormi qui se réveille. Les experts surveillent de près, étudiant chaque tremblement et frisson pour prédire si et quand il pourrait à nouveau exploser. Pourrions-nous être témoins d'une autre éruption épique de cette puissance ancienne ? Seul le temps le dira ! Animation créée par Sympa. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Musique par Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com Pour ne rien perdre de Sympa, abonnez-vous!: https://goo.gl/6E4Xna ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nos réseaux sociaux : Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sympasympacom/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sympa.officiel/ Stock de fichiers (photos, vidéos et autres): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Si tu en veux encore plus, fais un tour ici: http://sympa-sympa.com
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00:00Imagine diving in the heart of Europe, 40,000 years ago.
00:04The scenery is austere, glacial, ruthless.
00:08The sources of food are rare, and don't expect an internet connection.
00:12Suddenly, a silhouette emerges from the woods.
00:15Trapped, powerful, with at least an unusual face.
00:19This human has traits similar to ours, but something distinguishes him.
00:24His forehead is prominent, his nose is wide,
00:27and his body seems carved to face the forces of nature.
00:30Congratulations, you have just met the Neanderthal man.
00:34Perhaps you thought that Neanderthals were simply ancestors of modern man,
00:38but this is not entirely true.
00:40Although we belong to the same genus, Homo,
00:43we, the current humans, are all of one species, Homo sapiens.
00:48However, there were many human species in the past.
00:52Homo neanderthalensis was just one of them.
00:55And it could even be that they were some assets that we don't have.
00:58But then, what happened to them?
01:01Neanderthals thrived for about 360,000 years
01:05throughout Europe and some regions of Asia.
01:0840,000 years ago, what we call today the south of Italy,
01:12was facing a latent threat.
01:14A gigantic supervolcano, known as the Flegrean Field.
01:18This colossus extends over about 15 km in diameter,
01:22a distance that could be crossed by car in 10 to 20 minutes.
01:25But of course, there were no cars at that time, remember.
01:29At that time, the volcano remained calm.
01:32But one day, it suddenly exploded in one of the largest volcanic eruptions
01:36that Europe has known in 200,000 years.
01:39The magnitude of this disaster was such that the ashes,
01:42gas and debris projected into the atmosphere
01:45altered the climate throughout the continent.
01:48This type of event leads to what is called a volcanic winter.
01:51The average temperatures drop, the sky darkens
01:54and life becomes even more exhausting.
01:57This cataclysm, called the Indian-British Campania eruption,
02:00lowered the temperature of Europe by nearly 12 °C.
02:04This is not negligible,
02:06because a drop of a single degree would already make winters harder,
02:09causing heavy snowfalls, flooding and floods.
02:14Crops would struggle to grow, causing food shortages,
02:18while the climate would deteriorate with storms and droughts.
02:22Imagine this multiplied by 12.
02:24Such events are already causing chaos today.
02:27You can therefore imagine the devastating effects for the Neanderthals.
02:33In reality, a simple volcanic eruption should not be enough
02:37to destroy an entire species, right?
02:39Well yes, the truth is that the Neanderthals were already
02:43in a critical situation at that time.
02:46And all this, in large part, because of us.
02:49They were already fighting for their survival for some time
02:52and inhabited the regions that today correspond to Europe,
02:55West Asia and the Middle East.
02:58When modern humans, us, Homo Sapiens,
03:01entered Europe, they imposed a formidable competition
03:05for food and habitat.
03:07The more cunning Homo Sapiens excelled in the search for food,
03:11adapted easily to different environments
03:14and used more perfected tools.
03:16We repelled the Neanderthals,
03:18taking the same resources as them.
03:20Thus, our species has orchestrated their extinction
03:23in a slow and painful way.
03:25Although the volcano has certainly aggravated the situation,
03:28it was not their only concern and they did not completely disappear
03:31following the eruption.
03:32Some of them have subsisted in remote areas,
03:35like Gibraltar, for another 12,000 years.
03:37This is probably explained by the fact that the severest cooling
03:41mainly took place further east,
03:43far from the places where the Neanderthals fought to survive
03:46and did not affect their habitats as hard as we had supposed.
03:50In reality, the eruption may even have been beneficial to them,
03:53at least temporarily.
03:55Some scientists estimate that volcanic eruptions
03:58have slowed the expansion of modern humans
04:00in the Neanderthal territories,
04:02thus giving them a little more time to survive.
04:06The eruption of the Phlegra fields was therefore a destructive event,
04:09but it only delayed the inevitable.
04:13The Phlegra fields, also known as the fire fields,
04:16were perfectly unpredictable.
04:18The air there is saturated with legend.
04:20The Greeks and Romans considered this volcano
04:23as a gateway to hell.
04:25And even the Roman poet Virgil refers to it
04:28in his famous work, the Aeneid,
04:31where the eponymous hero must go down to hell,
04:34and this is precisely where he begins his journey.
04:36In the past, this landscape welcomed Roman villas,
04:39therms and fish pools.
04:41The Roman elite lived there in luxury,
04:43without knowing that they were standing on an unstable ground,
04:46likely to collapse at any time.
04:50The Phlegra fields are not an ordinary volcano.
04:53One could imagine a unique peak,
04:55but the landscape is deceitfully peaceful,
04:57dotted with small formations.
04:59Seen from the sky, the panorama is impressive.
05:02A huge circular basin riddled with volcanic cones
05:05and craters, marked by scars
05:07from the tumultuous past of the earth.
05:09What makes this place dangerous
05:11is the discretion of its activity.
05:13The ground under your feet is in perpetual motion,
05:16even if it passes unnoticed.
05:18Sometimes the earth rises to fall again,
05:20sometimes from several feet,
05:22thanks to the movements of magma or gases under the surface.
05:25It is a deaf and disturbing threat,
05:27almost invisible.
05:29The Phlegra fields are a vast depression,
05:31the result of two titanic volcanic eruptions.
05:34One decimated the Neanderthals,
05:36the other took place 15,000 years ago.
05:38However, the most famous eruption
05:40occurred in the 16th century
05:42and it was absolutely terrifying.
05:45In 1538, the inhabitants of Pouzole
05:48observed for a long time a disturbing phenomenon.
05:51Earths, formerly submerged,
05:53emerged little by little.
05:55What had been the sea became a new land.
05:57The rumbles coming from the depths,
05:59although terrifying,
06:01were now part of their daily lives.
06:03The first earthquakes,
06:05appeared at the beginning of the 1530s,
06:07were light,
06:09but in eight years they had become commonplace.
06:11Then, one day,
06:13on September 28th to be precise,
06:15terrible tremors shook the earth.
06:17The next evening,
06:19while the sun was setting,
06:21a huge crack tore the ground
06:23near the old medieval village of Tripergole.
06:25From this fault,
06:27flames, smoulders of smoke,
06:29and a rain of volcanic ash
06:31reached several kilometers.
06:33These ashes, thick and bubbling,
06:35seemed to be mixed with underground water.
06:37The ground was shaking
06:39while fragments of burning stone
06:41were propelled into the air.
06:43Shortly after,
06:45a new mountain began to rise.
06:47It was the birth of what we call today
06:49the Montenuovo.
06:51After this episode,
06:53things seemed to calm down,
06:55as if the earth was breathing again.
06:57The following days were quiet
06:59and the inhabitants,
07:01somewhat reassured,
07:03approached the mysterious new volcano,
07:05a crater where a strange bubbling activity
07:07attracted the curious,
07:09becoming almost an attraction.
07:11But a few days later,
07:13the disaster struck again.
07:15In the middle of the night,
07:17without any sign of an outrunner,
07:19the new mountain erupted.
07:21An explosion on its south flank
07:23projected scurries,
07:25pieces of volcanic rock
07:27formed by the following
07:29huge and impressive shapes.
07:31For centuries,
07:33the only signs of life
07:35of the Montenuovo were small fumaroles,
07:37gas emanations escaping from the ground.
07:39Then, even these traces disappeared,
07:41leaving room for a greenish cone,
07:43a sleeping giant, majestic and peaceful.
07:45The ground near Naples,
07:47in Italy,
07:49remains active.
07:51The Flegraean fields are still calm for the moment,
07:53but it may not last.
07:55This supervolcano presents
07:57an infernal landscape,
07:59with its bubbling mud,
08:01its geysers and its fumaroles.
08:03Medieval Romans and Christians
08:05used to see an access door
08:07to hell there,
08:09and it is easy to understand why.
08:11What worries,
08:13is that an unusual activity
08:15has recently been detected under the surface.
08:17In 2012, Italian authorities
08:19have raised the level of alert
08:21of the volcano from green to yellow,
08:23and it has increased.
08:25Specific changes usually precede an eruption.
08:27The magma begins to release gases,
08:29which can weaken the rock on the surface
08:31and eventually trigger a disaster.
08:35Unfortunately,
08:37it is impossible to predict exactly when,
08:39or even if,
08:41an eruption will occur.
08:43But if it were to take place,
08:45the consequences could go from a simple disaster
08:47for the inhabitants,
08:49to a world-scale disaster.
08:51This eruption occurred in the 16th century,
08:53and was not too serious.
08:55However,
08:57if history were to repeat itself
08:59like the Neanderthals,
09:01we would all be in danger.
09:03Such an eruption could cause
09:05global cooling,
09:07loss of crops,
09:09and a general famine.
09:11Currently,
09:13a group of scientists
09:15is trying to better understand
09:17the underground activity.
09:19For the time being,
09:21the supervolcano remains peaceful,
09:23and we hope it will remain so.