Phil McNamara was able to capture something not a lot of people get to see: the exact moment an active volcano blows its top, and the attendant shockwave. Filming off the coast of Papa New Guinea, McNamara filmed the start of the eruption of Mount Tavurvur volcano on August 29th, 2014.

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A fun trick you can do with this video: determine about how far away McNamara was from the actual eruption. In the video, about 12 seconds pass in between the visual of the first explosion and the actual sound (and shockwave) hitting the boat. The speed of sound at sea level is 340.29 meters per second. Doing the math, we can judge that McNamara was just about 4083 meters (or about 2.5 miles) away from Tavurvur when it began erupting.

Tavurvur's big bang (a "Vulcanian eruption" if you want to get technical about it), was a massive event, with Tavurvur sending ash clouds 60,000 feet into the air. Tavurvur continued to spit up lava and ash for almost two weeks after, finally quieting down after September 12.

Mount Tavurvur has a fatal history: a 1994 event killed 5, and in 1937 Tavurvur and nearby volcano Vulcan erupted, killing 507 people and nearly obliterating the town of Rabaul. Luckily, the 2014 eruption, while forcing the evacuation of Rabaul and disrupting air travel, resulted in no casualties—just a stunning piece of video.

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