Tamsyn Mather

One of the things that fascinates me about volcanoes is we would not be here, I don't think, as a species if it was not for volcanoes.

Although we think of volcanoes probably most often as forces for destruction, they've also been really important forces in terms of building our planet's continents, which we're obviously a land-based mammal, so really important.

The gases coming out of volcanoes help to maintain our atmosphere over geological time.

So they've kept us within certain bounds of temperature by our atmosphere helping for that and helping

The atmosphere protects us from lots of external forces.

And then there's even some thinking that volcanic lightning or the hot vents on the ocean floor might have been some of the first places that the molecules for life were put together that laid the foundation for all of life on this planet.

And I think that's incredible.

Thanks, Mike.

It's been really fun.