Mount Paektu, North Korea – September 2, 2014

1. Various of Mount Paektu with Lake Chon in crater

2. Tight of Dr. James Hammond on computer

3. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. James Hammond, NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) research fellow at Imperial College London

++Soundbite partially covered at both ends++

“What we’re trying to do here is a geophysics and geological programme, to understand both the history of Mount Paektu, so some of the big eruptions, particularly a thousand years ago, but also we’re trying to look at the current state of the volcano, so where is magma or molten rock stored beneath the volcano. So with that we can build good models of the volcano, and that goes towards understanding what may happen in the future.”

4. Various of Mount Paektu

STORYLINE:

Two British scientists are carrying out a research project on a huge volcano straddling the border between North Korea and China, the first foreigners permitted to conduct on-site studies.

Dr James Hammond from Imperial College London, and Professor Clive Oppenheimer of Cambridge University have recently completed their third visit to the volcano.

More than a thousand years ago, the volcano was the site of one of the biggest eruptions in human history, blanketing eastern Asia in its ash.

But unlike other major volcanoes around the world, the remote and politically sensitive Mount Paektu remains almost a complete mystery to foreign scientists who have – until recently – been unable to carry out on-site research.

Hammond told the Associated Press that the unprecedented joint project with North Korea may soon be able to reveal some secrets of the volcano, including its likelihood of erupting again.

The research team is collecting seismic data and studying rocks ejected in Paektu’s “millennium eruption” sometime in the 10th century.

“We’re trying to look at the current state of the volcano, so where is magma, molten rock stored beneath the volcano,” explained Hammond, a seismologist and NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) research fellow at Imperial College.

“That goes towards understanding what may happen in the future.”

For volcano researchers, studying Paektu is a golden opportunity to break new ground because so much about it remains a puzzle.

Paektu is considered sacred ground in both China and in North Korea, where it is seen as a symbol of the ruling Kim family and of the revolution that led to the founding of the country,officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Hammond said that with their first year of data now complete, the scientists are hoping to begin the next stage of studying the data and samples in the laboratory and publishing papers on their findings with their North Korean colleagues early next year.

In September last year, Hammond installed six broadband seismometers to record activity on the volcano, while North Korea’s Korean Earthquake Bureau built protective huts for the equipment.

The scientists’ next trip to North Korea is scheduled for 2015, and Hammond said he hopes the project will continue beyond that.

Hammond also is looking to host North Korean scientists in the UK for training and joint research.