GEAS Women who study the Earth

Katia Krafft Life (and death) at the edge of the volcano The majesty of volcanoes has captivated every culture since time immemorial. Not without reason have volcanoes played starring roles in a multitude of myths and legends that tried to give some meaning to their frightening and lethal beauty. Katia Krafft was not immune to this attraction, and her daring to get close to volcanoes has given us a scientific legacy that is unmatched. Katia Conrad was born in the French region of Alsace in 1942. Throughout her teenage years, she devoured anything volcanorelated that crossed her path. Her parents, a teacher and a worker with no relation to geology, took her on a trip to Sicily so that she could quench her thirst for these giants by seeing with her own eyes Etna, Stromboli and Vulcano. She studied at the University of Strasbourg, where she specialised in physics and geochemistry. Curious and methodical, her first scientific job acknowledged her early promise in the field of volcanology. During those years, she met the one who would become her husband and partner, Maurice Krafft: a geologist who, just like her, had grown up dreaming of volcanoes. From this point on, their professional and personal trajectories become one. Katia and Maurice devoted their lives to travelling anywhere in the world that showed the slightest sign of an imminent eruption. Cameras at hand, they were pioneers in filming, photographing and recording volcanoes, often getting within feet of flowing lava. They knew that their perception of danger was completely biased by their passion for volcanoes. As if enchanted by a siren’s song, they advanced without hesitation towards dangers that anyone else would flee. Sometimes, they said, they were unable to film anything and would only stay still, hypnotised by the heat and the lava from the volcanoes. Once considered extravagant, eruption after eruption their work started to garner attention and interest from the scientific community, the public and the authorities. Though the gas and rock samples they took allowed them to do relevant research, it was their scientific communication that made the volcano devils even more renowned. In their last few years, they worked on designing information campaigns about volcanic risk and developing alarm and aid devices. Their documentary about the devastating consequences of the Nevado del Ruiz eruption (Colombia, 1985) helped convince Philippine authorities, in 1991, to evacuate the area around Mount Pinatubo in the face of an imminent eruption, saving thousands of lives. In that same year, Mount Unzen woke up after more than two centuries of sleep. As usual, Katia and Maurice dropped everything to go to Japan and film what they would rank to be ‘the most dangerous eruption they had ever seen in their lives’, and they had already witnessed more than 150 in the 25 years spanned by their careers. Although they were experienced and cautious, they were not able to avoid a cloud of superheated gases, ash and rock fragments that enveloped them in a matter of seconds. They died right next to another volcanologist and forty journalists that were covering the eruption. Though it may seem like a tragic end from our perspective, the Kraffts died as they decided to live: together and ‘ near craters, drunk with fire, gas, their faces burned by the heat ’. It’s not that I flirt with my death, but at this point, I don’t care about it, because there is the pleasure of approaching the beast and not knowing if he is going to catch you. 35

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