>> well, you say years and you're not exaggerating. in 1821 the same volcano managed to erupt for more than a year. were the conditions there that would lead to that? is there something you can look at internally? look at events around the world that might tell you anything about how long this will last? >> we do that at the smithsonian. we have a big database of eruptions. the average life of an eruption is about seven weeks. that's a huge average. some last only a few hours and some go on for centuries. so it's an average of a lot of numbers and i would say that year of eruption is probably worth looking at. it didn't erupt the entire year, the year of 1822 was sporadic eruptions. so if it was like that again, a year of sporadic eruptions, it might mean in a week or two it would stop for a while.