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{{short description|Active stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples, Italy}} | |||
{{this|the mountain in Italy|Vesuvius (disambiguation)}} | |||
{{redirect|Vesuvius}} | |||
{{Infobox Mountain | |||
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}} | |||
| Name=<center>Mount Vesuvius</center> | |||
{{pp-move}} | |||
| Photo=Vesuvius_from_Pompeii.jpg | |||
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}} | |||
| Caption=<small>Mt. Vesuvius as seen from the ruins of ], which was destroyed in the eruption of AD ]. The active cone is the high peak on the left side; the smaller one on the right is part of the Somma caldera wall.</small> | |||
{{Infobox mountain | |||
| Elevation= {{Unit m|1281|0}} | |||
| fetchwikidata = ALL | |||
| Location=] | |||
| name = Mount Vesuvius | |||
| Prominence = | |||
| native_name = {{native name list |tag1=it|name1=Vesuvio |tag2=nap|name2=Vesuvio}} | |||
| Coordinates = {{coor dm|40|49|N|14|26|E|type:mountain_region:IT}} | |||
| location = ], Italy | |||
| Topographic map = | |||
| map = Italy | |||
| Type=] | |||
| map_caption = | |||
| Volcanic_Arc/Belt=] | |||
| coordinates = {{coord|40|49|17|N|14|25|34|E|type:mountain_region:IT|display=inline,title}} | |||
| Age=25,000 yr before present to 1944 | |||
| coordinates_ref = | |||
| Last eruption=] | |||
| |
| topo = | ||
| type = ]–] | |||
| Easiest route=walk}} | |||
| age = 25,000 years before present to 1944; | |||
'''Mount Vesuvius''' (]: ''Monte Vesuvio'', ]: ''Mons Vesuvius'') is a ] east of ], ]. It is the only volcano on the ]an mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years, although it is not currently erupting. The only other two such ] (] and ]) are located on islands. | |||
age of volcano = {{circa|17,000}} years to present | |||
| volcanic_arc = ] | |||
| last_eruption = 17–23 March 1944 | |||
| first_ascent = | |||
| easiest_route = Walk | |||
| mapframe = yes | |||
| mapframe-caption = Location in ] | |||
| mapframe-zoom = 11 | |||
}} | |||
'''Mount Vesuvius''' ({{IPAc-en|v|ᵻ|ˈ|s|uː|v|i|ə|s}} {{respell|viss|OO|vee|əs}}){{efn|name=fn1|{{langx|it|Vesuvio}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Vesuvio nell'Enciclopedia Treccani |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/vesuvio |website=treccani.it |access-date=7 February 2021 |language=it-IT}}</ref> {{IPA|it|veˈzuːvjo|}}; {{langx|nap|Vesuvio}} {{IPA-nap|vəˈsuːvjə|}}, also {{lang|nap|'a Muntagna}} {{IPA-nap|a munˈdaɲɲə|}} ("the Mountain");<ref>{{cite web |editor-last=Grasso |editor-first=Alfonso |title=Il Vesuvio |trans-title=Vesuvius |url=http://www.ilportaledelsud.org/vesuvio01.htm |website=ilportaledelsud.org |date=2007 |access-date=8 February 2021 |language=it}}</ref> {{langx|la|Vesuvius}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Castiglioni |first1=Luigi |last2=Mariotti |first2=Scevola |title=Vocabolario della lingua latina : IL : latino-italiano, italiano-latino / Luigi Castiglioni, Scevola Mariotti; redatto con la collaborazione di Arturo Brambilla e Gaspare Campagna |publisher=Loescher |edition=4th |year=2007 |page=1505 |isbn=978-8820166601 |language=it}}</ref> {{IPA|la|wɛˈsʊwi.ʊs|}}, also {{lang|la|Vesevius}}, {{lang|la|Vesvius}} or {{lang|la|Vesbius}}.<ref>{{cite web |title=Vesuvio o Vesevius nell'Enciclopedia Treccani |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/vesuvio-o-vesevius |website=treccani.it |access-date=8 February 2021 |language=it}}</ref>}} is a ]–] located on the ] in ], ], about {{convert|9|km|mi|abbr=on}} east of ] and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several ]es forming the ]. Vesuvius consists of a large ] partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit ], resulting from the collapse of an earlier, much higher structure. | |||
Vesuvius is on the coast of the ], about nine kilometres (six miles) east of ] and a short distance from the shore. It is conspicuous in the beautiful landscape presented by the Bay of Naples, when seen from the sea, with Naples in the foreground. Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the destruction of the ] cities of ] and ]. It has erupted many times since and is today regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people now living close to it and its tendency towards explosive eruptions. | |||
The ] destroyed the ] cities of ], ], ], ] and other settlements. The eruption ejected a cloud of ], ] and ]es to a height of {{convert|33|km|mi|abbr=on}}, ] ] and pulverized ] at the rate of {{convert|6e5|m3|yd3}} per second.<ref>{{cite book|title=Modeling Volcanic Processes: The Physics and Mathematics of Volcanism|first=Andrew W.|last=Woods|chapter=Sustained explosive activity: volcanic eruption columns and hawaiian fountains|editor1-first=Sarah A.|editor1-last=Fagents|editor2-first=Tracy K. P.|editor2-last=Gregg|editor3-first=Rosaly M. C.|editor3-last=Lopes|editor3-link=Rosaly Lopes |page=158|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|year=2013|isbn=978-0521895439}}</ref> More than 1,000 people are thought to have died in the eruption, though the exact toll is unknown. The only surviving witness account consists of two letters by ] to the historian ].<ref name=epistularum/> | |||
Mount Vesuvius was regarded by the Greeks and Romans as being sacred to the hero and demigod ]/], and the town of Herculaneum, built at its base, was named after him. | |||
Vesuvius has erupted many times since. It is the only volcano on Europe's mainland to have erupted in the last hundred years. It is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because 3,000,000 people live near enough to be affected by an eruption, with at least 600,000 in the danger zone. This is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. Eruptions tend to be violent and explosive; these are known as ] eruptions.<ref name=mcguire2003>{{cite news |last=McGuire |first=Bill |title=In the shadow of the volcano |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/oct/16/research.highereducation2 |work=The Guardian |date=16 October 2003 |access-date=8 May 2010}}</ref> | |||
== Origin of the name == | |||
Some of the theories about the origin of the name Vesuvius include:{{Fact|date=August 2007}} | |||
==Mythology== | |||
* Hercules was son of the god ] and ] of ]. Zeus was also known as ''Huēs'' ({{polytonic|Ὓης}}) in his aspect as the god of rains and dews. ] was thus alternatively known as ''Huēsou huios'' ({{polytonic|Ὓησου υἱός}}), "Son of Hues." Transliterating the "ου" as "V" (as is normally done), and the other ]s (with ]) also by V (rather than the usual "HY") and changing to the Latin nominative ending "us", gives V<small>ESVVIVS</small> — ''Vesuvius''. | |||
Vesuvius has a long historic and literary tradition. It was considered a divinity of the ] type at the time of the eruption of AD 79: it appears under the inscribed name Vesuvius as a serpent in the decorative ]s of many ''{{lang|la|lararia}}'', or household shrines, surviving from ]. An inscription from ]<ref>] x.1, 3806 = {{cite book |editor1-last=Mommsen |editor1-first=Theodorus |title=Inscriptiones Bruttiorum, Lucaniae, Campaniae, Siciliae, Sardiniae Latinae. Pars Prior: Inscriptiones Bruttiorum Lucaniae Campaniae |series=Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum |volume=X.1 |date=1883 |publisher=Georgius Reimerus |location=Berolini |page=380 |doi=10.1515/9783112610220-011}}</ref> to {{lang|la|IOVI VESVVIO}} indicates that he was worshipped as a power of ]; that is, ''Jupiter Vesuvius''.<ref>{{harvnb|Waldstein|Shoobridge|1908|p=97}}</ref> | |||
* From the ] word ''fesf'' which means "smoke". | |||
* From the ] ] ''ves-'' = "]" | |||
The Romans regarded Mount Vesuvius as being devoted to ].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kozák |first1=Jan |last2=Cermák |first2=Vladimir |chapter=Vesuvius-Somma Volcano, Bay of Naples, Italy |title=The Illustrated History of Natural Disasters |publisher=Springer |year=2010 |pages=45–54 |isbn=978-90-481-3325-3 |doi=10.1007/978-90-481-3325-3_3}}</ref> The historian ] relates a tradition that Hercules, in the performance of his labors, passed through the country of nearby ] on his way to ] and found there a place called "the Phlegraean Plain" (], "fiery"), "from the mountain which of old spouted forth a huge fire the mountain is called Vesuvius."<ref>Diodorus Siculus, '']'' 4.21.5 = {{cite book |editor1-last=Oldfather |editor1-first=C. H. |title=Diodorus of Sicily: The Library of History: Books II.34–IV.58 |series=Loeb Classical Library |volume=303 |date=1935 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=410–411 |doi=10.4159/DLCL.diodorus_siculus-library_history.1933}}</ref> It was inhabited by giant bandits, "the sons of the Earth. With the gods' assistance, he pacified the region and continued. The facts behind the tradition, if any, remain unknown, as does whether {{lang|la|]}} was named after it. An ] by the poet ] in 88 AD suggests that both ], patroness of Pompeii, and Hercules were worshipped in the region devastated by the eruption of 79.<ref>{{harvnb|Waldstein|Shoobridge|1908|p=108}} re Epigram IV line 44.</ref> | |||
== Physical appearance == | |||
{{Wide image|Naples from the Castello Sant Elmo with Abbazia San Martino the port and the Vesuv.jpg|600px|City of Naples with Mount Vesuvius viewed from the ]}} | |||
] wall of Vesuvius, with ] in the background]] | |||
==Etymology== | |||
Vesuvius is a distinctive "humpbacked" mountain, consisting of a large ] (''Gran Cono'') partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit ] caused by the collapse of an earlier, and originally much higher<ref name="OS storia"> | |||
''{{lang|la|Vesuvius}}'' was a name of the volcano in frequent use by the authors of the late ] and the early ]. Its ] were ''{{lang|la|Vesaevus}}'', ''{{lang|la|Vesevus}}'', ''{{lang|la|Vesbius}}'' and ''{{lang|la|Vesvius}}''.<ref name=Lewis>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Vesuvius |last1=Lewis |first1=Charlton T. |last2=Short |first2=Charles |encyclopedia=A Latin Dictionary |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=Vesuvius&highlight=vesuvius |publisher=The Perseus Project, Tufts University |location=Medford, MA |orig-year=1879 |year=2010}}</ref> Writers in ancient Greek used {{lang|grc|Οὐεσούιον}} or {{lang|grc|Οὐεσούιος}}. Many scholars since then have offered an ]. Given that peoples of varying ethnicity and language occupied ] during the ], the etymology depends to a large degree on the presumption of what language was spoken there at the time. Naples was settled by Greeks, as the name ''{{lang|grc-Latn|Nea-polis}}'', "New City", testifies. The ], an ] people, lived in the countryside. The ] also competed for the occupation of Campania. ] settlements were in the vicinity. Other peoples of unknown provenance are said to have been there at some time by various ancient authors. | |||
Some theories about its origin are: | |||
{{ cite web | url = http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/storia.htm | title = Summary of the eruptive history of Mt. Vesuvius | work = Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | accessdate= 2006-12-08}} </ref> | |||
* From Greek {{lang|grc|οὔ}} = "not" prefixed to a root from or related to the Greek word {{lang|grc|σβέννυμι}} = "I quench", in the sense of "unquenchable".<ref name=Lewis/><ref>{{cite book |title=Vesuvius |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.48517 |first=John |last=Phillips|pages=–9 |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1869}}</ref> | |||
structure called Monte Somma. The Gran Cono was produced during the eruption of 79. For this reason, the volcano is also called '''Somma-Vesuvius''' or '''Somma-Vesuvio'''. | |||
* From Greek {{lang|grc|ἕω}} = "I hurl" and {{lang|grc|βίη}} "violence", "hurling violence", *vesbia, taking advantage of the collateral form.<ref>{{cite book |last=Charnock |first=Richard Stephen |title=Local etymology, a derivative dictionary of geographical names |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_I2BulY4WvsYC |page= |location=London |publisher=Houlston and Wright |year=1859}}</ref> | |||
* From an ] root, *eus- < *ewes- < ], "shine", "burn", sense "the one who lightens", through ] or {{nowrap|].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Pokorny |first=Julius |author-link=Julius Pokorny |title=eus, awes |encyclopedia=Indogermanisches etymologisches Woerterbuch |editor1-last=Lubotsky |editor1-first=A. |editor2-last=Starostin |editor2-first=G. |date=1998–2003 |orig-year=1959 |language=de |location=Leiden |publisher=Leiden University |url=http://indogermanisch.org/pokorny-etymologisches-woerterbuch/eus.htm}}</ref>}} | |||
* From an ] root *wes = "]" (compare e.g. ]) | |||
==Topography== | |||
The caldera started forming during an eruption around 17,000 (or 18,300<ref name="OS Pomici di Base">{{ cite web | url = http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/pomici_base.htm | title = The Pomici Di Base Eruption | work = Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | accessdate= 2006-12-08 }}</ref>) years ago <ref>, Volcano World</ref> <ref>, Scentia</ref> and was enlarged by later paroxysmal eruptions<ref name="global volcanism">{{ cite web | url = http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0101-02= | title = Vesuvius | work = Global Volcanism | accessdate= 2006-12-08}}</ref> ending in the one of 79. This structure has given its name to the term "]", which describes any volcano with a summit caldera surrounding a newer cone.<ref>{{ cite web | url= http://www.volcanolive.com/somma.html | title = Definition of somma volcano |work= Volcano Live | accessdate= 2006-12-11 }}</ref> | |||
] | |||
Vesuvius is a "humpbacked" peak, consisting of a large ] (''Gran Cono'') partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit ] caused by the collapse of an earlier (and originally much higher) structure called ].<ref name="OS storia">{{cite web |title=Summary of the eruptive history of Mt. Vesuvius |url=http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/storia.htm |publisher=Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology |access-date=8 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061203041501/http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/storia.htm <!--Added by H3llBot--> |archive-date=3 December 2006}}</ref> The Gran Cono was produced during the A.D. 79 eruption. For this reason, the volcano is also called Somma-Vesuvius or '''Somma-Vesuvio'''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Geology and Vulcanology {{!}} Vesuvius National Park |url=https://www.parconazionaledelvesuvio.it/en/the-volcano/geology-and-vulcanology/ |website=Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio |access-date=27 April 2021 |language=en-US}}</ref> | |||
The caldera started forming during an eruption around 17,000–18,000 years ago<ref>{{cite web |title=Vesuvius, Italy |url=http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/img_vesuvius.html |work=Volcano World |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705060119/http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/img_vesuvius.html |archive-date=5 July 2008}}</ref><ref name="Scenta">{{cite web |title=The world's top volcanoes |url=http://www.scenta.co.uk/nature/volcanoes/volcanoes_worldwide.cfm |publisher=Scenta |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100826063343/http://www.scenta.co.uk/nature/volcanoes/volcanoes_worldwide.cfm |archive-date=26 August 2010}}</ref><ref name="OS Pomici di Base">{{cite web |title=The Pomici Di Base Eruption |url=https://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/pomici_base.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061022134001/http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/pomici_base.htm<!--Added by H3llBot--> |archive-date=22 October 2006 |access-date=8 December 2006 |work=Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology}}</ref> and was enlarged by later ] eruptions,<ref name="global volcanism">{{cite gvp |vn=211020 |title=Vesuvius |access-date=8 December 2006}}</ref> ending in the one of AD 79. This structure has given its name to the term "]", which describes any volcano with a summit caldera surrounding a newer cone.<ref>{{cite web |title=Definition of somma volcano |url=http://www.volcanolive.com/somma.html |work=Volcano Live |access-date=11 December 2006}}</ref> | |||
The height of the main cone has been constantly changed by eruptions but presently is 1,281 m (4,202 ft). Monte Somma is 1,149 m (3,770 ft) high, separated from the main cone by the valley of Atrio di Cavallo, which is some 3 miles (5 km) long. The slopes of the mountain are scarred by lava flows but are heavily vegetated, with scrub at higher altitudes and ]s lower down. Vesuvius is still regarded as an active volcano, although its current activity produces little more than steam from vents at the bottom of the crater. Vesuvius is a ] at the ] where the ] is being ] beneath the ]. Its ] is composed of viscous ]. Layers of lava, ], ], and ] make up the mountain. | |||
The cliffs forming the northern ridge of Monte Somma's caldera rim reach a maximum height of {{convert|1132|m|ft|abbr=on}} at Punta Nasone. The summit of the main cone of Vesuvius is {{convert|1281|m|ft|abbr=on}} above sea level and more than {{convert|400|m|ft|abbr=on}} above the {{convert|5|km|mi|abbr=on}} long valley of Atrio di Cavallo (the northern floor of Monte Somma's caldera). | |||
== Formation == | |||
The volcano's slopes are scarred by lava flows, while the rest are heavily vegetated, with scrub and forests at higher altitudes and ]s lower down. | |||
]]] | |||
==Formation== | |||
Vesuvius was formed as a result of the collision of two ]s, the ] and the ]. The former was pushed beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. The crust material became heated until it melted, forming ], a type of liquid rock. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak place at the Earth's surface it broke through, producing the volcano. | |||
] overlooking the city of Naples in the 19th century, by ]]] | |||
Vesuvius is a stratovolcano and was formed as a result of the collision of two ]s, the ] and the ]. The former was ] at a ] beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the African oceanic plate were pushed to hotter depths inside the planet, the water boiled off and lowered the melting point of the ] enough to partially melt the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak spot at the Earth's surface, it broke through, thus forming the volcano.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}} | |||
The volcano is one of several |
The volcano is one of several forming the ]. Others include ], a large ] a few kilometers to the north-west, ], a volcanic island {{convert|20|km}} to the west, and several undersea volcanoes to the south. The arc forms the southern end of a larger chain of volcanoes produced by the ] process described above, which extends northwest along the length of Italy as far as ] in Southern ]. Vesuvius is the only one to have erupted in recent history, although some of the others have erupted within the last few hundred years. Many are either extinct or have not erupted for tens of thousands of years. | ||
== |
==Eruptions== | ||
] during an eruption of Vesuvius (painted in 1822)]] | |||
Mount Vesuvius has erupted many times. Numerous others preceded the eruption in AD 79 in prehistory, including at least three significantly larger; an example is the ] around 1800 BC, which engulfed several Bronze Age settlements. Since AD 79, the volcano has also erupted repeatedly, in 172, 203, 222, possibly in 303, 379, 472, 512, 536, 685, 787, around 860, around 900, 968, 991, 999, 1006, 1037, 1049, around 1073, 1139, 1150, and there may have been eruptions in 1270, 1347, and 1500.<ref name = "global volcanism"/> | |||
The volcano erupted again in 1631, six times in the 18th century (including 1779 and 1794), eight times in the 19th century (notably in 1872), and in 1906, 1929 and 1944. There have been no eruptions since 1944, and none of the eruptions after AD 79 were as large or destructive as the Pompeian one. | |||
The eruptions vary greatly in severity but are characterized by explosive outbursts of the kind dubbed ] after ], a Roman writer who published a detailed description of the AD 79 eruption, including his uncle's death.<ref>{{cite book |author=Pliny the Younger |title=Vol. IX, Part 4: Letters |publisher=Bartleby |year=1909 |editor-last=Eliot |editor-first=Charles W. |series=The Harvard Classics |location=New York |chapter=6.16 |chapter-url=https://www.bartleby.com/9/4/1065.html}}{{verify source|date=April 2021|reason=Cite is inconsistent, letter 6 is "To Attius Clemens", letter 16 is "To Catilius Severus", URL links to "LXV. To Tacitus".}}</ref> On occasion, eruptions from Vesuvius have been so large that the whole of southern Europe has been blanketed by ash; in 472 and 1631, Vesuvian ash fell on ] (]), over {{convert|1200|km}} away. A few times since 1944, ] in the crater have raised clouds of ash dust, raising false alarms of an eruption. | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
Since 1750, seven of the eruptions of Vesuvius have had durations of more than five years; only ] has had as many long-duration eruptions in the last 270 years.<ref name="GVPDatabase2020-12">{{citation | url=https://volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm?question=longesteruptions | title=What volcanoes have had the longest eruptions? | publisher=] | department=Global Volcanism Program – Volcanoes of the World (Version 4.9.2) | editor-last=Venzke | editor-first=E. | date=10 December 2020 | doi=10.5479/si.GVP.VOTW4-2013 | access-date=15 December 2020}}</ref> The two most recent eruptions of Vesuvius (1875–1906 and 1913–1944) each lasted more than 30 years.<ref name="GVPDatabase2020-12" /> | |||
Vesuvius is still regarded as an active volcano, although its current activity produces little more than sulfur-rich steam from vents at the bottom and walls of the crater. | |||
Vesuvius has erupted many times. The famous eruption in 79 was preceded by numerous others in prehistory, including at least 3 significantly larger ones, the best known being the ] around 1800 BC which engulfed several Bronze Age settlements. Since 79, the volcano has also erupted repeatedly, in ], ], ], possibly ], ], ], ], ], ], ], around ], around ], ], ], ], ], ], ], around ], ], ], and there may have been eruptions in ], ], and ].<ref name="global volcanism">{{ cite web | url = http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0101-02= | title = Vesuvius | work = Global Volcanism | accessdate= 2006-12-08}}</ref> | |||
The volcano erupted again in ], six times in the ], eight times in the ] (notably in ]), and in ], ], and ]. There has been no eruption since 1944, and none of the post-79 eruptions were as large or destructive. | |||
Layers of ], ], ] and ] make up the volcanic peak. Their mineralogy is variable, but generally ]-undersaturated and rich in ], with ] produced in the more explosive eruptions<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.volcanotrek.com/vesuvius_volcano.htm |title=Vesuvius |work=volcanotrek.com |access-date=29 October 2010}}</ref> (e.g. the eruption in 1631 displaying a complete stratigraphic and petrographic description: phonolite was firstly erupted, followed by a ] and finally a phonolitic ]).<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Stoppa|first1=Francesco|last2=Principe|first2=Claudia|last3=Schiazza|first3=Mariangela|last4=Liu|first4=Yu|last5=Giosa|first5=Paola|last6=Crocetti|first6=Sergio|date=15 March 2017|title=Magma evolution inside the 1631 Vesuvius magma chamber and eruption triggering|journal=Open Geosciences|volume=9|issue=1|pages=24–52|doi=10.1515/geo-2017-0003|issn=2391-5447|bibcode=2017OGeo....9....3S|doi-access=free}}</ref> | |||
The eruptions vary greatly in severity but are characterized by explosive outbursts of the kind dubbed ] after ], the Roman naturalist who observed the 79 eruption, to which his uncle ] possibly fell victim. On occasion, the eruptions have been so large that the whole of southern Europe has been blanketed by ash; in 472 and 1631, Vesuvian ash fell on ] (]), over 1,200 km away. A few times since 1944, landslides in the crater raised clouds of ash dust, which caused false alarms of an eruption. | |||
=== |
===Volcanic explosivity index=== | ||
According to the ]'s ], Vesuvius has had 54 confirmed eruptions during the ] (the last 11,700 years). A ] (VEI) has been assigned to all but one of these eruptions.<ref name="Smithsonian_GVP_VEI">{{cite web | url=https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=211020 | title=Vesuvius – Eruption History | publisher=] | department=], Volcanoes of the World, version 4.11.0 (08 June 2022) | date=2013 | accessdate=7 August 2022 | editor-last=Venzke | editor-first=E.}}</ref> | |||
{{Bar chart | |||
The mountain started forming 25,000 years ago. Although the area has been subject to volcanic activity for at least 400,000 years, the lowest layer of eruption material from the Somma mountain lies on top of the 34,000 year-old ]n ] produced by the ] complex, and was the product of the ] ] eruption 25,000 years ago.<ref>{{cite journal | url= http://www.geotimes.org/apr05/NN_Vesuvius.html | title = Vesuvius’ next eruption | journal = Geotimes | date = April 2005 | accessdate = 2006-12-08}}</ref> | |||
| title = Volcanic explosivity index for Vesuvius | |||
| label_type = VEI | |||
| data_type = Number of ] eruptions for which a VEI has been assigned (total=53) | |||
| bar_width = 35 | |||
| width_units = em | |||
| data_max = 80 | |||
| label1 = VEI-0 | |||
| data1 = 2 | |||
| label2 = VEI-1 | |||
| data2 = 2 | |||
| label3 = VEI-2 | |||
| data3 = 7 | |||
| label4 = VEI-3 | |||
| data4 = 29 | |||
| label5 = VEI-4 | |||
| data5 = 8 | |||
| label6 = VEI-5 | |||
| data6 = 5 | |||
}} | |||
===Before AD 79=== | |||
It was then built up by a series of lava flows, with some smaller explosive eruptions interspersed between them. However, the style of eruption changed around 19,000 years ago to a sequence of large explosive plinian eruptions, of which the 79 one was the last. The eruptions are named after the tephra deposits produced by them:<ref name="OS storia">{{ cite web | url = http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/storia.htm | title = Summary of the eruptive history of Mt. Vesuvius | work = Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | accessdate= 2006-12-08}} </ref><ref name="Uni Rome Somma-Vesuvius">{{ cite web | url = http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/vesuviustext.html | title= Somma-Vesuvius | work = Department of Physics, University of Rome | accessdate = 2006-12-08}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
Scientific knowledge of the geologic history of Vesuvius comes from ]s taken from a {{convert|2000|m|ft|abbr=on}} plus borehole on the flanks of the volcano, extending into ] rock. Cores were dated by ] and ].<ref>{{harvnb|Guest|Cole|Duncan|Chester|2003|p=45}}</ref> The area has been subject to volcanic activity for at least 400,000 years; the lowest layer of eruption material from the Somma caldera lies on top of the 40,000-year‑old ] produced by the ] complex. The volcanic complex stands on a large, sedimentary plain.<ref name="Evolution" /> | |||
* The Basal Pumice (Pomici di Base) eruption, 18,300 years ago, ] 6, was probably the most violent of these eruptions and saw the original formation of the Somma caldera. The eruption was followed by a period of much less violent, lava producing eruptions. | |||
* 25,000 years ago: Vesuvius started forming in the Codola ].<ref name="OS storia"/> | |||
* The Green Pumice (Pomici Verdoline) eruption, 16,000 years ago, VEI 5. | |||
* Vesuvius was then built up by a series of lava flows, with some smaller explosive eruptions interspersed between them. By this time, the volcano was 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) tall, with the summit being 500 meters (1,640 feet) east of the current summit.<ref name="Evolution" /><ref name="caldera">{{cite journal |last1=Cioni |first1=Raffaello |last2=Santacroce |first2=Roberto|last3=Sbrana |first3=Alessandro |title=Pyroclastic deposits as a guide for reconstructing the multi-stage evolution of the Somma-Vesuvius Caldera |journal=Bulletin of Volcanology |date=September 1999 |volume=61 |issue=4 |pages=207–222 |doi=10.1007/s004450050272 |bibcode=1999BVol...61..207C |s2cid=140646538 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225377119 |access-date=June 20, 2022}}</ref> | |||
* The ] (also known as Pomici Gemelle or Ottaviano), 8,000 years ago, VEI 6, followed a smaller explosive eruption around 11,000 years ago (called the Lagno Amendolare eruption). | |||
* About 19,000 years ago: the style of eruption changed to a sequence of large explosive and caldera-forming Plinian eruptions, of which the AD 79 one was the most recent. The calderas are aligned in a roughly east–west direction, and all contributed to forming present-day's Somma caldera.<ref name="Evolution" /> The eruptions are named after the ] deposits produced by them, which in turn are named after the place where the deposits were first identified:<ref>{{harvnb|Guest|Cole|Duncan|Chester|2003|p=47}}</ref><ref name="Evolution" /> | |||
* The ] (Pomici di Avellino), 1660 BC ± 43 years, VEI 6, followed two smaller explosive eruptions around 5,000 years ago. The Avellino eruption vent was apparently 2 km west of the current crater, and the eruption destroyed several ] settlements. The remarkably well-preserved remains of one were discovered in May ] near ] by Italian archaeologists, with huts, pots, livestock and even the ]s of animals and people, as well as skeletons. The residents had hastily abandoned the village, leaving it to be buried under ] and ash in much the same way that Pompeii was later preserved.<ref> | |||
* 18,300 years ago: the Basal Pumice (Pomici di Base) eruption, ] 6, the original formation of the Somma caldera. The caldera's formation was asymmetric towards the west.<ref name="Evolution" /><ref name="caldera" /> The eruption was followed by a period of much less violent, lava-producing eruptions.<ref name="OS Pomici di Base"/> | |||
* 16,000 years ago: the Green Pumice (Pomici Verdoline) eruption, VEI 5.<ref name="OS storia"/> | |||
* Around 11,000 years ago: the Lagno Amendolare eruption, smaller than the Mercato eruption. | |||
* 8,000 years ago: the ] (Pomici di Mercato) – also known as Pomici Gemelle or Pomici Ottaviano, ] 6.<ref name="OS storia"/> | |||
* Around 5,000 years ago: two explosive eruptions smaller than the Avellino eruption. | |||
* 3,800 years ago (19th century BC): the ] (Pomici di Avellino), VEI 6; its vent was apparently {{convert|2|km|mi|abbr=on}} west of the current crater and the eruption destroyed several ] settlements of the ], including ancient ].<ref>Halpin, Danny. , ''Talker News'', October 11, 2022</ref> Several ] on wood and bones offer a range of possible dates of about 500 years in the mid-2nd millennium BC. In May 2001, near ], Italian archaeologists using the technique of filling every cavity with plaster or substitute compound, recovered some remarkably well-preserved forms of perishable objects, such as fence rails, a bucket and especially in the vicinity, thousands of human footprints pointing into the Apennines to the north. The settlement had huts, pots and goats. The residents had hastily abandoned the village, leaving it to be buried under ] and ] in much the same way that Pompeii and Herculaneum were later preserved.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.meridies-nola.org/nola/villaggiopreistoricoing.htm |title=An ancient Bronze Age village (3500 bp) destroyed by the pumice eruption in Avellino (Nola-Campania) |first= Claude Albore |last=Livadie |publisher=Meridie |access-date=8 December 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120618235308/http://www.meridies-nola.org/nola/villaggiopreistoricoing.htm |archive-date=18 June 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Ellen Goldbaum |url=http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html?article=78030009 |title= Vesuvius' Next Eruption May Put Metro Naples at Risk |date=6 March 2006 |publisher=State University of New York |access-date=8 December 2006}}</ref> ] deposits were distributed to the northwest of the vent, travelling as far as {{convert|15|km|mi|abbr=on}} from it, and lie up to {{convert|3|m|ft|abbr=on}} deep in the area now occupied by ].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/avellino.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100918021855/http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/avellino.htm |archive-date=18 September 2010 |title=Pomici di Avellino eruption |work=Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology |access-date=8 December 2006}}</ref> | |||
* The volcano then entered a stage of more frequent, but less violent eruptions, until the most recent ], which destroyed ] and ]. Evidence of these eruptions comes from badly preserved ] deposits that have been dubitatively assigned to either the Somma-Vesuvius complex, or the ].<ref name="Evolution">{{cite journal |last1=Sbrana |first1=Alessandro |last2=Cioni |first2=Rafaello |last3=Marianelli |first3=Paola |last4=Andronico |first4=Daniele |last5=Pasqiuni |first5=Giuseppe|title=Volcanic Evolution of the Somma-Vesuvius Complex (Italy). |journal=Journal of Maps |date=January 2020 |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=137–147 |doi=10.1080/17445647.2019.1706653 |bibcode=2020JMaps..16..137S |s2cid=214427328 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338386723 |access-date=June 16, 2022|doi-access=free |hdl=2158/1191867 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> | |||
* The last of these may have been in 217 BC.<ref name="global volcanism"/> There were earthquakes in Italy during that year and the sun was reported as being dimmed by gray haze or dry fog. ] wrote of the sky being on fire near Naples, and ] mentioned in his epic poem '']''<ref>{{cite journal |author=Stothers, R.B. |year=2002 |title=The case for an eruption of Vesuvius in 217 BC (abstract) |journal= Ancient Hist. Bull. |volume=16 |pages=182–185 |last2=Klenk |first2=Hans-Peter}}</ref><ref>'']'' VIII 653–655 "Aetnaeos quoque contorquens e cautibus ignes / Vesvius intonuit, scopulisque in nubila iactis / Phlegraeus tetigit trepidantia sidera vertex." </ref> that Vesuvius had thundered and produced flames worthy of Mount Etna in that year. However, both authors were writing around 250 years later. Greenland ] samples of around that period show relatively high acidity, which is assumed to have been caused by atmospheric ].<ref name="Volcanoes in Human History">{{cite book | title=Volcanoes in Human History | publisher=Princeton University Press | year=2002 |author1=de Boer |author2=Jelle Zeilinga & Sanders |author3=Donald Theodore | isbn=978-0-691-05081-2}}</ref> | |||
] of ] and ] with Mount Vesuvius, as seen in ]'s House of the Centenary]] | |||
* The volcano was then quiet (for 295 years, if the 217 BC date for the last previous eruption is true) and was described by ] writers as having been covered with gardens and ]s, except at the top, which was craggy. The volcano may have had only one summit at that time, judging by a wall painting, "Bacchus and Vesuvius", found in a Pompeian house, the ] (''Casa del Centenario''). | |||
Several surviving works written over the 200 years preceding the AD 79 eruption describe the mountain as having had a volcanic nature, although Pliny the Elder did not depict the mountain in this way in his '']'':<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+toc|author=Pliny the Elder|title=The Natural History|translator1=John Bostock|translator2=Henry Thomas Riley |translator-link2=Henry Thomas Riley|name-list-style=amp}}</ref> | |||
* The Greek historian ] ({{Circa|63 BC|24 AD}}) described the mountain in Book V, Chapter 4 of his '']''<ref>{{cite book |author=Strabo |chapter=Book V Chapter 4 |title=Geography |chapter-url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/5D*.html}}</ref> as having a predominantly flat, barren summit covered with sooty, ash-coloured rocks, and suggested that it might once have had "craters of fire". He also perceptively suggested that the fertility of the surrounding slopes may be due to volcanic activity, as at Mount Etna. | |||
* In Book II of {{lang|la|]}},<ref>{{cite book|author=Marcus Vitruvius Pollio |chapter=Book II |title=de Architectura |chapter-url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/2*.html}}</ref> the architect ] ({{Circa|80–70 BC}} –?) reported that fires had once existed abundantly below the peak and that it had spouted fire onto the surrounding fields. He described Pompeiian ] as having been burnt from another species of stone.{{confusing|bullet point|date=September 2022}} | |||
* ] ({{Circa|90 BC|30 BC}}), another Greek writer, wrote in Book IV of his ''Bibliotheca Historica'' that the Campanian plain was called fiery (''Phlegrean'') because of the peak, Vesuvius, which had spouted flames like Etna and showed signs of the fire that had burnt in ancient history.<ref name="Uni Rome Somma-Vesuvius">{{cite web |url=http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/vesuviustext.html |title=Somma-Vesuvius |work=Department of Physics, University of Rome |access-date=8 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110412141328/http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/vesuviustext.html |archive-date=12 April 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
===Eruption of AD 79=== | |||
{{ cite web | url = http://www.meridies-nola.org/nola/villaggiopreistoricoing.htm | title = An ancient Bronze Age village (3500 bp) destroyed by the pumice eruption in Avellino (Nola-Campania) | accessdate = 2006-12-08}}</ref><ref> | |||
{{main|Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD}} | |||
In AD 79, Vesuvius erupted in one of the ] eruptions of all time. Historians have learned about the eruption from the ] account of ], a Roman administrator and poet.<ref name=BBCportents /> Several dates are given in the surviving copies of the letters.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/when-did-vesuvius-erupt-august-october-24/|title=When Did Vesuvius Erupt? The Evidence for and against August 24|first1=Kenneth|last1=Lapatin|first2=Alina|last2=Kozlovski |date=23 August 2019|publisher=Getty Museum|work=The Iris}}</ref> The latest evidence supports earlier findings and indicates that the eruption occurred after 17 October.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45874858|title=Pompeii: Vesuvius eruption may have been later than thought|date=16 October 2018|publisher=BBC News}}</ref> | |||
The volcano ejected a cloud of ], ] and ]es to a height of {{convert|33|km|mi|abbr=on}}, ] ] and pulverized ] at the rate of {{convert|6e5|m3|yd3}} per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the ] released by the ].<ref name=sciencepompeii>{{cite magazine|url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865531,00.html|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081214131422/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865531,00.html|url-status= dead|archive-date= 14 December 2008|title=Science: Man of Pompeii|magazine=]|date=15 October 1956|access-date=4 February 2011}}</ref> The cities of ] and ] were destroyed by ]s and the ruins buried under tens of metres of ].<ref name=sciencepompeii/><ref name=BBCportents>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/pompeii_portents_01.shtml |title=Pompeii: Portents of Disaster|publisher=]| first =Andrew | last = Wallace-Hadrill|date= 15 October 2010|access-date=4 February 2011}}</ref> | |||
{{ cite web | url = http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html?article=78030009 | title = Vesuvius' Next Eruption May Put Metro Naples at Risk - Lesson from Katrina is need to focus on "maximum probable hazard" |work= State University of New York | accessdate = 2006-12-08 }}</ref> The eruption was larger than the ones of 79 (VEI 5) and 1631 (VEI 4) with ] deposits distributed to the northwest of the vent, the surges travelling as far as 15 km from it, and lie up to 3 m deep in the area now occupied by Naples.<ref> | |||
====Precursors and foreshocks==== | |||
{{ cite web | url = http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/storia/avellino.htm | title = Pomici di Avellino eruption | work = Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | accessdate= 2006-12-08}}</ref> | |||
The AD 79 eruption was preceded by a ], which caused widespread destruction around the Bay of Naples, and particularly to Pompeii.<ref>{{cite book |last=Martini |first=Kirk |title= Patterns of Reconstruction at Pompeii |date=September 1998 |publisher=Pompeii Forum Project, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), University of Virginia | chapter = 2: Identifying Potential Damage Events |chapter-url=http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/struct/pompeii/patterns/sec-02.html }}</ref> Some of the damage had still not been repaired when the volcano erupted.<ref name= VisitingPompeii /> The deaths of 600 sheep from "tainted air" in the vicinity of Pompeii indicates that the earthquake of AD 62 may have been related to new activity by Vesuvius.{{sfn |Sigurdsson|2002|p=35 | ps =, on Seneca the Younger, ''Natural Questions'', 6.1, 6.27.}} | |||
The Romans grew accustomed to minor earth tremors in the region; the writer ] even wrote that they "were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania". Small earthquakes started taking place four days before the eruption<ref name=VisitingPompeii>{{cite web | url = http://www.archaeology.co.uk/cwa-2/world-features/visiting-pompeii.htm | title = Visiting Pompeii – AD 79 – Vesuvius explodes | first = Rick | last = Jones | work = Current Archeology | year = 2004–2010 | publisher = Current Publishing | location = London | access-date = 27 May 2010 | url-status=dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120308100010/http://www.archaeology.co.uk/cwa-2/world-features/visiting-pompeii.htm | archive-date = 8 March 2012}}</ref> becoming more frequent over the next four days, but the warnings were not recognized.{{efn|name=fn2|The dates of the earthquakes and of the eruption are contingent on a final determination of the time of year, but there is no reason to change the relative sequence.}} | |||
The volcano then entered a stage of more frequent, but less violent, eruptions until the most recent plinian eruption which destroyed Pompeii. | |||
====Scientific analysis==== | |||
The last of these may have been in ].<ref name="global volcanism">{{ cite web | url = http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0101-02= | title = Vesuvius | work = Global Volcanism | accessdate= 2006-12-08}}</ref> There were earthquakes in Italy during that year and the sun was reported as being dimmed by a haze or dry fog. ] wrote of the sky being on fire near Naples and ] mentioned in his epic poem '']'' <ref>{{cite journal | author = Stothers, R.B. | year = 2002 | title = The case for an eruption of Vesuvius in 217 BC (abstract) | journal = Ancient Hist. Bull. | volume = 16 | pages = 182-185 }}</ref> that Vesuvius had thundered and produced flames worthy of ] in that year, although both authors were writing around 250 years later. ] ] samples of around that period show relatively high acidity, which is assumed to have been caused by atmospheric ].<ref name="Volcanoes in Human History">{{cite book | title=Volcanoes in Human History | publisher=Princeton University Press | year=2002 | author=de Boer, Jelle Zeilinga & Sanders, Donald Theodore| id=ISBN 0-691-05081-3}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
Reconstructions of the eruption and its effects vary considerably in the details but have the same overall features. The eruption lasted two days. The morning of the first day was perceived as normal by the only eyewitness to leave a surviving document, Pliny the Younger. In the middle of the day, an explosion threw up a high-altitude column from which ash and pumice began to fall, blanketing the area. Rescues and escapes occurred during this time. At some time in the night or early the next day, ]s in the close vicinity of the volcano began. Lights were seen on the peak, interpreted as fires. People as far away as Misenum fled for their lives. The flows were rapid-moving, dense and very hot, knocking down, wholly or partly, all structures in their path, incinerating or suffocating all population remaining there and altering the landscape, including the coastline. Additional light tremors accompanied these and a mild ] in the Bay of Naples. By late afternoon of the second day, the eruption was over, leaving only haze in the atmosphere through which the sun shone weakly. | |||
The latest scientific studies of the ash produced by Vesuvius reveal a multi-phase eruption.<ref>{{harvnb|Sigurdsson|2002}}</ref> The initial major explosion produced a column of ash and pumice ranging between {{convert|15|and|30|km|ft}} high, which rained on Pompeii to the southeast but not on Herculaneum upwind. The chief energy supporting the column came from the escape of steam superheated by the magma, created from seawater seeping over time into the deep faults of the region, which interacted with magma. | |||
The mountain was then quiet for hundreds of years and was described by ] writers as having been covered with ]s and ]s, except at the top which was craggy. Within a large circle of nearly perpendicular cliffs was a flat space large enough for the encampment of the army of the rebel gladiator ] in ]. This area was doubtless a ]. The mountain may have had only one summit at that time, judging by a wall painting, "Bacchus and Vesuvius", found in a Pompeiian house, the House of the Centenary (''Casa del Centenario''). | |||
Subsequently, the cloud collapsed as the gases expanded and lost their capability to support their solid contents, releasing it as a pyroclastic surge, which first reached Herculaneum but not Pompeii. Additional blasts reinstituted the column. The eruption alternated between Plinian and Peléan six times. Surges 3 and 4 are believed by the authors to have buried Pompeii.<ref>{{harvnb|Sigurdsson|Carey|2002|pp=42–43}}</ref> Surges are identified in the deposits by dune and cross-bedding formations, which are not produced by fallout. | |||
Several surviving works written over the 200 years preceding the 79 eruption describe the mountain as having had a volcanic nature, although Pliny the Elder did not depict the mountain in this way in his '']''<ref> (translation)</ref>: | |||
Another study used the magnetic characteristics of over 200 samples of roof-tile and plaster fragments collected around Pompeii to estimate the equilibrium temperature of the pyroclastic flow.<ref>{{harvnb|Zanella|Gurioli|Pareschi|Lanza|2007|p=5}}</ref> The magnetic study revealed that on the first day of the eruption a fall of white pumice containing clastic fragments of up to {{convert|3|cm|in}} fell for several hours.<ref>{{harvnb|Zanella|Gurioli|Pareschi|Lanza|2007|p=3}}</ref> It heated the roof tiles up to {{convert|140|C}}.<ref>{{harvnb|Zanella|Gurioli|Pareschi|Lanza|2007|p=12}}</ref> This period would have been the last opportunity to escape. | |||
* The ] ] ] (ca ]-]) described the mountain in Book V, Chapter 4 of his '']''<ref> (translation)</ref> as having a predominantly flat, barren summit covered with sooty, ash-coloured rocks and suggested that it might once have had "craters of fire". He also perceptively suggested that the fertility of the surrounding slopes may be due to volcanic activity, as at ]. | |||
The collapse of the Plinian columns on the second day caused pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) that devastated Herculaneum and Pompeii. The depositional temperature of these pyroclastic surges reached up to {{convert|300|C}}.<ref>{{harvnb|Zanella|Gurioli|Pareschi|Lanza|2007|p=13}}</ref> Any population remaining in structural refuges could not have escaped, as gases of incinerating temperatures surrounded the city. The lowest temperatures were in rooms under collapsed roofs, at approximately {{convert|100|C}}.<ref>{{harvnb|Zanella|Gurioli|Pareschi|Lanza|2007|p=14}}</ref> | |||
* In Book II of '']'',<ref> (translation)</ref> the ] ] (ca 80-70 BC -?) reported that fires had once existed abundantly below the mountain and that it had spouted fire onto the surrounding fields. He went on to describe Pompeiian ] as having been burnt from another species of stone. | |||
====The two Plinys==== | |||
* ] (ca ] — ca ]), another Greek ], wrote in Book IV of his ''Bibliotheca Historica'' that the Campanian plain was called fiery (''Phlegrean'') because of the mountain, Vesuvius, which had spouted flame like Etna and showed signs of the fire that had burnt in ancient history.<ref name="Uni Rome Somma-Vesuvius">{{ cite web | url = http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/vesuviustext.html | title= Somma-Vesuvius | work = Department of Physics, University of Rome | accessdate = 2006-12-08}}</ref> | |||
The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian ].<ref name=epistularum>{{cite book|author=C. Plinii Caecilii Secundi|title= Epistularum|section=Liber Sextus; 16 & 20 |url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/pliny.ep6.html |publisher=The Latin Library}}</ref> Pliny the Younger describes, amongst other things, the last days in the life of his uncle, ]. Observing the first volcanic activity from ] across the Bay of Naples from the volcano, approximately {{convert|35|km}}, the elder Pliny launched a rescue fleet and went himself to the rescue of a personal friend. His nephew declined to join the party. One of the nephew's letters relates what he could discover from witnesses of his uncle's experiences.<ref name=Pliny1>{{cite book|author=Pliny the Younger|editor=Charles W. Eliot|chapter=LXV. To Tacitus |series=The Harvard Classics|year=2001|orig-year=1909–14|title=Vol. IX, Part 4: Letters|location=New York |publisher=Bartelby|chapter-url=http://www.bartleby.com/9/4/1065.html}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|author1=Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (])|title=LETTERS OF PLINY|page=LXV|website=Letters of Pliny |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2811/2811-h/2811-h.htm#link2H_4_0065|via=] |access-date=3 October 2016 |date=September 2001}}</ref> In a second letter, the younger Pliny details his own observations after the departure of his uncle.<ref name=Pliny2>{{cite book|author=Pliny the Younger |editor=Charles W. Eliot|chapter=LXVI. To Cornelius Tacitus|series=The Harvard Classics|year=2001 |orig-year=1909–14|title=Vol. IX, Part 4: Letters|location=New York|publisher=Bartelby |chapter-url=http://www.bartleby.com/9/4/1066.html}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|author1=Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (])|title=LETTERS OF PLINY|page=LXVI|website=Letters of Pliny |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2811/2811-h/2811-h.htm#link2H_4_0066|via=] |access-date=3 October 2016 |date=September 2001}}</ref> | |||
The two men saw an extraordinarily dense cloud rising rapidly above the peak. This cloud and a request by a messenger for an evacuation by sea prompted the elder Pliny to order rescue operations in which he sailed away to participate. His nephew attempted to resume a normal life, but that night a tremor awoke him and his mother, prompting them to abandon the house for the courtyard. Further tremors near dawn caused the population to abandon the village and caused disastrous ] in the ]. | |||
By 79 the area was, as now, densely populated with villages, towns and small cities like Pompeii, and its slopes were covered in vineyards and farms. | |||
A massive black cloud with lightning obscured the early-morning light, a scene Pliny describes as ]. The cloud obscured Point Misenum near at hand and the island of Capraia (]) across the bay. Fearing for their lives, the population began to flee the shore along the road. An ash rain fell, causing Pliny to shake it off periodically to avoid being buried. Later that same day, the pumice and ash stopped falling, and the sun shone weakly through the cloud, encouraging Pliny and his mother to return to their home and wait for news of Pliny the Elder. | |||
=== Eruption of 79 === | |||
Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, was in command of the ] at Misenum and had meanwhile decided to investigate the phenomenon at close hand in a light vessel. As the ship was preparing to leave the area, a messenger came from his friend Rectina (wife of Tascius<ref>{{cite web|url=http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/pompeii/PlinyLetters.htm|title=Pliny Letter 6.16|access-date=11 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150511070405/http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/pompeii/PlinyLetters.htm|archive-date=11 May 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>) living on the coast near the foot of the volcano, explaining that her party could only get away by sea and asking for rescue. Pliny ordered the immediate launching of the fleet galleys to the evacuation of the coast. He continued in his light ship to the rescue of Rectina's party. | |||
] of the eruption of Vesuvius in BBC/Discovery Channel's co-production '']''.]] | |||
He set off across the bay but, in the shallows on the other side, encountered thick showers of hot cinders, lumps of pumice and pieces of rock. Advised by the helmsman to turn back, he stated, "Fortune favors the brave" and ordered him to continue to ] (about 4.5 km from Pompeii). | |||
By the ], ] was only one of a number of towns located around the base of Mount Vesuvius. The area had a substantial population which grew prosperous from the region's renowned agricultural fertility. Many of Pompeii's neighboring communities, most famously ], also suffered damage or destruction during the 79 eruption, which is thought to have lasted about 19 hours, in which time the volcano released about 1 cubic mile (4 cubic kilometres) of ash and rock over a wide area to the south and south-east of the crater, with about 3 m (10 ft) of ] falling on Pompeii. The white ash produced by this eruption is mainly of ] and ]. | |||
Pliny the Elder and his party saw what they believed to be flames coming from several parts of the crater. After staying overnight, the party was driven from the building by an accumulation of material, presumably tephra, which threatened to block all egress. They woke Pliny, who had been napping and emitting loud snoring. They elected to take to the fields with pillows tied to their heads to protect them from the raining debris. They approached the beach again, but the wind prevented the ships from leaving. Pliny sat down on a sail that had been spread for him and could not rise, even with assistance, when his friends departed. Though Pliny the Elder died, his friends ultimately escaped by land.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/pliny.htm |author=Fisher, Richard V. |collaboration=and volunteers |title=Derivation of the name "Plinian" |department=The Volcano Information Center |publisher=University of California at Santa Barbara, Department of Geological Sciences |access-date=15 May 2010}}</ref> | |||
==== Foreshocks ==== | |||
In the first letter to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger suggested that his uncle's death was due to the reaction of his weak lungs to a cloud of poisonous, sulphurous gas that wafted over the group. However, Stabiae was 16 km from the vent (roughly where the modern town of ] is situated), and his companions were unaffected by the volcanic gases. It is more likely that the corpulent Pliny died from another cause, such as a stroke or heart attack.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture19/lec19.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120718082232/http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture19/lec19.html |archive-date=18 July 2012 |title=Lecture 19: Greek, Carthaginian and Roman Agricultural Writers |work=History of Horticulture |year=2002 |first=Jules |last=Janick |publisher=Purdue University |access-date=15 May 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> His body was found with no apparent injuries the next day, after dispersal of the plume. | |||
] (1826)]] | |||
====Casualties==== | |||
The ] eruption was preceded by a powerful ] | |||
] | |||
seventeen years beforehand on ], ]<ref></ref>, which caused widespread destruction around the Bay of Naples, and particularly to Pompeii. Some of the damage had still not been repaired when the volcano erupted. <ref name=VisitingPompeii /> However, this may have been a ] event rather than one associated with the re-awakening of the volcano.<ref>{{cite news| title=Three Decades of Seismic Activity at Mt. Vesuvius: 1972–2000}}</ref> | |||
Along with Pliny the Elder, the only other noble casualties of the eruption to be known by name were Agrippa (a son of the Herodian Jewish princess ] and the procurator ]) and his wife.<ref>{{cite book|first=Flavius|last=Josephus|author-link=Josephus|title=Jewish Antiquities |section= xx.7.2|orig-date=94 AD<!-- 94 AD is the real date --> |title-link=Jewish Antiquities}} Also known to have been mentioned in a section now lost.</ref> | |||
Another smaller earthquake took place in ]; it was recorded by ] in his biography of ]<ref>, Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars</ref>, in ''De Vita Caesarum'', and by ] in Book XV of '']''<ref></ref> because it took place whilst Nero was in Naples performing for the first time in a public ]. Suetonius recorded that the emperor continued singing through the earthquake until he had finished his song, whilst Tacitus wrote that the theatre collapsed shortly after being evacuated. | |||
By 2003, around 1,044 casts made from impressions of bodies in the ash deposits had been recovered in and around Pompeii, with the scattered bones of another 100.<ref name="Episodes">{{cite journal |journal= Episodes |volume= 26 |date= September 2003 |title= The eruption of Vesuvius of 79 AD and its impact on human environment in Pompei |first1= Lisetta |last1= Giacomelli |first2= Annamaria |last2= Perrotta |first3= Roberto |last3= Scandone |first4= Claudio |last4= Scarpati |issue= 3 |pages= 235–238 |doi= 10.18814/epiiugs/2003/v26i3/014 |doi-access= free }}</ref> The remains of about 332 bodies have been found at Herculaneum (300 in arched vaults discovered in 1980).<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.fieldmuseum.org/pompeii/herculaneum_2.asp | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090318012551/http://www.fieldmuseum.org/pompeii/herculaneum_2.asp | archive-date = 18 March 2009 | title = Pompeii, Stories from an eruption: Herculaneum | year=2007|publisher = The Field Museum of Natural History |location=Chicago | work = Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei| access-date = 12 May 2010}}</ref> What percentage these numbers are of the total dead or the percentage of the dead to the total number at risk remain unknown. | |||
The Romans grew used to minor earth tremors in the region; the ] ] writing that they "were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania". In early August of 79, springs and wells dried up <ref></ref>. Small earthquakes started taking place on ], 79 <ref name=VisitingPompeii>{{cite web | url = http://www.archaeology.co.uk/cwa/issues/cwa4/pompeii/eruption.htm | title = Visiting Pompeii - AD 79 - Vesuvius explodes | work = Current Archeology | accessdate=2006-12-08}}</ref> becoming more frequent over the next four days, but the warnings were not recognised (it is worth noting the Romans had no word for volcano, and only a hazy concept of other similar mountains like ], home of ]), and on the afternoon of ], a catastrophic eruption of the volcano started. The eruption devastated the region, burying Pompeii and other settlements. By coincidence it was the day after ]alia, the festival of the Roman god of fire. | |||
<ref> (in Italian) Retrieved on 18 August 2007</ref><ref> by ]</ref><ref></ref><ref> Retrieved on 18 August 2007</ref><ref></ref><ref name="Eyewitness to history" /> | |||
Thirty-eight percent of the 1,044 were found in the ash fall deposits, the majority inside buildings. These are thought to have been killed mainly by roof collapses, with the smaller number of victims found outside of buildings probably being killed by falling roof slates or by larger rocks thrown out by the volcano. The remaining 62% of remains found at Pompeii were in the pyroclastic surge deposits,<ref name="Episodes" /> and thus were probably killed by them – probably from a combination of suffocation from inhaling ashes and blast and debris thrown around. Examination of cloth, frescoes and skeletons shows that, in contrast to the victims found at Herculaneum, it is unlikely that high temperatures were a significant cause of the destruction at Pompeii. Herculaneum, much closer to the crater, was saved from tephra falls by the wind direction but was buried under {{convert |23|m}} of material deposited by pyroclastic surges. Likely, most of the known victims in this town were killed by the surges. | |||
==== Nature of the eruption ==== | |||
People in Herculaneum, caught on the former seashore by the first surge, died of thermal shock. The rest were concentrated in arched chambers at a density of as high as three persons per square metre. As only {{convert|85|m|ft}} of the coast have been excavated, further casualties may be discovered. | |||
The eruption of Vesuvius on 24 and 25 August, 79, unfolded in two phases, | |||
<ref>Haraldur Sigurdsson, Stanford Cashdollar and Stephen R. J. Sparks, "The eruption The Eruption of Vesuvius in A. D. 79: Reconstruction from Historical and Volcanological Evidence" ''American Journal of Archaeology '86''.1 (January 1982), pp. 39-51.</ref> a ] that lasted eighteen to twenty hours and produced a rain of pumice southward of the cone that built up to depths of 2.8 meters at Pompeii, followed by a ] or ''nuée ardente'' in the second, ] that reached as far as ] but was concentrated to the west and northwest. Two pyroclastic flows engulfed Pompeii, burning and asphyxiating the stragglers who had remained behind. ] and ] received the brunt of the flows and were buried in fine ash and pyroclastic deposits.<ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref>Live Mount Vesuvius ]s: , </ref><ref> (in Italian) Retrieved on 18 August 2007</ref> | |||
===Later eruptions from the 3rd to the 19th centuries=== | |||
==== The Two Plinys ==== | |||
{{See also|1631 eruption of Mount Vesuvius}}]. ] and ] in Danckerts ''Historis'', 1642.]] | |||
=====Pliny the Younger===== | |||
], by ] ({{Circa|1774–6}})]] | |||
The only surviving reliable eyewitness account of the event was recorded by ], who was about 16 at the time of the eruption, in two letters to the historian ]<ref>, Translation of Pliny's letters. </ref>. Observing it from ] (across the bay, approximately 35 km from the volcano) whilst his uncle sailed closer, he saw an extraordinarily dense and rapidly-rising cloud appearing above the mountain: | |||
Since the eruption of AD 79, Vesuvius has erupted around three dozen times. | |||
* It erupted again in 203, during the lifetime of the historian ]. | |||
* In 472, it ejected such a volume of ash that ashfalls were reported as far away as ] (760 mi.; 1,220 km). | |||
* The eruptions of 512 were so severe that those inhabiting the slopes of Vesuvius were granted exemption from taxes by ], the ] king of Italy. | |||
* Further eruptions were recorded in 787, 968, 991, 999, 1007 and 1036 with the first recorded ]. | |||
The volcano became quiescent at the end of the 13th century, and in the following years, it again became covered with gardens and vineyards as old. Even the inside of the crater was moderately filled with shrubbery. | |||
{{cquote|I cannot give you a more exact description of its appearance than by comparing to a ] tree; for it shot up to a great height in the form of a tall trunk, which spread out at the top as though into branches. ... Occasionally it was brighter, occasionally darker and spotted, as it was either more or less filled with earth and cinders. (Sixth Book of Letters, Letter 16.)}} | |||
* Vesuvius entered a new phase in December 1631, when a major eruption buried many villages under lava flows, killing around 3,000 people. Torrents of ] were also created, adding to the devastation. Activity thereafter became almost continuous, with relatively severe eruptions occurring in 1660, 1682, 1694, 1698, 1707, 1737, 1760, 1767, 1779, 1794, 1822, 1834, 1839, 1850, 1855, 1861, 1868, 1872, 1906, 1926, 1929, and 1944. | |||
===Eruptions in the 20th century=== | |||
This was the ], now estimated to have been more than 32 km (20 miles) tall. | |||
] | |||
] tail gunner in the ] during ]]] | |||
* The eruption of 5 April 1906<ref name=nyt060406>, The New York Times, 6 April 1906</ref><ref name=nyt070406>, The New York Times, 7 April 1906</ref> killed more than 100 people and ejected the most lava ever recorded from a ]. Italian authorities were preparing to hold the ] when Mount Vesuvius violently erupted, devastating the city of ] and surrounding ]. Funds were diverted to reconstructing Naples, and the Games were transferred to London. | |||
* Vesuvius was active from 1913 through 1944, with lava filling the crater and occasional outflows of small amounts of lava.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research|volume=58|issue=1|year=1993|pages=5–25|title=Mount Vesuvius: 2000 years of volcanological observations|first1=Roberto|last1=Scandone|first2=Lisetta|last2=Giacomelli|first3=Paolo|last3=Gasparini|url=http://shadow.eas.gatech.edu/~dufek/PhysVolc2011/Notes_Reading_files/Scandone_Vesuvius_1993.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810123937/http://shadow.eas.gatech.edu/~dufek/PhysVolc2011/Notes_Reading_files/Scandone_Vesuvius_1993.pdf |archive-date=2017-08-10 |url-status=live|bibcode=1993JVGR...58....5S|doi=10.1016/0377-0273(93)90099-D}}</ref> | |||
* That eruptive period ended in the major eruption of March 1944, which destroyed the villages of ], ], and ], and part of ].<ref>{{Cite video|url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bsmv6PyKs0| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/1bsmv6PyKs0| archive-date=2021-10-30|title= Mt Vesuvius erupts near Naples, Italy in 1944|people=Stevens, Robert |medium= The Travel Film Archive|publisher=Castle Films, YouTube |location=Naples|year=1944}}{{cbignore}}</ref> From 13 to 18 March 1944, activity was confined within the rim. Finally, on 18 March 1944, lava overflowed the rim. Lava flows destroyed nearby villages from 19 March through 22 March.<ref>{{cite web| url= http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/1944eng.html| title= The eruption of vesuvius of March 1944| work= Esplora i Vulcani Italiani| date= 1996–2009| author= Giacomelli, L.| author2= Scandone, R.| publisher= Dipartimento di Fisica E. Amaldi, Università Roma Tre| access-date= 9 May 2010| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091230060643/http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/1944eng.html| archive-date= 30 December 2009| url-status=dead}}</ref> On 24 March, an explosive eruption created an ash plume and a small ]. | |||
In March 1944, the ] (USAAF) ] was based at ] near ], Italy, just a few kilometres from the eastern base of the volcano. The tephra and hot ash from multiple days of the eruption damaged the fabric control surfaces, the engines, the ] windscreens and the gun turrets of the 340th's ] medium bombers. Estimates ranged from 78 to 88 aircraft destroyed.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Mount Vesuvius Eruption of March 1944|first=Don|last=Kaiser|url=http://www.warwingsart.com/12thAirForce/Vesuvius.html|access-date=13 June 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111103062745/http://www.warwingsart.com/12thAirForce/Vesuvius.html|archive-date=3 November 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
After some time he described the cloud rushing down the flanks of the mountain and covering everything around it, including the surrounding sea. This is known today as a ], which is a cloud of superheated gas, ash, and rock that erupts from a volcano. ]s have used the magnetic characteristics of over 200 volcanic rocks and pieces of debris (e.g. roof tiles) found in Pompeii to estimate the temperature of this pyroclastic flow. (When molten rock solidifies, magnetic minerals in the rock record the direction of Earth's ]. If the material is heated above a certain temperature, known as the ], the rock's magnetic field may be modified or completely reset.) Most of the materials analyzed experienced temperatures between 240 °C and 340 °C (with a few areas showing lower temperatures of only 180 °C). This suggests that the ash cloud had a temperature of 850 °C when emerging from the mouth of Vesuvius and had cooled to below 350 °C by the time it reached the city. It is theorized that turbulence may have mixed cool air into the ash cloud. (Cioni, ''et al.'', 2004). This is now called the Plinian stage of the eruption, named after both the younger and elder Plinys. | |||
] medium bomber of the 340th Bombardment Group on 23 March 1944 after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius]] | |||
The eruption could be seen from Naples. Different perspectives and the damage caused to the local villages were recorded by USAAF photographers and other personnel based nearer to the volcano.<ref>{{cite web|title=Melvin C. Shaffer World War II Photographs|url=http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=any&CISOBOX1=vesuvius&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=%2Fmcs|publisher=Central University Library (CUL), Southern Methodist University (SMU)}}</ref> | |||
Pliny stated that several earth tremors were felt at the time of the eruption and were followed by a very violent shaking of the ground. He also noted that ash was falling in very thick sheets and the village he was in had to be evacuated, and then that the sun was blocked out by the eruption and the daylight hours were left in darkness. Also, the sea was sucked away and forced back by an "earthquake", a phenomenon now called a ]. | |||
=== |
===Future=== | ||
Large Vesuvian eruptions which emit volcanic material in quantities of about {{convert|1|km3}}, the most recent of which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum, have happened after periods of inactivity of a few thousand years. Sub-Plinian eruptions producing about {{convert|0.1|km3}}, such as those of 472 and 1631, have been more frequent with a few hundred years between them. From the 1631 eruption until 1944, there was a comparatively small eruption every few years, emitting 0.001–0.01 km<sup>3</sup> of magma. For Vesuvius, the amount of magma expelled in an eruption increases roughly linearly with the interval since the previous one, and at a rate of around {{convert|0.001|km3}} for each year.<ref name="Italian Volcanoes">{{cite book| title=Italian Volcanoes| publisher=Terra Publishing| year=2001 |author1=Kilburn, Chris |author2=McGuire, Bill |name-list-style=amp | isbn=978-1-903544-04-4}}</ref> This gives an approximate figure of {{convert|0.08|km3}} for an eruption after 80 years of inactivity. | |||
Magma sitting in an underground ] for many years will start to see higher melting point constituents such as ] crystallizing out. The effect is to increase the concentration of dissolved gases (mostly ] and ]) in the remaining liquid magma, making the subsequent eruption more violent. As gas-rich magma approaches the surface during an ], the huge drop in ] caused by the reduction in weight of the overlying rock (which drops to zero at the surface) causes the gases to come out of solution, the volume of gas increasing explosively from nothing to perhaps many times that of the accompanying magma. Additionally, the removal of the higher melting point material will raise the concentration of ] components such as ]s, potentially making the magma more ], adding to the explosive nature of the eruption. | |||
Pliny’s uncle ] was in command of the ] at Misenum, and had meanwhile decided to take several ships to investigate the phenomenon at close hand. The fleet also attempted a rescue mission for those at the foot of the volcano when, as the ship was preparing to leave the area, a messenger arrived from a friend of Pliny’s living on the coast near the foot of the volcano imploring him to rescue her. He set off across the bay but encountered thick showers of hot cinders, lumps of pumice and pieces of rock which, altering the shoreline and water depths, blocked his approach to the shore and prevented him from landing there. The prevailing southerly wind also stopped him landing there, but he continued south under it to ] (about 4.5 km from Pompeii) where he landed and took shelter with Pomponianus, a friend. Pomponianus had already loaded a ship with possessions and was preparing to leave, but the wind was against him. | |||
] | |||
Pliny and his party saw flames coming from several parts of the mountain (probably ]s and ]s, which would later destroy Pompeii and Herculaneum). After staying overnight, the party decided to evacuate in spite of the rain of ] because of the continuing violent conditions threatening to collapse the building. Pliny, Pomponianus and their companions made their way back towards the beach with pillows tied to their heads to protect them from rockfall. By this time, there was so much ash in the air that the party could barely see through the murk and needed torches and lanterns to find their way. They made it to the beach but found the waters too violently disturbed from the continuous earthquakes for them to escape safely by sea. | |||
The government emergency plan for an eruption therefore assumes that the worst case will be an eruption of similar size and type to the 1631 ] 4<ref>{{cite web | url= http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/VESUVIO_1631-1944.html | title= Activity of Vesuvio between 1631 and 1799 | work= Esplora i Vulcani Italiani | date= 1996–2009 | author= Giacomelli, L. | author2= Scandone, R. | publisher= Dipartimento di Fisica E. Amaldi, Università Roma Tre | access-date= 9 May 2010 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110119185809/http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/VESUVIO_1631-1944.html | archive-date= 19 January 2011 | url-status= dead }}</ref> eruption. In this scenario, the volcano's slopes, extending out to about {{convert|7|km}} from the vent, may be exposed to pyroclastic surges sweeping down them, whilst much of the surrounding area could suffer from tephra falls. Because of ], towns and cities south and east of the volcano are most at risk from this. It is assumed that tephra accumulation exceeding {{convert|100|kg/m²}}—at which point people are at risk from collapsing roofs—may extend out as far as ] to the east or ] to the south-east. Near Naples, this tephra fall hazard is assumed to extend barely past the volcano's slopes to the northwest.<ref name = "Italian Volcanoes"/> The specific areas affected by the ash cloud depend upon the circumstances surrounding the eruption. | |||
The plan assumes between two weeks and 20 days notice of an eruption and foresees the ] of 600,000 people, almost entirely comprising all those living in the '']'' ("red zone"), i.e. at greatest risk from pyroclastic flows.<ref name=mcguire2003/><ref name = "USA today 21-10-03"/> The evacuation, by train, ferry, car, and bus, is planned to take about seven days, and the evacuees would mostly be sent to other parts of the country, rather than to safe areas in the local ] region, and may have to stay away for several months. However, the dilemma that would face those implementing the plan is when to start this massive evacuation: If it starts too late, thousands could be killed, whereas if it is started too early, the indicators of an eruption may turn out to be a ]. In 1984, 40,000 people were evacuated from the ] area, another volcanic complex near Naples, but no eruption occurred.<ref name = "USA today 21-10-03"/> | |||
Pliny the Elder collapsed and died, and in the first letter to Tacitus his nephew suggested that this was due to the inhalation of poisonous, sulphuric gases. However, Stabiae was 16 km from the vent (roughly where the modern town of ] is situated) and his companions were apparently unaffected by the fumes, and so it is more likely that the corpulent<ref>{{cite web | url= http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture19/lec19.html | title = Greek, Carthaginian, and Roman Agricultural Writers | work = History of Horticulture | year = 2002 | author = Jules Janick, Purdue University |accessdate= 2006-12-08}}</ref> Pliny died from some other cause, such as a ] or ].<ref>{{cite web | url= http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/pliny.htm | title = Derivation of the name "Plinian" | work = The Volcano Information Center | accessdate= 2006-12-08 }}</ref> His body was found with no apparent injuries on ], after the plume had dispersed sufficiently for daylight to return. | |||
] | |||
==== Casualties from the eruption ==== | |||
Ongoing efforts are being made by the government at various levels (especially of ]) to reduce the population living in the red zone, by demolishing illegally constructed buildings, establishing a national park around the whole volcano to prevent the future construction of buildings<ref name="USA today 21-10-03">{{cite news | url= https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-10-20-vesuvius-usat_x.htm | title= Italians trying to prevent a modern Pompeii | first = Ellen | last = Hale | newspaper = ] | date = 21 October 2003 |access-date = 8 May 2010 | publisher = Gannett Co. Inc.}}</ref> and by offering sufficient financial incentives to people for moving away.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/international/story/0,3604,970446,00.html |title=Italy ready to pay to clear slopes of volcano|first=Sophie|last=Arie|date=5 June 2003|newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=12 May 2010}}</ref> One of the underlying goals is to reduce the time needed to evacuate the area, over the next twenty to thirty years, to two or three days.<ref>{{cite conference| url = http://www.ewc2.org/upload/downloads/Gasparini2003AbstractEWC2.pdf| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090927120148/http://www.ewc2.org/upload/downloads/Gasparini2003AbstractEWC2.pdf| archive-date = 27 September 2009| title = Early Warning of Volcanic eruptions and Earthquakes in the Neapolitan area, Campania Region, South Italy (Submitted Abstract)| first = Paolo| last = Gasparini| author2 = Barberi, Franco |author3= Belli, Attilio| date = 16–18 October 2003| conference = Second International Conference on Early Warning (EWCII)| conference-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081009131249/http://www.ewc2.org/pg000001.htm| location = Bonn, Germany| access-date = 8 May 2010| url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
The volcano is closely monitored by the ] in Ercolano with extensive networks of seismic and gravimetric stations, a combination of a ]-based geodetic array and ]-based ] to measure ground movement and by local ] and chemical analyses of gases emitted from ]s. All of this is intended to track magma rising underneath the volcano. | |||
Along with Pliny the Elder, the only other noble casualties of the eruption to be known by name were Agrippa (a son of the Jewish ] ] and the procurator ]) and his wife.<ref>Mentioned in Josephus, '']'', xx.7.2, and in a lost section of the work.</ref> | |||
The official INGV monitoring bulletin from the Vesuvius Observatory, as of July 2024, classifies Mount Vesuvius at a '''Green Alert Level'''. This indicates a state of low volcanic activity. The surveillance system has not detected any significant changes in Vesuvius' activity state. The low-energy earthquakes are attributable to gravitational ] activity of rocks inside the crater.<ref>{{cite web | url= https://www.ov.ingv.it/index.php/stato-attuale | title= Official INGV monitoring bulletin of Mount Vesuvius| location=Naples|publisher = Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | access-date =31 August 2024}}</ref> | |||
Estimates of the population of Pompeii range from 10,000<ref>{{cite web | url = http://enginova.com/engineering_of_pompeii.htm | title = Engineering of Pompeii | author = Doug Criner | accessdate=2006-12-08}}</ref> to 25,000,<ref name="Eyewitness to history">{{cite web | url= http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pompeii.htm | title = The Destruction of Pompeii, 79 AD | work = Eyewitness to History | accessdate = 2006-12-08 }}</ref> whilst Herculaneum is thought to have had a population of about 5,000<ref name="Volcano World">{{cite web | url = http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/img_vesuvius.html | title = Vesuvius, Italy | work = Volcano World | accessdate=2006-12-08}}</ref>. It is not known how many people the eruption killed, although around 1,150 remains of bodies — or casts made of their impressions in the ash deposits — have been recovered in and around Pompeii.<ref name="Episodes">{{ cite journal | journal = Episodes | volume = 26 | date = September 2003 | url= http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/lavori/episodes.pdf | title = The eruption of Vesuvius of 79 AD and its impact on human environment in Pompei | author = Lisetta Giacomelli, Annamaria Perrotta, Roberto Scandone, Claudio Scarpati | accessdate = 2006-12-08}}</ref> The remains of about 350 bodies have been found at Herculaneum (300 in arched vaults discovered in ]).<ref>{{ cite web | url = http://www.fieldmuseum.org/pompeii/herculaneum_2.asp | title = Pompeii, Stories from an eruption | work = The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago | accessdate = 2006-12-08}}</ref> However these figures must represent a great underestimation of the total number of deaths over the region affected by the eruption. | |||
==National park== | |||
Thirty-eight percent of the victims at Pompeii were found in the ash fall deposits, the majority inside buildings. These are thought to have been killed mainly by roof collapses, with the smaller number of victims found outside of buildings probably being killed by falling roof slates or by larger rocks thrown out by the volcano. This differs from modern experience, since over the last four hundred years only around 4% of victims have been killed by ash falls during explosive eruptions. The remaining 62% of remains found at Pompeii were in the pyroclastic surge deposits,<ref name="Episodes" /> and thus were probably killed by them — probably from a combination of suffocation through ash inhalation and blast and debris thrown around. In contrast to the victims found at Herculaneum, examination of cloth, frescoes and skeletons show that it is unlikely that high temperatures were a significant cause. | |||
] cable cars on Mount Vesuvius; the other cable car of the pair was named ''"Vesuvio"''; about 1900]] | |||
The area around Vesuvius was officially declared a ] on 5 June 1995.<ref>{{cite web|title=The National Park|url=http://www.vesuvioinrete.it/e_parco.htm|publisher=Vesuvioinrete.it|date=2001–2010|access-date=7 May 2010}}</ref> The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors, and there is a small network of paths around the volcano that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends. There is access by road to within {{convert|200|m}} of the summit (measured vertically), but after that, access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the volcano from the road to the crater. | |||
Herculaneum, which was much closer to the crater, was saved from tephra falls by the wind direction, but was buried under 23 m (75 ft) of material deposited by pyroclastic surges. It is likely that most, or all, of the victims in this town were killed by the surges, particularly given evidence of high temperatures found on the skeletons of the victims found in the arched vaults, and the existence of carbonised wood in many of the buildings. | |||
==Funicular== | |||
Pompeii and Herculaneum were never rebuilt, although surviving townspeople and probably looters did undertake extensive salvage work after the destructions. | |||
The eruption changed the course of the ] and raised the sea beach, so that Pompeii was now neither on the river nor adjacent to the coast. | |||
Mount Vesuvius' first ] – a type of vertical transport that uses two opposing, interconnected, rail-guided passenger cars always moving in concert – opened in 1880, subsequently destroyed by the March 1944 eruption. | |||
The towns' locations were eventually forgotten until their accidental rediscovery in the ]. Vesuvius itself underwent major changes — its slopes were denuded of vegetation and its summit had changed considerably due to the force of the eruption.<ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref> (i.e. Famous and recent eruptions)</ref><ref></ref> | |||
"]", a ] song, was written to commemorate the opening of the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What are the lyrics and translation of 'Funiculì, Funiculà'? |url=https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/funiculi-funicula-neapolitan-english-song-lyrics/ |access-date=2022-11-30 |website=Classic FM |language=en}}</ref> | |||
=== Date of the eruption === | |||
==See also== | |||
The eruption of AD 79 was documented by contemporary historians and is universally accepted as having started on August 24th. However the archeological excavations of Pompeii suggest that the town was buried a couple of months later.<ref>{{cite journal | title = La vera data dell'eruzione | author = Grete Stefani | journal = Archeo | date = October 2006 | issue = 260 | pages = 10-14}} (in Italian)</ref><ref>{{cite web | author = Gabi Laske | url=http://quakeinfo.ucsd.edu/~gabi/erth15/lecture08/pliny.html | title = The A.D. 79 Eruption at Mt. Vesuvius | work = Lecture notes for UCSD-ERTH15: "Natural Disasters" | accessdate= 2007-07-20}}</ref> For example, people buried in the ash appear to be wearing warmer clothing than the light summer clothes that would be expected in August. The fresh fruit and vegetables in the shops are typical of October, and conversely the summer fruit that would have been typical of August was already being sold in dried, or conserved form. Wine fermenting jars had been sealed over, and this would have happened around the end of October. The coins found in the purse of a woman buried in the Ash include a commemorative coin that should have been minted at the end of September. So far there is no definitive theory as to why there should be such an apparent discrepancy. | |||
{{portal|Volcanoes|Italy|Europe}} | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
==Notes== | |||
=== Later eruptions === | |||
{{Notelist}} | |||
==References== | |||
] (ca. 1774-6)]] | |||
{{Reflist}} | |||
===Bibliography=== | |||
Since the eruption of ], Vesuvius has erupted around three dozen times. It erupted again in ], during the lifetime of the historian ]. In ], it ejected such a volume of ash that ashfalls were reported as far away as ]. The eruptions of ] were so severe that those inhabiting the slopes of Vesuvius were granted exemption from taxes by ], the ] king of Italy. Further eruptions were recorded in ], ], ], ], ] and ] with the first recorded ] flows. The volcano became quiescent at the end of the ] and in the following years it again became covered with gardens and vineyards as of old. Even the inside of the crater was filled with shrubbery. | |||
{{refbegin}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Guest |first1=John |last2=Cole |first2=Paul |last3=Duncan |first3=Angus |last4=Chester |first4=David |title=Volcanoes of Southern Italy |publisher=The Geological Society |location=London |year=2003 |section=Chapter 2: Vesuvius |pages=25–62}} | |||
* {{cite book |title=The natural history of Pompeii |editor-first=Wilhelmina Mary Feemster |editor-last=Jashemski |editor2-first=Frederick Gustav |editor2-last=Meyer |contribution=Mount Vesuvius before the Disaster |first=Haraldur |last=Sigurdsson |location=Cambridge UK |publisher=The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge |year=2002 |pages=29–36}} | |||
* {{cite book |title=The natural history of Pompeii |editor-first=Wilhelmina Mary Feemster |editor-last=Jashemski |editor2-first=Frederick Gustav |editor2-last=Meyer |contribution=The Eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 |first1=Haraldur |last1=Sigurdsson |first2=Steven |last2=Carey |location=Cambridge UK |publisher=The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge |year=2002 |pages=37–64}} | |||
* {{cite book |title=Herculaneum, past, present & future |url=https://archive.org/details/ldpd_6769875_000 |first1=Charles |last1=Waldstein |first2=Leonard Knollys Haywood |last2=Shoobridge |location=London |publisher=Macmillan and Co |year=1908}} | |||
* {{cite journal |first1=E. |last1=Zanella |first2=L. |last2=Gurioli |first3=M.T. |last3=Pareschi |first4=R. |last4=Lanza |title=Influences of urban fabric on pyroclastic density currents at Pompeii (Italy): Part II: temperature of the deposits and hazard implications |journal=Journal of Geophysical Research |year=2007 |volume=112 |issue=B5 |pages=B05214 |doi=10.1029/2006jb004775 |bibcode=2007JGRB..112.5214Z |url=https://www.earth-prints.org/bitstream/2122/2370/1/1245.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011191602/https://www.earth-prints.org/bitstream/2122/2370/1/1245.pdf |archive-date=2007-10-11 |url-status=live}} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
==External links== | |||
Vesuvius entered a new and particularly destructive phase in December ], when a major eruption buried many villages under lava flows, killing around 3,000 people. Torrents of boiling water were also ejected, adding to the devastation. Activity thereafter became almost continuous, with relatively severe eruptions occurring in ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. The eruption of 1906 was particularly destructive, killing over 100 people and ejecting the most lava ever recorded from a Vesuvian eruption. Its last major eruption ] came in March ], destroying the villages of ], ], ], and part of ], as well as all 88 planes in a ] ] group <ref>, Federal Aviation Authority</ref>, as ] continued to rage in Italy. | |||
{{sister project links|Vesuvio|auto=yes}} | |||
* {{cite web |last1=Purcell |first1=N. |last2=Talbert |first2=R. |last3=Gillies |first3=S. |last4=Elliott |first4=T. |last5=Becker |first5=J. |title=Places: 433189 (Vesuvius M.) |url=https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/433189/Vesuvius-M |publisher=Pleiades |date=20 March 2015 |access-date=8 March 2012}} | |||
* {{cite news |last=Fraser |first=Christian |title=Vesuvius escape plan 'insufficient' |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6247573.stm |publisher=BBC News |location=Naples |date=10 January 2007 |access-date=11 May 2010}} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Garrett |first1=Roger A. |last2=Klenk |first2=Hans-Peter |title=Vesuvius' next eruption |url=https://www.geotimes.org/apr05/NN_Vesuvius.html |url-status=dead |journal=Geotimes |date=April 2005 |access-date=8 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070512192957/https://www.geotimes.org/apr05/NN_Vesuvius.html |archive-date=12 May 2007}} | |||
* {{cite web |title=Vesuvius: The making of a catastrophe: Il problema ignorato |url=https://www.westnet.com/~dobran/index.html |publisher=Global Volcanic and Environmental Systems Simulation (GVES) |date=1996–2003}} | |||
{{Volcanoes of Italy}} | |||
The volcano has been quiescent ever since. Over the past few centuries, the quiet stages have varied from 18 months to 7½ years, making the current lull in activity the longest in nearly 500 years. While Vesuvius is not thought likely to erupt in the immediate future, the danger posed by future eruptions is seen as very high in the light of the volcano's tendency towards sudden extremely violent explosions and the very dense human population on and around the mountain. | |||
{{Decade Volcanoes}} | |||
{{Archaeological site of Pompeii}} | |||
{{Authority control}} | |||
=== The future === | |||
] | |||
Large plinian eruptions which emit ] in quantities of about 1 km³ or more, the most recent of which overwhelmed Pompeii, have happened after periods of inactivity of a few thousand years. ] eruptions producing about 0.1 km³, such as those of 472 and 1631, have been more frequent with a few hundred years between them. Following the 1631 eruption until 1944 every few years saw a comparatively small eruption which emitted 0.001-0.01 km³ of magma. It seems that for Vesuvius the amount of magma expelled in an eruption increases very roughly linearly with the interval since the previous one, and at a rate of around 0.001 km³ for each year. This gives an extremely approximate figure of 0.06 km³ for an eruption after 60 years of inactivity.<ref name="Italian Volcanoes">{{cite book | title=Italian Volcanoes| publisher=Terra Publishing| year=2001 | author=Kilburn, Chris & McGuire, Bill| id=ISBN 1-903544-04-1}}</ref> | |||
Magma sitting in an underground ] for many years will start to see higher melting point constituents such as ] crystallising out. The effect is to increase the concentration of dissolved gases (mostly ] and ]) in the remaining liquid magma, making the subsequent eruption more violent.<ref name="Volcanoes in Human History">{{cite book | title=Volcanoes in Human History | publisher=Princeton University Press | year=2002 | author=de Boer, Jelle Zeilinga & Sanders, Donald Theodore| id=ISBN 0-691-05081-3}}</ref> As gas-rich magma approaches the surface during an ], the huge drop in ] caused by the reduction in weight of the overlying rock (which drops to zero at the surface) causes the gases to come out of solution, the volume of gas increasing explosively from nothing to perhaps many times that of the accompanying magma. Additionally, the removal of the lower melting point material will raise the concentration of ] components such as ]s potentially making the magma more ], adding to the explosive nature of the eruption. | |||
The emergency plan for an eruption therefore assumes that the worst case will be an eruption of similar size and type to the 1631 ] 4<ref>{{cite web | url= http://vulcan.fis.uniroma3.it/vesuvio/VESUVIO_1631-1944.html | title = Activity of Vesuvio between 1631 and 1799 | work = Explore Italian Volcanoes | accessdate= 2006-12-09}}</ref> one. In this scenario the slopes of the mountain, extending out to about 7 kilometres (4.3 miles) from the vent, may be exposed to pyroclastic flows sweeping down them, whilst much of the surrounding area could suffer from ] falls. Because of ], towns to the south and east of the volcano are most at risk from this, and it is assumed that tephra accumulation exceeding 100 kg/m² – at which point people are at risk from collapsing roofs — may extend out as far as ] to the east or ] to the south east. Towards Naples, to the north west, this tephra fall hazard is assumed to extend barely past the slopes of the volcano.<ref name="Italian Volcanoes">{{cite book | title=Italian Volcanoes| publisher=Terra Publishing| year=2001 | author=Kilburn, Chris & McGuire, Bill| id=ISBN 1-903544-04-1}}</ref> The specific areas actually affected by the ash cloud will depend upon | |||
the particular circumstances surrounding the eruption. <ref>{{cite web | url= http://www.virtualtorre.com/servizi/vesuvio/piano/b1.htm | title = Emergency plan (Italian) | accessdate= 2006-12-09 }}</ref> | |||
] | |||
The plan assumes between two weeks and 20 days <ref>, UK Guardian newspaper, 16 October 2003 </ref><ref name="USA today 21-10-03">{{ cite web | url= http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-10-20-vesuvius-usat_x.htm | title= Italians trying to prevent a modern Pompeii | work = USA Today | date = 21 October 2003 |accessdate =2006-12-08}}</ref> notice of an eruption and foresees the ] of 600,000 people, almost entirely comprising all those living in the ''zona rossa'' ("red zone"), i.e. at greatest risk from pyroclastic flows. The evacuation, by | |||
]s, ], ]s, and ]es is planned to take about seven days, and the evacuees will mostly be sent to other parts of the country rather than to safe areas in the local ] region, and may have to stay away for several months. However the dilemma that would face those implementing the plan is when to start this massive evacuation, since if it is left too late then many people could be killed, whilst if it is started too early then the precursors of the eruption may turn out to have been a ]. In ], 40,000 people were evacuated from the ] area, another volcanic complex near Naples, but no eruption occurred. <ref name="USA today 21-10-03">{{ cite web | url= http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-10-20-vesuvius-usat_x.htm | title= Italians trying to prevent a modern Pompeii | work = USA Today | date = 21 October 2003 |accessdate =2006-12-08}}</ref> | |||
Ongoing efforts are being made to reduce the population living in the red zone, by demolishing illegally constructed buildings, establishing a national park around the upper flanks of the volcano to prevent the erection of further ]s<ref name="USA today 21-10-03">{{ cite web | url= http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-10-20-vesuvius-usat_x.htm | title= Italians trying to prevent a modern Pompeii | work = USA Today | date = 21 October 2003 |accessdate =2006-12-08}}</ref> and by offering financial incentives to people for moving away. The underlying goal is to reduce the time needed to evacuate the area, over the next 20 or 30 years, to two or three days.<ref>{{cite conference |coauthors = Paolo Gasparini, Franco Barberi, Attilio Belli | title = Early Warning of Volcanic eruptions and Earthquakes in the neapolitan area, Campania Region, South Italy | booktitle = Second International Conference on Early Warning, Bonn, Germany, 16-18 October 2003 | url = http://www.ewc2.org/upload/downloads/Gasparini2003AbstractEWC2.pdf | format = pdf | accessdate = 2007-01-26}}</ref> | |||
The volcano is closely monitored by the ] in Naples with extensive networks of seismic and gravimetric stations, a combination of a ]-based geodic array and ]-based ]<ref>{{cite web | url= http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/vw_news/vesuvius.html | title= ESA press release on satellite monitoring of Vesuvius | accessdate= 2007-01-26 }}</ref> to measure ground movement, and by local ]s and chemical analyses of ]es emitted from ]s. All of this is intended to track magma rising underneath the volcano. So far, no magma has been detected within 10 km of the surface, and so the volcano was, in 2001, at worst only in the very early stages of preparing for an eruption.<ref name="Italian Volcanoes">{{cite book | title=Italian Volcanoes| publisher=Terra Publishing| year=2001 | author=Kilburn, Chris & McGuire, Bill| id=ISBN 1-903544-04-1}}</ref> This status has apparently not changed much to date. | |||
<ref>{{ cite web | url= http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/vesuvio.htm | title= Monitoring of Mount Vesuvius | work = Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | accessdate =2006-12-08}}</ref><ref> | |||
{{ cite web | url= http://www.ov.ingv.it/inglese/vesuvio/livelli.htm | title= Present level of alert on Vesuvius | work = Osservatorio Vesuviano, Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology | accessdate =2006-12-08}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
== Vesuvius today == | |||
The area around Vesuvius was officially declared a ] on 5 June 1995<ref></ref>. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors and there is a small network of paths around the mountain that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends. | |||
There is access by road to within 200 metres of the summit (measured vertically), but thereafter access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the mountain from the road to the crater. | |||
{{-}} | |||
== References == | |||
{{reflist|2}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 15:07, 13 December 2024
Active stratovolcano in the Gulf of Naples, Italy "Vesuvius" redirects here. For other uses, see Vesuvius (disambiguation).
Mount Vesuvius | |
---|---|
Mount Vesuvius | |
Highest point | |
Elevation | 1,281 m (4,203 ft) |
Prominence | 1,232 m (4,042 ft) |
Coordinates | 40°49′17″N 14°25′34″E / 40.82139°N 14.42611°E / 40.82139; 14.42611 |
Naming | |
Native name |
|
Geography | |
Mount VesuviusCampania, Italy | |
Location in Vesuvius National Park | |
Location | Campania, Italy |
Geology | |
Rock age | 25,000 years before present to 1944; age of volcano = c. 17,000 years to present |
Mountain type | Somma–stratovolcano |
Volcanic arc | Campanian volcanic arc |
Last eruption | 17–23 March 1944 |
Climbing | |
Easiest route | Walk |
Mount Vesuvius (/vɪˈsuːviəs/ viss-OO-vee-əs) is a somma–stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about 9 km (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera, resulting from the collapse of an earlier, much higher structure.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis, Stabiae and other settlements. The eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ash and volcanic gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), erupting molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 6×10 cubic metres (7.8×10 cu yd) per second. More than 1,000 people are thought to have died in the eruption, though the exact toll is unknown. The only surviving witness account consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus.
Vesuvius has erupted many times since. It is the only volcano on Europe's mainland to have erupted in the last hundred years. It is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because 3,000,000 people live near enough to be affected by an eruption, with at least 600,000 in the danger zone. This is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. Eruptions tend to be violent and explosive; these are known as Plinian eruptions.
Mythology
Vesuvius has a long historic and literary tradition. It was considered a divinity of the Genius type at the time of the eruption of AD 79: it appears under the inscribed name Vesuvius as a serpent in the decorative frescos of many lararia, or household shrines, surviving from Pompeii. An inscription from Capua to IOVI VESVVIO indicates that he was worshipped as a power of Jupiter; that is, Jupiter Vesuvius.
The Romans regarded Mount Vesuvius as being devoted to Hercules. The historian Diodorus Siculus relates a tradition that Hercules, in the performance of his labors, passed through the country of nearby Cumae on his way to Sicily and found there a place called "the Phlegraean Plain" (Φλεγραῖον πεδίον, "fiery"), "from the mountain which of old spouted forth a huge fire the mountain is called Vesuvius." It was inhabited by giant bandits, "the sons of the Earth. With the gods' assistance, he pacified the region and continued. The facts behind the tradition, if any, remain unknown, as does whether Herculaneum was named after it. An epigram by the poet Martial in 88 AD suggests that both Venus, patroness of Pompeii, and Hercules were worshipped in the region devastated by the eruption of 79.
City of Naples with Mount Vesuvius viewed from the Castel Sant'ElmoEtymology
Vesuvius was a name of the volcano in frequent use by the authors of the late Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. Its collateral forms were Vesaevus, Vesevus, Vesbius and Vesvius. Writers in ancient Greek used Οὐεσούιον or Οὐεσούιος. Many scholars since then have offered an etymology. Given that peoples of varying ethnicity and language occupied Campania during the Roman Iron Age, the etymology depends to a large degree on the presumption of what language was spoken there at the time. Naples was settled by Greeks, as the name Nea-polis, "New City", testifies. The Oscans, an Italic people, lived in the countryside. The Latins also competed for the occupation of Campania. Etruscan settlements were in the vicinity. Other peoples of unknown provenance are said to have been there at some time by various ancient authors.
Some theories about its origin are:
- From Greek οὔ = "not" prefixed to a root from or related to the Greek word σβέννυμι = "I quench", in the sense of "unquenchable".
- From Greek ἕω = "I hurl" and βίη "violence", "hurling violence", *vesbia, taking advantage of the collateral form.
- From an Indo-European root, *eus- < *ewes- < *h₁ews-, "shine", "burn", sense "the one who lightens", through Latin or Oscan.
- From an Indo-European root *wes = "hearth" (compare e.g. Vesta)
Topography
Vesuvius is a "humpbacked" peak, consisting of a large cone (Gran Cono) partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier (and originally much higher) structure called Mount Somma. The Gran Cono was produced during the A.D. 79 eruption. For this reason, the volcano is also called Somma-Vesuvius or Somma-Vesuvio.
The caldera started forming during an eruption around 17,000–18,000 years ago and was enlarged by later paroxysmal eruptions, ending in the one of AD 79. This structure has given its name to the term "somma volcano", which describes any volcano with a summit caldera surrounding a newer cone.
The cliffs forming the northern ridge of Monte Somma's caldera rim reach a maximum height of 1,132 m (3,714 ft) at Punta Nasone. The summit of the main cone of Vesuvius is 1,281 m (4,203 ft) above sea level and more than 400 m (1,300 ft) above the 5 km (3.1 mi) long valley of Atrio di Cavallo (the northern floor of Monte Somma's caldera).
The volcano's slopes are scarred by lava flows, while the rest are heavily vegetated, with scrub and forests at higher altitudes and vineyards lower down.
Formation
Vesuvius is a stratovolcano and was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted at a convergent boundary beneath the latter, deeper into the earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the African oceanic plate were pushed to hotter depths inside the planet, the water boiled off and lowered the melting point of the upper mantle enough to partially melt the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak spot at the Earth's surface, it broke through, thus forming the volcano.
The volcano is one of several forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Others include Campi Flegrei, a large caldera a few kilometers to the north-west, Ischia, a volcanic island 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the west, and several undersea volcanoes to the south. The arc forms the southern end of a larger chain of volcanoes produced by the subduction process described above, which extends northwest along the length of Italy as far as Monte Amiata in Southern Tuscany. Vesuvius is the only one to have erupted in recent history, although some of the others have erupted within the last few hundred years. Many are either extinct or have not erupted for tens of thousands of years.
Eruptions
Mount Vesuvius has erupted many times. Numerous others preceded the eruption in AD 79 in prehistory, including at least three significantly larger; an example is the Avellino eruption around 1800 BC, which engulfed several Bronze Age settlements. Since AD 79, the volcano has also erupted repeatedly, in 172, 203, 222, possibly in 303, 379, 472, 512, 536, 685, 787, around 860, around 900, 968, 991, 999, 1006, 1037, 1049, around 1073, 1139, 1150, and there may have been eruptions in 1270, 1347, and 1500. The volcano erupted again in 1631, six times in the 18th century (including 1779 and 1794), eight times in the 19th century (notably in 1872), and in 1906, 1929 and 1944. There have been no eruptions since 1944, and none of the eruptions after AD 79 were as large or destructive as the Pompeian one.
The eruptions vary greatly in severity but are characterized by explosive outbursts of the kind dubbed Plinian after Pliny the Younger, a Roman writer who published a detailed description of the AD 79 eruption, including his uncle's death. On occasion, eruptions from Vesuvius have been so large that the whole of southern Europe has been blanketed by ash; in 472 and 1631, Vesuvian ash fell on Constantinople (Istanbul), over 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) away. A few times since 1944, landslides in the crater have raised clouds of ash dust, raising false alarms of an eruption.
Since 1750, seven of the eruptions of Vesuvius have had durations of more than five years; only Mount Etna has had as many long-duration eruptions in the last 270 years. The two most recent eruptions of Vesuvius (1875–1906 and 1913–1944) each lasted more than 30 years.
Vesuvius is still regarded as an active volcano, although its current activity produces little more than sulfur-rich steam from vents at the bottom and walls of the crater.
Layers of lava, ash, scoria and pumice make up the volcanic peak. Their mineralogy is variable, but generally silica-undersaturated and rich in potassium, with phonolite produced in the more explosive eruptions (e.g. the eruption in 1631 displaying a complete stratigraphic and petrographic description: phonolite was firstly erupted, followed by a tephritic phonolite and finally a phonolitic tephrite).
Volcanic explosivity index
According to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, Vesuvius has had 54 confirmed eruptions during the Holocene Epoch (the last 11,700 years). A volcanic explosivity index (VEI) has been assigned to all but one of these eruptions.
VEI | Number of Holocene eruptions for which a VEI has been assigned (total=53) |
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VEI-0 | 2 |
VEI-1 | 2 |
VEI-2 | 7 |
VEI-3 | 29 |
VEI-4 | 8 |
VEI-5 | 5 |
Before AD 79
Scientific knowledge of the geologic history of Vesuvius comes from core samples taken from a 2,000 m (6,600 ft) plus borehole on the flanks of the volcano, extending into Mesozoic rock. Cores were dated by potassium–argon and argon–argon dating. The area has been subject to volcanic activity for at least 400,000 years; the lowest layer of eruption material from the Somma caldera lies on top of the 40,000-year‑old Campanian ignimbrite produced by the Campi Flegrei complex. The volcanic complex stands on a large, sedimentary plain.
- 25,000 years ago: Vesuvius started forming in the Codola Plinian eruption.
- Vesuvius was then built up by a series of lava flows, with some smaller explosive eruptions interspersed between them. By this time, the volcano was 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) tall, with the summit being 500 meters (1,640 feet) east of the current summit.
- About 19,000 years ago: the style of eruption changed to a sequence of large explosive and caldera-forming Plinian eruptions, of which the AD 79 one was the most recent. The calderas are aligned in a roughly east–west direction, and all contributed to forming present-day's Somma caldera. The eruptions are named after the tephra deposits produced by them, which in turn are named after the place where the deposits were first identified:
- 18,300 years ago: the Basal Pumice (Pomici di Base) eruption, VEI 6, the original formation of the Somma caldera. The caldera's formation was asymmetric towards the west. The eruption was followed by a period of much less violent, lava-producing eruptions.
- 16,000 years ago: the Green Pumice (Pomici Verdoline) eruption, VEI 5.
- Around 11,000 years ago: the Lagno Amendolare eruption, smaller than the Mercato eruption.
- 8,000 years ago: the Mercato eruption (Pomici di Mercato) – also known as Pomici Gemelle or Pomici Ottaviano, VEI 6.
- Around 5,000 years ago: two explosive eruptions smaller than the Avellino eruption.
- 3,800 years ago (19th century BC): the Avellino eruption (Pomici di Avellino), VEI 6; its vent was apparently 2 km (1.2 mi) west of the current crater and the eruption destroyed several Bronze Age settlements of the Apennine culture, including ancient Afragola. Several carbon dates on wood and bones offer a range of possible dates of about 500 years in the mid-2nd millennium BC. In May 2001, near Nola, Italian archaeologists using the technique of filling every cavity with plaster or substitute compound, recovered some remarkably well-preserved forms of perishable objects, such as fence rails, a bucket and especially in the vicinity, thousands of human footprints pointing into the Apennines to the north. The settlement had huts, pots and goats. The residents had hastily abandoned the village, leaving it to be buried under pumice and ash in much the same way that Pompeii and Herculaneum were later preserved. Pyroclastic surge deposits were distributed to the northwest of the vent, travelling as far as 15 km (9.3 mi) from it, and lie up to 3 m (9.8 ft) deep in the area now occupied by Naples.
- The volcano then entered a stage of more frequent, but less violent eruptions, until the most recent Plinian eruption, which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Evidence of these eruptions comes from badly preserved ashfall deposits that have been dubitatively assigned to either the Somma-Vesuvius complex, or the Phlegrean fields.
- The last of these may have been in 217 BC. There were earthquakes in Italy during that year and the sun was reported as being dimmed by gray haze or dry fog. Plutarch wrote of the sky being on fire near Naples, and Silius Italicus mentioned in his epic poem Punica that Vesuvius had thundered and produced flames worthy of Mount Etna in that year. However, both authors were writing around 250 years later. Greenland ice core samples of around that period show relatively high acidity, which is assumed to have been caused by atmospheric hydrogen sulfide.
- The volcano was then quiet (for 295 years, if the 217 BC date for the last previous eruption is true) and was described by Roman writers as having been covered with gardens and vineyards, except at the top, which was craggy. The volcano may have had only one summit at that time, judging by a wall painting, "Bacchus and Vesuvius", found in a Pompeian house, the House of the Centenary (Casa del Centenario).
Several surviving works written over the 200 years preceding the AD 79 eruption describe the mountain as having had a volcanic nature, although Pliny the Elder did not depict the mountain in this way in his Natural History:
- The Greek historian Strabo (c. 63 BC – c. 24 AD) described the mountain in Book V, Chapter 4 of his Geographica as having a predominantly flat, barren summit covered with sooty, ash-coloured rocks, and suggested that it might once have had "craters of fire". He also perceptively suggested that the fertility of the surrounding slopes may be due to volcanic activity, as at Mount Etna.
- In Book II of De architectura, the architect Vitruvius (c. 80–70 BC –?) reported that fires had once existed abundantly below the peak and that it had spouted fire onto the surrounding fields. He described Pompeiian pumice as having been burnt from another species of stone.
This bullet point may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the bullet point. There might be a discussion about this on the talk page. (September 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) - Diodorus Siculus (c. 90 BC – c. 30 BC), another Greek writer, wrote in Book IV of his Bibliotheca Historica that the Campanian plain was called fiery (Phlegrean) because of the peak, Vesuvius, which had spouted flames like Etna and showed signs of the fire that had burnt in ancient history.
Eruption of AD 79
Main article: Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 ADIn AD 79, Vesuvius erupted in one of the most catastrophic eruptions of all time. Historians have learned about the eruption from the eyewitness account of Pliny the Younger, a Roman administrator and poet. Several dates are given in the surviving copies of the letters. The latest evidence supports earlier findings and indicates that the eruption occurred after 17 October.
The volcano ejected a cloud of stones, ashes and volcanic gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), spewing molten rock and pulverized pumice at the rate of 6×10 cubic metres (7.8×10 cu yd) per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings. The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed by pyroclastic surges and the ruins buried under tens of metres of tephra.
Precursors and foreshocks
The AD 79 eruption was preceded by a powerful earthquake in 62, which caused widespread destruction around the Bay of Naples, and particularly to Pompeii. Some of the damage had still not been repaired when the volcano erupted. The deaths of 600 sheep from "tainted air" in the vicinity of Pompeii indicates that the earthquake of AD 62 may have been related to new activity by Vesuvius.
The Romans grew accustomed to minor earth tremors in the region; the writer Pliny the Younger even wrote that they "were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania". Small earthquakes started taking place four days before the eruption becoming more frequent over the next four days, but the warnings were not recognized.
Scientific analysis
Reconstructions of the eruption and its effects vary considerably in the details but have the same overall features. The eruption lasted two days. The morning of the first day was perceived as normal by the only eyewitness to leave a surviving document, Pliny the Younger. In the middle of the day, an explosion threw up a high-altitude column from which ash and pumice began to fall, blanketing the area. Rescues and escapes occurred during this time. At some time in the night or early the next day, pyroclastic surges in the close vicinity of the volcano began. Lights were seen on the peak, interpreted as fires. People as far away as Misenum fled for their lives. The flows were rapid-moving, dense and very hot, knocking down, wholly or partly, all structures in their path, incinerating or suffocating all population remaining there and altering the landscape, including the coastline. Additional light tremors accompanied these and a mild tsunami in the Bay of Naples. By late afternoon of the second day, the eruption was over, leaving only haze in the atmosphere through which the sun shone weakly.
The latest scientific studies of the ash produced by Vesuvius reveal a multi-phase eruption. The initial major explosion produced a column of ash and pumice ranging between 15 and 30 kilometres (49,000 and 98,000 ft) high, which rained on Pompeii to the southeast but not on Herculaneum upwind. The chief energy supporting the column came from the escape of steam superheated by the magma, created from seawater seeping over time into the deep faults of the region, which interacted with magma.
Subsequently, the cloud collapsed as the gases expanded and lost their capability to support their solid contents, releasing it as a pyroclastic surge, which first reached Herculaneum but not Pompeii. Additional blasts reinstituted the column. The eruption alternated between Plinian and Peléan six times. Surges 3 and 4 are believed by the authors to have buried Pompeii. Surges are identified in the deposits by dune and cross-bedding formations, which are not produced by fallout.
Another study used the magnetic characteristics of over 200 samples of roof-tile and plaster fragments collected around Pompeii to estimate the equilibrium temperature of the pyroclastic flow. The magnetic study revealed that on the first day of the eruption a fall of white pumice containing clastic fragments of up to 3 centimetres (1.2 in) fell for several hours. It heated the roof tiles up to 140 °C (284 °F). This period would have been the last opportunity to escape.
The collapse of the Plinian columns on the second day caused pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) that devastated Herculaneum and Pompeii. The depositional temperature of these pyroclastic surges reached up to 300 °C (572 °F). Any population remaining in structural refuges could not have escaped, as gases of incinerating temperatures surrounded the city. The lowest temperatures were in rooms under collapsed roofs, at approximately 100 °C (212 °F).
The two Plinys
The only surviving eyewitness account of the event consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus. Pliny the Younger describes, amongst other things, the last days in the life of his uncle, Pliny the Elder. Observing the first volcanic activity from Misenum across the Bay of Naples from the volcano, approximately 35 kilometres (22 mi), the elder Pliny launched a rescue fleet and went himself to the rescue of a personal friend. His nephew declined to join the party. One of the nephew's letters relates what he could discover from witnesses of his uncle's experiences. In a second letter, the younger Pliny details his own observations after the departure of his uncle.
The two men saw an extraordinarily dense cloud rising rapidly above the peak. This cloud and a request by a messenger for an evacuation by sea prompted the elder Pliny to order rescue operations in which he sailed away to participate. His nephew attempted to resume a normal life, but that night a tremor awoke him and his mother, prompting them to abandon the house for the courtyard. Further tremors near dawn caused the population to abandon the village and caused disastrous wave action in the Bay of Naples.
A massive black cloud with lightning obscured the early-morning light, a scene Pliny describes as sheet lightning. The cloud obscured Point Misenum near at hand and the island of Capraia (Capri) across the bay. Fearing for their lives, the population began to flee the shore along the road. An ash rain fell, causing Pliny to shake it off periodically to avoid being buried. Later that same day, the pumice and ash stopped falling, and the sun shone weakly through the cloud, encouraging Pliny and his mother to return to their home and wait for news of Pliny the Elder.
Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum and had meanwhile decided to investigate the phenomenon at close hand in a light vessel. As the ship was preparing to leave the area, a messenger came from his friend Rectina (wife of Tascius) living on the coast near the foot of the volcano, explaining that her party could only get away by sea and asking for rescue. Pliny ordered the immediate launching of the fleet galleys to the evacuation of the coast. He continued in his light ship to the rescue of Rectina's party.
He set off across the bay but, in the shallows on the other side, encountered thick showers of hot cinders, lumps of pumice and pieces of rock. Advised by the helmsman to turn back, he stated, "Fortune favors the brave" and ordered him to continue to Stabiae (about 4.5 km from Pompeii).
Pliny the Elder and his party saw what they believed to be flames coming from several parts of the crater. After staying overnight, the party was driven from the building by an accumulation of material, presumably tephra, which threatened to block all egress. They woke Pliny, who had been napping and emitting loud snoring. They elected to take to the fields with pillows tied to their heads to protect them from the raining debris. They approached the beach again, but the wind prevented the ships from leaving. Pliny sat down on a sail that had been spread for him and could not rise, even with assistance, when his friends departed. Though Pliny the Elder died, his friends ultimately escaped by land.
In the first letter to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger suggested that his uncle's death was due to the reaction of his weak lungs to a cloud of poisonous, sulphurous gas that wafted over the group. However, Stabiae was 16 km from the vent (roughly where the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia is situated), and his companions were unaffected by the volcanic gases. It is more likely that the corpulent Pliny died from another cause, such as a stroke or heart attack. His body was found with no apparent injuries the next day, after dispersal of the plume.
Casualties
Along with Pliny the Elder, the only other noble casualties of the eruption to be known by name were Agrippa (a son of the Herodian Jewish princess Drusilla and the procurator Antonius Felix) and his wife.
By 2003, around 1,044 casts made from impressions of bodies in the ash deposits had been recovered in and around Pompeii, with the scattered bones of another 100. The remains of about 332 bodies have been found at Herculaneum (300 in arched vaults discovered in 1980). What percentage these numbers are of the total dead or the percentage of the dead to the total number at risk remain unknown.
Thirty-eight percent of the 1,044 were found in the ash fall deposits, the majority inside buildings. These are thought to have been killed mainly by roof collapses, with the smaller number of victims found outside of buildings probably being killed by falling roof slates or by larger rocks thrown out by the volcano. The remaining 62% of remains found at Pompeii were in the pyroclastic surge deposits, and thus were probably killed by them – probably from a combination of suffocation from inhaling ashes and blast and debris thrown around. Examination of cloth, frescoes and skeletons shows that, in contrast to the victims found at Herculaneum, it is unlikely that high temperatures were a significant cause of the destruction at Pompeii. Herculaneum, much closer to the crater, was saved from tephra falls by the wind direction but was buried under 23 metres (75 ft) of material deposited by pyroclastic surges. Likely, most of the known victims in this town were killed by the surges.
People in Herculaneum, caught on the former seashore by the first surge, died of thermal shock. The rest were concentrated in arched chambers at a density of as high as three persons per square metre. As only 85 metres (279 ft) of the coast have been excavated, further casualties may be discovered.
Later eruptions from the 3rd to the 19th centuries
See also: 1631 eruption of Mount VesuviusSince the eruption of AD 79, Vesuvius has erupted around three dozen times.
- It erupted again in 203, during the lifetime of the historian Cassius Dio.
- In 472, it ejected such a volume of ash that ashfalls were reported as far away as Constantinople (760 mi.; 1,220 km).
- The eruptions of 512 were so severe that those inhabiting the slopes of Vesuvius were granted exemption from taxes by Theodoric the Great, the Gothic king of Italy.
- Further eruptions were recorded in 787, 968, 991, 999, 1007 and 1036 with the first recorded lava flows.
The volcano became quiescent at the end of the 13th century, and in the following years, it again became covered with gardens and vineyards as old. Even the inside of the crater was moderately filled with shrubbery.
- Vesuvius entered a new phase in December 1631, when a major eruption buried many villages under lava flows, killing around 3,000 people. Torrents of lahar were also created, adding to the devastation. Activity thereafter became almost continuous, with relatively severe eruptions occurring in 1660, 1682, 1694, 1698, 1707, 1737, 1760, 1767, 1779, 1794, 1822, 1834, 1839, 1850, 1855, 1861, 1868, 1872, 1906, 1926, 1929, and 1944.
Eruptions in the 20th century
- The eruption of 5 April 1906 killed more than 100 people and ejected the most lava ever recorded from a Vesuvian eruption. Italian authorities were preparing to hold the 1908 Summer Olympics when Mount Vesuvius violently erupted, devastating the city of Naples and surrounding comunes. Funds were diverted to reconstructing Naples, and the Games were transferred to London.
- Vesuvius was active from 1913 through 1944, with lava filling the crater and occasional outflows of small amounts of lava.
- That eruptive period ended in the major eruption of March 1944, which destroyed the villages of San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Massa di Somma, and Ottaviano, and part of San Giorgio a Cremano. From 13 to 18 March 1944, activity was confined within the rim. Finally, on 18 March 1944, lava overflowed the rim. Lava flows destroyed nearby villages from 19 March through 22 March. On 24 March, an explosive eruption created an ash plume and a small pyroclastic flow.
In March 1944, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) 340th Bombardment Group was based at Pompeii Airfield near Terzigno, Italy, just a few kilometres from the eastern base of the volcano. The tephra and hot ash from multiple days of the eruption damaged the fabric control surfaces, the engines, the Plexiglas windscreens and the gun turrets of the 340th's B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. Estimates ranged from 78 to 88 aircraft destroyed.
The eruption could be seen from Naples. Different perspectives and the damage caused to the local villages were recorded by USAAF photographers and other personnel based nearer to the volcano.
Future
Large Vesuvian eruptions which emit volcanic material in quantities of about 1 cubic kilometre (0.24 cu mi), the most recent of which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum, have happened after periods of inactivity of a few thousand years. Sub-Plinian eruptions producing about 0.1 cubic kilometres (0.024 cu mi), such as those of 472 and 1631, have been more frequent with a few hundred years between them. From the 1631 eruption until 1944, there was a comparatively small eruption every few years, emitting 0.001–0.01 km of magma. For Vesuvius, the amount of magma expelled in an eruption increases roughly linearly with the interval since the previous one, and at a rate of around 0.001 cubic kilometres (0.00024 cu mi) for each year. This gives an approximate figure of 0.08 cubic kilometres (0.019 cu mi) for an eruption after 80 years of inactivity.
Magma sitting in an underground chamber for many years will start to see higher melting point constituents such as olivine crystallizing out. The effect is to increase the concentration of dissolved gases (mostly sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide) in the remaining liquid magma, making the subsequent eruption more violent. As gas-rich magma approaches the surface during an eruption, the huge drop in internal pressure caused by the reduction in weight of the overlying rock (which drops to zero at the surface) causes the gases to come out of solution, the volume of gas increasing explosively from nothing to perhaps many times that of the accompanying magma. Additionally, the removal of the higher melting point material will raise the concentration of felsic components such as silicates, potentially making the magma more viscous, adding to the explosive nature of the eruption.
The government emergency plan for an eruption therefore assumes that the worst case will be an eruption of similar size and type to the 1631 VEI 4 eruption. In this scenario, the volcano's slopes, extending out to about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from the vent, may be exposed to pyroclastic surges sweeping down them, whilst much of the surrounding area could suffer from tephra falls. Because of prevailing winds, towns and cities south and east of the volcano are most at risk from this. It is assumed that tephra accumulation exceeding 100 kilograms per square metre (20 lb/sq ft)—at which point people are at risk from collapsing roofs—may extend out as far as Avellino to the east or Salerno to the south-east. Near Naples, this tephra fall hazard is assumed to extend barely past the volcano's slopes to the northwest. The specific areas affected by the ash cloud depend upon the circumstances surrounding the eruption.
The plan assumes between two weeks and 20 days notice of an eruption and foresees the emergency evacuation of 600,000 people, almost entirely comprising all those living in the zona rossa ("red zone"), i.e. at greatest risk from pyroclastic flows. The evacuation, by train, ferry, car, and bus, is planned to take about seven days, and the evacuees would mostly be sent to other parts of the country, rather than to safe areas in the local Campania region, and may have to stay away for several months. However, the dilemma that would face those implementing the plan is when to start this massive evacuation: If it starts too late, thousands could be killed, whereas if it is started too early, the indicators of an eruption may turn out to be a false alarm. In 1984, 40,000 people were evacuated from the Campi Flegrei area, another volcanic complex near Naples, but no eruption occurred.
Ongoing efforts are being made by the government at various levels (especially of Campania) to reduce the population living in the red zone, by demolishing illegally constructed buildings, establishing a national park around the whole volcano to prevent the future construction of buildings and by offering sufficient financial incentives to people for moving away. One of the underlying goals is to reduce the time needed to evacuate the area, over the next twenty to thirty years, to two or three days.
The volcano is closely monitored by the Osservatorio Vesuvio in Ercolano with extensive networks of seismic and gravimetric stations, a combination of a GPS-based geodetic array and satellite-based synthetic aperture radar to measure ground movement and by local surveys and chemical analyses of gases emitted from fumaroles. All of this is intended to track magma rising underneath the volcano.
The official INGV monitoring bulletin from the Vesuvius Observatory, as of July 2024, classifies Mount Vesuvius at a Green Alert Level. This indicates a state of low volcanic activity. The surveillance system has not detected any significant changes in Vesuvius' activity state. The low-energy earthquakes are attributable to gravitational subsidence activity of rocks inside the crater.
National park
The area around Vesuvius was officially declared a national park on 5 June 1995. The summit of Vesuvius is open to visitors, and there is a small network of paths around the volcano that are maintained by the park authorities on weekends. There is access by road to within 200 metres (660 ft) of the summit (measured vertically), but after that, access is on foot only. There is a spiral walkway around the volcano from the road to the crater.
Funicular
Mount Vesuvius' first funicular – a type of vertical transport that uses two opposing, interconnected, rail-guided passenger cars always moving in concert – opened in 1880, subsequently destroyed by the March 1944 eruption.
"Funiculì, Funiculà", a Neapolitan language song, was written to commemorate the opening of the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius.
See also
- Battle of Mount Vesuvius
- List of volcanic eruptions by death toll
- List of volcanoes in Italy
- List of stratovolcanoes
Notes
- Italian: Vesuvio [veˈzuːvjo]; Neapolitan: Vesuvio [vəˈsuːvjə], also 'a Muntagna [a munˈdaɲɲə] ("the Mountain"); Latin: Vesuvius [wɛˈsʊwi.ʊs], also Vesevius, Vesvius or Vesbius.
- The dates of the earthquakes and of the eruption are contingent on a final determination of the time of year, but there is no reason to change the relative sequence.
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- Janick, Jules (2002). "Lecture 19: Greek, Carthaginian and Roman Agricultural Writers". History of Horticulture. Purdue University. Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
- Josephus, Flavius. "xx.7.2". Jewish Antiquities. Also known to have been mentioned in a section now lost.
- ^ Giacomelli, Lisetta; Perrotta, Annamaria; Scandone, Roberto; Scarpati, Claudio (September 2003). "The eruption of Vesuvius of 79 AD and its impact on human environment in Pompei". Episodes. 26 (3): 235–238. doi:10.18814/epiiugs/2003/v26i3/014.
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- Vesuvius Causes Terror; Loud Detonations and Frequent Earthquakes, The New York Times, 6 April 1906
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Bibliography
- Guest, John; Cole, Paul; Duncan, Angus; Chester, David (2003). "Chapter 2: Vesuvius". Volcanoes of Southern Italy. London: The Geological Society. pp. 25–62.
- Sigurdsson, Haraldur (2002). "Mount Vesuvius before the Disaster". In Jashemski, Wilhelmina Mary Feemster; Meyer, Frederick Gustav (eds.). The natural history of Pompeii. Cambridge UK: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. pp. 29–36.
- Sigurdsson, Haraldur; Carey, Steven (2002). "The Eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79". In Jashemski, Wilhelmina Mary Feemster; Meyer, Frederick Gustav (eds.). The natural history of Pompeii. Cambridge UK: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. pp. 37–64.
- Waldstein, Charles; Shoobridge, Leonard Knollys Haywood (1908). Herculaneum, past, present & future. London: Macmillan and Co.
- Zanella, E.; Gurioli, L.; Pareschi, M.T.; Lanza, R. (2007). "Influences of urban fabric on pyroclastic density currents at Pompeii (Italy): Part II: temperature of the deposits and hazard implications" (PDF). Journal of Geophysical Research. 112 (B5): B05214. Bibcode:2007JGRB..112.5214Z. doi:10.1029/2006jb004775. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 October 2007.
External links
- Purcell, N.; Talbert, R.; Gillies, S.; Elliott, T.; Becker, J. (20 March 2015). "Places: 433189 (Vesuvius M.)". Pleiades. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
- Fraser, Christian (10 January 2007). "Vesuvius escape plan 'insufficient'". Naples: BBC News. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
- Garrett, Roger A.; Klenk, Hans-Peter (April 2005). "Vesuvius' next eruption". Geotimes. Archived from the original on 12 May 2007. Retrieved 8 December 2006.
- "Vesuvius: The making of a catastrophe: Il problema ignorato". Global Volcanic and Environmental Systems Simulation (GVES). 1996–2003.
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Campanian volcanic arc |
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Pompeii | |||||
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Other sites destroyed in the 79 eruption | |||||
Archaeological |
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- Mount Vesuvius
- Active volcanoes
- Campanian volcanic arc
- Complex volcanoes
- Decade Volcanoes
- Geography of Naples
- Sacred mountains
- Stratovolcanoes of Italy
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- Medieval volcanic events
- Pompeii (ancient city)
- Geological type localities
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