1. Alicia DiMarco Kelly Keish Rebecca Rogers
Mt. Vesuvius
Alicia DiMarco
Kelly Keish
Rebecca Rogers

2. Activity

3. Where is it?

4. Where… Italy 40.821 degrees North, 14.426 degrees East Bay of Naples
Southwest of Rome
Pompeii
Herculaneum
degrees North, degrees East

5. Known Eruptions of Vesuvius
3750 BC 79 AD AD AD
1631 AD
Vesuvius has been dormant since 1944, but is believed to be a cyclical volcano where each centuries long cycle ends in a large eruption like in 79 AD.

6. Statistics of Vesuvius
1281 meters at the summit
VEI (Volcanic Explosivity Index)
Rating of 6 on a scale from 0-8
This means it is 1,000,000 more explosive than a volcano with a rating of 0

7. Geology of Vesuvius Composite Volcano Tephrite rock Eruption types
ash and cinders
Lava
Tephrite rock
Basaltic rocks
calcic plagioclase, augite, and nepheline or leucite minerals
A Composite Volcano is made up of alternating layers of ash and lava.

8. Geology of Vesuvius… How it formed
Plate tectonics
Plates grind against each other
Earthquake or Volcano
Volcano: one plate is thrust deep into the Earth, melted into magma and rises to form a volcano
Magma less dense than solid rock
The African plate is being pushed under the Eurasian plate.

9. August 24, 79 A.D. Ash and Cinders Eruption
Began as steam discharges in the morning
Early afternoon: fine ash and pumice fragments formed an “eruptive cloud”
Debris begins to fall onto Pompeii and many residents evacuated the city (pumice fragments as big as 2”)
Accumulated at the rate of 5-6” per hour
Many people were still alive at this point
AUGUST 25 am…
2000 people who had survived the pumice showers were killed by ash-laden gases
Suffocation as cause of death…bodies became cemented by ash and rain
16,000 people ultimately died in Herculaneum and Pompeii

10. Pliny the Younger
Roman Soldier who witnessed the eruption and tried to help those escaping by sea
An example from his writings
"Now the day begins, with a still hesitant and almost lazy dawn.  All around us buildings are shaken.  We are in the open, but it is only a small area and we are afraid, nay certain, that there will be a collapse.  We decided to leave the town finally; a dazed crowd follows us, preferring our plan to their own (this is what passes for wisdom in a panic).  Their numbers are so large that they slow our departure, and then sweep us along.  We stopped once we had left the buildings behind us.  Many strange things happened to us there, and we had much to fear." (Radice, B., 1968, The Letters of Younger Pliny: New York, Penguin. )

11. Pyroclastic Flows
“A ground-hugging avalanche of hot ash, pumice, rock fragments, and volcanic gas that rushes down the side of a volcano as fast as 100 km/hour or more. The temperature within a pyroclastic flow may be greater than 500° C, sufficient to burn and carbonize wood. Once deposited, the ash, pumice, and rock fragments may deform (flatten) and weld together because of the intense heat and the weight of the overlying material.” (US Geological Survey)

12. Pompeii Located about 6 miles from Vesuvius Rediscovered in 1748
2000 of the 20,000 inhabitants were killed
Many actually died from the gas expelled from the Volcano rather than the ash and cinders themselves
Fossils (molds and casts)
When the people were buried in 3m of ash, groundwater dissolved their bodies over the next seventeen centuries to result in these fossils which maintained the shape of their bodies, but no internal qualities

13. Herculaneum Located at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius
Rediscovered in the 18th century
Buried by feet of pyroclastic material
4 minutes for it to reach and bury Herculaneum
60 FEET OF MUD IN TOTAL THAT ACTED LIKE CONCRETE

14. Future Eruptions Predictions can be made by:
Studying the eruptive history
Monitoring underlying seismic activity
Frequency and distribution of underlying earthquakes

15. Though Vesuvius has been dormant for 60 years, it is still an active volcano.

16. Sources simplethinking.com/italy/ pompeii.shtml (
US Geological Survey
Earth Science 10th Edition (Tarbuck & Lutgens)- our text!