1. Mt. Vesuvius
Photos from NARA in College Park, MD
ESS 315-Yuan Chen

2. Mt. Vesuvius is one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes.

3. Background:
Vesuvius 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.
Vesuvius is most famous for the 79 AD eruption which destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Though the volcano's last eruption was in 1944, it still represents a great danger to the cities that surround it, especially the busy metropolis of Naples. 

4. Facts about the Mount Vesuvius
Vesuvius Location: Vesuvius, Italy
Elevation:1281 meters (4000 feet)
Google Map

5. Devastating Effects
Archaeologists estimate roughly 2,000 citizens of the city died from the ash flow, gases and debris from the eruption in 79 A.D. This number does not count lives lost from surrounding areas. At one point, the city boasted a population of 20,000, so many more lives could have been lost.
In 1631 it was 18,000. 
In 1906, lasting ten days and causing great destruction and the loss of 2,000 lives 
The volcano's last major eruption occurred between March 18-23, 1944, and death toll was at 28. D
Destroying the villages of San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Massa di Somma and part San Giorgio a Cremano. 

6. Mount Vesuvius: Plate Tectonic Setting
Vesuvius is part of the Campanian volcanic arc, a line of volcanoes that formed over a subduction zone created by the convergence of the African and Eurasian plates. Under Vesuvius, the lower part of the sub- ducting slab has torn and detached from the upper part to form what is called a "slab window". This makes Vesuvius' rocks slightly different chemically from the rocks erupted from the other Campanian volcanoes. 

7. The pyroclastic flows from the eruption can move at 450mph / 724 km/h with temperatures reaching as high as 1,830°F or 999°C.
The smoke plume from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 spewed a deadly cloud of volcanic gas, stones, and ash to a height of 33 kilometres (21 mi)

8. The 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius is why volcanologists use "Plinian" to describe large volcanic eruption clouds. Pliny the Younger, a Roman historian who witnessed the 79 AD eruption, wrote the oldest surviving description of the tall, tree- shaped cloud that rose above the volcano. Modern volcanologists use the term to describe large-volume, violent eruptions that produce quickly-expanding clouds of rock, ash and gases which rise many miles into the atmosphere. 

9. Mount Vesuvius has two craters, one which was the original crater and another crater created when the top of the mountain caved in during a previous eruption in 1944.
Google Map

10. Pompeii is well preserved because the city was buried so quickly by volcanic ash and it now provides snapshots of past life in a Roman city.

11. Images from World War Two

12. REFERENCE Research website： Google Map
Images source:
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