For my travels this week, I visited Pompeii and the volcano of Mt. Vesuvius. The volcano is in Italy near the town of Naples. It is located where it is because this is part of the convergent plate setting of the Campanian volcanic arc. This volcano was formed over a subduction zone created by the convergence of the African and Eurasian plates. The nature of past eruptions is evident here in Pompeii as the entire city was completely buried in volcanic ash following the eruption in 79 CE. You can also see the crater that was left from the last eruption showing these eruptions were explosive. It has erupted thirty times since then with the most recent in 1944. Mt. Vesuvius is likely to erupt again because it is an active volcano and the faults continue to move. We will measure the changes using ground deformation studies, and monitor seismic activities, to see if the ground inflates on the sides and if tremors occur more frequently to predict the next eruption. According to an article by the Telegraph, “Italy's civil protection agency has drawn up an emergency plan, which envisages four levels of alarm being given, culminating in the evacuation, within 72 hours of 550,000 people living in 18 towns in a 200 square kilometre "red zone" ("Mount Vesuvius 'could erupt at any time'," 2013). This obviously poses a significant hazard to the towns nearby. “After the start of an eruption, residents of a larger "yellow zone" may be evacuated if ash fall and gasses released by the volcano create danger” ("Mount Vesuvius 'could erupt at any time'," 2013). When we look at the catastrophe in Pompeii, this was a result of ash and gasses. That was a city in the yellow zone according to Italy's civil protection agency. I found it interesting that people live on the sides of the volcano. The guide also told us that people that lived on the sides of the volcano didn’t used to pay taxes because of that risk!
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| Retrieved from http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/images/plates.gif:// |
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| Retrieved from https://geology.com/volcanoes/vesuvius/ |
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| Retrieved from https://geology.com/volcanoes/vesuvius/ |
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| Retrieved from https://geology.com/volcanoes/vesuvius/ |
References
[image]. Retrieved from http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/images/plates.gif://
Endsley, K. (n.d.). Where Do Earthquakes Happen?. Retrieved from http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/where.html
image. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://geology.com/volcanoes/vesuvius/
Mount Vesuvius 'could erupt at any time'. (2013, September 6). Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10291443/Mount-Vesuvius-could-erupt-at-any-time.html
Mount Vesuvius, Italy: Map, Facts, Eruption Pictures, Pompeii. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://geology.com/volcanoes/vesuvius/
Resource: Earth Revealed [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://learner.org/resources/series78.html#
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