What active volcanoes are there? The history of the six most dangerous volcanoes in the world

At the time of the volcanic eruption, the population of Pompey numbered about twenty thousand souls, and many more lived nearby, either in seaside villas or in small settlements nearby. They were threatened, immediately threatened. The year 79 was not significant for the Roman Empire, it was the beginning of the government of the emperor, and in southern Italy the Pax Romana brought its fruits in peace, peace and prosperity. For the region, seventeen years have passed since the last major event, when the Emperor appeared in Naples on an artificially motivated visit, while the region suffered a major earthquake that required significant damage, but most of it was repaired in 79.

The calm did not interfere with many of the weak earthquakes to which the local people were accustomed, and accepted them in peace. Therefore, even the series of shocks that came in August and were repeated over the next few days did not attract much attention, although this was the only warning before the explosion itself. Somewhat paradoxically, it was a holiday and volcanoes were celebrated, holidays in honor of the God of Fire and volcanoes.

Sometimes at noon there were celebrations for their golden nail. There was a huge explosion, and residents of the Vesuvius area were among the first to hear the impact caused by the violation of the speed of sound. However, they would be happy to be deprived of this cultural experience. After this, it was only possible to describe numbers that give a general idea of ​​​​how terrible the inhabitants of Pompeii and other settlements in the surrounding area were. The column of ash, pumice and stones reached a height of 32 kilometers, then the wind took it and began to throw it to the southeast, directly towards Pompeii.

The city's residents certainly didn't need evacuation orders, enough sense to know the situation was serious. But to leave the city in south direction, far from the volcano, there was nothing simple, of course, confusion on the streets. Some of them stayed because they had to, others couldn't say goodbye or love. Ash and tephra began pouring into the city, a very light volcanic material about the size of a walnut. Every hour it was about fifteen centimeters in height, so Pompey sat in a layer of strength of about a meter and a quarter.

At one o'clock in the morning the rain stopped, but another meter was added, and some roofs supported the weight and burst, burying the inhabitants hidden here. Two thousand people lived in the city, mostly alive, and the victims attributed the chaos to the escape and destruction of buildings. But people might think they are winning.

But the reality cannot be any further. The moment the tephra fell, the volcanic eruption lost its dynamics, which splashed out great amount material into the stratosphere. Instead, the entire column of material collapsed to the ground and began forming pyroclastic flows, the most frightening things associated with volcanic activity. At a general level, a pyroclastic flow is a mixture of gaseous volcanic gases, magma and ash that reaches temperatures on the order of hundreds of degrees Celsius and moves at speeds of up to 700 kilometers per hour, much faster than humans.

This flow cannot be stopped; obstacles can be easily avoided and all those living behind them can be destroyed, even overtaking the water. This should have been expected by the inhabitants of Pompeii. But they had a relatively quiet night, because pyroclastic flows do not immediately replace volcanic fall, but after a few hours they should gain strength. By August the Pompeians awoke to a city in ash and grotto, but mostly alive. Some even returned to start their homes to figure out the situation in order to preserve the wealth left in place when they quickly fell out of the volcano explosion.

Some mornings there would be flames on the mountainside, or at least he would see from afar. In fact, pyroclastic flows were thrown out, and upon seeing the crowds of refugees, they made it clear that the encounter with this disaster was fatal. People fled even in Misenum, thirty kilometers away, which already exceeds the radius of action of the pyroclastic flow. And the people in Pompeii who were on the second day, unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, also ran away.

They still had time to escape to safety, which was not as far as it might seem. The first wave hit Herculaneum, which lies right at the foot of the volcano. Another blow, at half past seven in the morning, was even greater, stopping eight kilometers from the volcano, and Pompey was ten kilometers from the crater. Then the eighth came out and ended with that. A wave of heated volcanic gases, magma and ash at a temperature of about three hundred degrees Celsius hit Pompeii from the north and passed through the city in just half a minute.

Every last one of the inhabitants was probably killed within half an hour. The buildings that jutted out from the two and a half meter high ash were pressure waves, and the pyroclastic flow itself shifted, and everything was so fast that even the trees that blew up the pressure wave were covered in volcanic material in this position. People died before they hit the ground, the cause of death was not suffocation, but the destruction of soft tissue due to heat. The twisted positions in which most people were found, and which had long been interpreted as the result of prolonged agony, were in turn the result of post-mortem spasms in response to heat shock.

The theory of painful dying due to lack of oxygen in dust clouds is not true. If one were to survive the first wave, then another wave followed, which also destroyed what may have survived the first impact with great luck and stopped at only fifteen kilometers. And as if the volcano said that this is the third part of everything good, it hit Pompeii for the third time, this wave was the most extreme and covered dead city other massive layers of volcanic material.

Vesuvius still threatened all day, and then, in August, it was sternly calm. As a result of the explosion, the volcano delivered as much energy as one hundred thousand nuclear bombs in Hiroshima. However, in local conditions it was able to cause terrible destruction. Herculaneum was covered by twenty-three meters of volcanic deposits, and the ash did not fall on it due to the wind, which caused pyroclastic waves here. Pompeii fared slightly better in this regard, establishing 4-6 meters of volcanic material.

Of course, research has focused on the question of the temperature of gases and materials. Scientists were able to predict that the destruction occurred approximately as follows. The explosion itself had a volcanic fall. As the volcano exhausted the top of the magma, it reached deeper and began spewing gray smoke containing volcanic material up to ten centimeters in size. The temperature cannot be specified, but it will likely be higher than the previous stage. The grandfathers took care of pyroclastic waves, the first of which was colder, the second warmer, and the temperature during storage rose to 300 degrees.

Here we clearly see why no one survived - the entire city was surrounded by gases with a temperature significantly higher than the boiling point of water. The site was abandoned without anyone attempting to derail it while searching for the buried wealth. And as time went on, apart from Pliny's account, there was less evidence that Pompey existed at all. Eventually they faded completely into oblivion, and this once wealthy city had to await its rediscovery. This contributed to the fact that as soon as seaport was internal, perhaps the best proof that natural forces override any artificial structure in the right circumstances.

Pliny's family and the explosion of Pompeii. If the fate of thousands of anonymous inhabitants is connected with the entire event, we should not omit the families who were hit very hard by the explosion of Vesuvius and who made significant contributions to Roman culture and state. and his nephew was the explosion, and the other of them also survived the explosion and made a detailed report about it, thanks to which the scientific work of both relatives bears the explosive eruption of a volcano called Pliny.

Pliny the Elder did not appear in this area by accident, but he introduced it here. Although historically known as the author of the Encyclopedia of Natural History, he spent half of Europe serving the state in a prominent position as a prosecutor. Eventually the Emperor ordered a prefect of the Roman fleet stationed at Misenum, about thirty kilometers from Vesuvius.

It was there that the volcano exploded, which he tried to explore as a proper scientist. During this time, Misenus called for the assistance of various people, and Pliny sent the entire fleet on an evacuation operation, while he himself led the Gulf of Napier before the light hand that was in his hand. His nephew refused to go with him and therefore was not a direct witness to his uncle's end.

Pliny the Elder was warned not to flee, but he did not care, and found his friend Pomponianus near Stabiae. He wanted to take it, but he didn't have a good wind and had to wait - at first in the building, but he and his companions had to leave for fear of its collapse, heading straight into the rain of falling chunks of volcanic material. While on the run, Pliny the Elder fell and was unable to continue his journey. Two days later he was found in the tephra, without any injuries. It is therefore entirely possible that as an obese person the situation simply failed and collapsed and then died, perhaps succumbing to a cardiac or cerebral event and possible gas concentrations, although it is unlikely that his companions would have survived without this type of problem.

His death is thus shrouded in mystery, but it is certain that he was one of the thousands of victims of Vesuvius. Plinius the Younger was not personally present in the elements, but he was in the area, and of course he had heard a number of personal reports of people surviving the explosion near the volcano, and he could clearly follow him from Misenum. His contribution to the investigation of the explosion is that twenty-five years after the tragedy, the historian Tacitus wrote two letters describing the entire explosion. Because of its sense of detail, this document has a much greater contribution to history and volcanoes than other authors' references.