Mount Vesuvius: Pompeii's Destroyer

The story of this volcano dates back to 79 A.D., where the the ancient city of Pompeii once laid at the bottom of Mount Vesuvius. That day of October 24th, 79 A.D., where the city was demolished, covered in ash because of a pyroclastic surge. The aftermath of this volcano was devastating; 2000 people had died on this day. When the city was rediscovered in 1748, the city was very in intact condition. All the buildings, artifacts, and even skeletons were preserved and we have learned a great deal about the life of Pompeii from it.

Mount Vesuvius currently is located on a convergent plate boundary. That means that at the plates here are converging, or pushing together against eachother. The two plates that are converging here is the African and Eurasian Plate. Since these two plates are continental plates, that means that at this boundary, landforms such as volcanic mountains, which is what Mount Vesuvius is. Although the boundary is composed of two converging continental plates, the African Plate is subducting under the Eurasian plate. At this plate boundary, no new crust is being made here because both crusts are continental and they are converging. This means that instead of creating new crust, they are destroying crust. As the African Plate is subducting under the Eurasian plate, the African plate is being melted and broken down. When it melts, all the carbon that is heated has to rise to the top, which is how volcanoes are formed on land. The Earth is made up of multiple layers, and the ones at work here to cause the converging is the crust and the mantle. Convection currents are caused by the dissimilar heating in the mantle. Less dense, warmer material comes up, while the denser cooler material sinks. This movement that creates circulation patterns, known as convection currents in the mantle.

So although this incident happened so many years ago, the people of this area should be prepared by constantly watching the volcano now. It's been dormant since 1944, yet it's still classified as one of the most deadliest volcanoes around. No one could prepare for the deadly eruption of 79 A.D., there wasn't enough technology to prepare for the eruption. Currently the city of Pompeii been recreated, people now live in the new city of Pompeii. But worst case scenario, they would have to evacuate 3 million people. To add more fuel to the fire, if there were strong winds, that could delay evacuation. In order to aid with evacution, the government would deploy 500 buses and 220 trains to evacuate people.