Mount Vesuvius ( və-SOO-vee-əs) 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. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuvius consists of a large cone partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera, resulting from the collapse of an earlier, much higher structure. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis, Stabiae and other settlements. The eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ash and volcanic gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), erupting molten rock and pulverised pumice at the rate of 6×105 cubic metres (7.8×105 yd3) per second. More than 1,000 people are thought to have died in the eruption, though the exact toll is unknown. The only surviving witness account consists of two letters by Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus. Vesuvius has erupted many times since. It is the only volcano on Europe's mainland to have erupted in the last hundred years. It is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, marked as one of the Decade Volcanoes, because 3,000,000 people live near enough to be affected by an eruption, with at least 600,000 in the danger zone. Eruptions tend to be violent and explosive; these are known as Plinian eruptions.
Etymology Vesuvius was a name of the volcano in frequent use by the authors of the late Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. Its collateral forms were Vesaevus, Vesevus, Vesbius and Vesvius. Writers in ancient Greek used Οὐεσούιον or Οὐεσούιος. Many scholars since then have offered an etymology. Given that peoples of varying ethnicity and language occupied Campania during the Roman Iron Age, the etymology depends to a large degree on the presumption of what language was spoken there at the time. Naples was settled by Greeks, as the name Nea-polis, "New City", testifies. The Oscans, an Italic people, lived in the countryside. The Latins also competed for the occupation of Campania. Etruscan settlements were in the vicinity. Other peoples of unknown provenance are said to have been there at some time by various ancient authors. Some theories about its origin are:
From Greek οὔ = 'not' prefixed to a root from or related to the Greek word σβέννυμι = 'I quench', in the sense of 'unquenchable'. From Greek ἕω = 'I hurl' and βίη 'violence' → 'hurling violence', *vesbia, taking advantage of the collateral form. From an Indo-European root, *eus- < *ewes- < h₁ews-, 'shine', 'burn', sense "the one who lightens', through Latin or Oscan. From an Indo-European root *wes = 'hearth' (compare e.g. Vesta) The Romans regarded Mount Vesuvius as being devoted to Hercules. The historian Diodorus Siculus relates a tradition that Hercules, in the performance of his labours, passed through the country of nearby Cumae on his way to Sicily and found there a place called "the Phlegraean Plain" (Φλεγραῖον πεδίον, 'fiery'), "from the mountain which of old spouted forth a huge fire [...] the mountain is called Vesuvius". It was inhabited by giant bandits, "the sons of the Earth". With the gods' assistance, he pacified the region and continued. The facts behind the tradition, if any, remain unknown, as does whether Herculaneum was named after it. An epigram by the poet Martial in AD 88 suggests that both Venus, patroness of Pompeii, and Hercules were worshipped in the region devastated by the eruption of 79.
Mythology Vesuvius has a long historic and literary tradition. It was considered a divinity of the Genius type at the time of the eruption of AD 79; it appears under the inscribed name Vesuvius as a serpent in the decorative frescos of many lararia, or household shrines, surviving from Pompeii. An inscription from Capua to Iovi Vesuvio indicates that he was worshipped as a power of Jupiter; that is, Jupiter Vesuvius.
Topography
Vesuvius is a "humpbacked" peak, consisting of a large cone (Gran Cono) partially encircled by the steep rim of a summit caldera caused by the collapse of an earlier (and originally much higher) structure called Mount Somma. The Gran Cono was produced during the A.D. 79 eruption. For this reason, the volcano is also called Somma-Vesuvius or Somma-Vesuvio. The caldera started forming during an eruption around 17,000–18,000 years ago and was enlarged by later paroxysmal eruptions, ending in the one of AD 79. This structure has given its name to the term "somma volcano", which describes any volcano with a summit caldera surrounding a newer cone. The cliffs forming the northern ridge of Monte Somma's caldera rim reach a maximum height of 1,132 m (3,714 ft) at Punta Nasone. The summit of the main cone of Vesuvius is 1,281 m (4,203 ft) above sea level and more than 400 m (1,300 ft) above the 5 km (3.1 mi) long valley of Atrio di Cavallo (the northern floor of Monte Somma's caldera). The volcano's slopes are scarred by lava flows, while the rest are heavily vegetated, with scrub and forests at higher altitudes and vineyards lower down.
Formation
Vesuvius is a stratovolcano and was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates, the African and the Eurasian. The former was subducted at a convergent boundary beneath the latter, deeper into the Earth. As the water-saturated sediments of the African oceanic plate were pushed to hotter depths inside the planet, the water boiled off and lowered the melting point of the upper mantle enough to partially melt the rocks. Because magma is less dense than the solid rock around it, it was pushed upward. Finding a weak spot at the Earth's surface, it broke through, thus forming the volcano. The volcano is one of several forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Others include Campi Flegrei, a large caldera a few kilometres to the north-west, and Ischia, a volcanic island 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the west, and several undersea volcanoes to the south. The arc forms the southern end of a larger chain of volcanoes produced by the subduction process described above, which extends northwest along the length of Italy as far as Monte Amiata in Southern Tuscany. Vesuvius is the only one to have erupted in recent history, although some of the others have erupted within the last few hundred years. Many are either extinct or have not erupted for tens of thousands of years.
Eruptions
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