Denver Museum of Nature & Science

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Did You Know

• During the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, ash fell as far away as Africa. 
• From beginning to end, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius lasted more than 24 hours. 
• In Roman times, the city of Pompeii was best known as a vacation resort for Roman nobility. 
• The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 was roughly 10 times larger than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. 
• At the peak of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, magma, ash, and gas were released from the volcano at a rate of 100,000 tons every second, traveling upward at the speed of a jet plane and reaching 20 miles into the air. This is 3.5 times the height of Mount Everest!
• Pompeii was not the only city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Four miles to the north, the city of Herculaneum was destroyed by a pyroclastic surge. 
• A pyroclastic surge is an extremely hot and fast-moving mixture of volcanic material made up of deadly gasses and ash. 
• Archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli, who oversaw the excavation of the city from 1860 to 1875, discovered that the bodies of people and animals smothered by ash had disintegrated, leaving cavities. Fiorelli and his team poured liquid plaster into these voids, creating detailed casts of people in their last moments. 
• Roman magistrate and writer Pliny the Younger documented a detailed account of the AD 79 eruption. In addition to witnessing and surviving the disaster himself, he spoke to men who returned from a dangerous rescue mission led by Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder. The older and frail Pliny died during the mission, on the beach under a rain of volcanic ash.
• Pliny the Younger's description of the eruption was so keen and descriptive that volcanologists now call an eruption of this type a "Plinian eruption." 
• Mount Vesuvius experiences a Plinian eruption approximately every 2,000 years.

This exhibit is based on the design and presentation developed by the Gulf Coast Exploreum, the Science Museum  of Minnesota, the San Diego Natural History Museum, and Discovery Place. Organized by Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei.