A professor of Roman archeology and a volcanologist weigh in on deadly volcanoes, the new film and the surprising evidence that some people may have survived the epic event.
In the summer of 79 A.D.,
Mount Vesuvius erupted, obliterating the seaside resort of Pompeii.
Volcanic ash
covered everything, preserving evidence of the disaster for nearly two
millennia. The story endures too, in accounts by eyewitness Pliny the
Younger, who viewed the eruption from a nearby town, and in books, TV
movies and films inspired by the catastrophe.
Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s “
Pompeii”
(opening Feb. 21) is the latest in the genre, focusing on a fictional
love story to recount the explosive event, while endeavoring to recreate
an ancient world as precisely as possible. His CGI Vesuvius erupts
spectacularly, but how accurate is it? Is “Pompeii” true to history? And
could this kind of cataclysmic eruption happen again there —
or elsewhere on Earth? For answers, we turned to two experts,
Sarah K. Yeomans, professor of Roman archeology at
West Virginia University, and
Dr. Rosaly Lopes, volcanologist and senior
research scientist and manager of the Planetary Science Section at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Yeomans, who has taken students to Pompeii many times over the last
decade, characterizes the ruins there as uniquely “flash frozen in
time. When we visit this site we get a real sense of how Romans lived
and the things that were important to them. It’s the best insight we
have into this ancient culture,” she says, which coupled with a morbid
curiosity about devastating disasters, is what makes it so eternally
fascinating.
“One of the things I really enjoyed was the way Paul Anderson
reconstructed the site. He clearly has been there, had done the
photography. For example the streets of Pompeii had [raised] stones that
people would walk across to avoid mud, sludge and water,” she points
out. “The way he reconstructed the houses was really well done, right
down to graffiti inscribes on the walls.” The latter was often political
or sexual in nature, but the phallic images had a purpose, “what we
call an apotropaic function,” Yeomans explains. “They would put images
of the phallus next to the doorways. It was a symbol to ward off evil
and bad luck. Not all of them did this, but it does account for some of
the ubiquity of phallic images.”
Visually, Yeomans believes the film “did a nice job with the layout
of the city, with respect to where the amphitheater is and respect to
other buildings,” and she appreciated its portrayal of the Pompeiian
resentment of Rome, which had annexed it 150 years before. But she sees
artistic license at play in the depiction of the volcanic eruption.
“There was never a lava flow and these firebombs you see launching out
of the volcano. That did not happen in this particular type of eruption.
But it’s a movie, not a documentary,” she adds.
What killed most the population was a combination of heat and ash.
“The most deadly phase of the eruption is what’s called a pyroclastic
flow — basically super-heated mud that comes racing down at about 80 mph
and that kills people pretty much immediately. Most of the people died
of heat shock,” says Yeomans. "Nevertheless, there were a few who
lived.”
“There is plenty of evidence that people did survive. We have
inscriptions in other towns that were made by survivors of Pompeii who
had relocated. We know that many people left when the earthquakes began.
There are tunnels in Pompeii, evidence that people may have come back
to tunnel down and retrieve some of their possessions.”
Yeomans, who “fell in love with Roman archaeology in my junior year
in college” while studying abroad in the Roman ruins-laden region of
southern France, says that Pompeii’s ruins are in a vulnerable state due
to excavation and tourist traffic, “a pretty large concern at the
moment. There have been several recent collapses of houses at the site.
They’ve really slowed down on the granting of excavation permits and
limit tourist traffic. There’s a great deal of the site that tourists
are not allowed access to. The focus is on conserving what’s been
excavated.”
Will a volcano catch us by surprise?
Also of concern is the possibility, however remote, that
Mount Vesuvius
— an active volcano — might erupt again. If it did, “It would be
equally as dangerous and would affect many more people because now the
area is much more populated. We have better technology for evacuation
and detection now, though,” Yeomans points out. “Volcanoes are not going
to catch us by surprise.” She explains that earthquakes precede
volcanic eruptions, “which is what happened with Vesuvius in AD 79. The
region is volcanic, and the Romans were used to seismic activity, but
there’s no evidence to suggest that they connected the two. They didn’t
realize that it was a warning sign of a coming eruption.”
According to Lopes, “Vesuvius has not erupted since 1944, and that
was not a violent eruption. Not all eruptions of Vesuvius are as violent
as the 79 A.D. eruption was; most are not. It could erupt again. The
most violent eruptions of Vesuvius tend to occur after the volcano has
rested for several hundred years. Vesuvius is very well monitored, so we
will have some warning.”
Dr. Rosaly Lopes in Vanuatu (Photo courtesy NASA/JPL)
Globally, “There are many other volcanoes in the world that have
the potential to have violent eruptions such as the 79 A.D. one. Mount
St. Helens in 1980 was a violent explosive eruption,” she offers as an
example. “There are about 600 volcanoes on land considered active,
meaning they have been active in historic times and we think they are
likely to erupt again. There are many underwater volcanoes along the
spreading ridges. As for volcanoes in the U.S., Kilauea erupts often —
and it has been active for decades — but not in a violent, explosive
way. The most hazardous volcano in the U.S. is considered to be Mount
Rainier. This means it could erupt in the near future and has the
potential to be very dangerous — it could erupt in an explosive way like
St. Helens in 1980. What makes it more dangerous is that it has
glaciers at the top, and even a not-very-violent eruption could cause
ice to melt, creating mudflows, which are very destructive.”
Lopes,
who holds a degree in astronomy from the University of London, got into
volcanology via a planetary geology course (when the professor missed
class to cover a Mount Etna eruption; “I thought that sounded really
exciting, and decided that I wanted to do that too.”) She says that in
analyzing hazardous volcanoes, modern scientists “look at frequency of
eruptions in the past, and how likely one is to happen again in the next
few decades.”
For example,
Yellowstone National Park is a hotbed of volcanic activity.
“Yellowstone has had enormous eruptions in the past, it is the largest
volcanic caldera on Earth. Calderas are formed by collapse following
very violent eruptions. Yellowstone's violent eruptions last occurred
hundreds of thousands of years ago. Although its eruptions could
potentially be far more devastating than Mount Rainier's, they are less
likely to happen in the near future,” she says. Consider yourself
reassured. Or forewarned.
Sarah K. Yeomans with students at Pompeii. Mount Vesuvius is in the background. (Photo: Alyssa Beall)
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/new-pompeii-movie-begs-the-question-could-mount-vesuvius-erupt
