NOVA warns of 'The Next Pompeii' for the Ides of March

Beware the Ides of March! After three years of Roman-themed drum corps shows, I'm returning to the theme of death and destruction in the Roman world and other dire warnings with The Next Pompeii from NOVA on PBS.

In the shadow of Vesuvius and Pompeii, a lesser-known volcano puts the city of Naples at risk. (Aired February 20, 2019)
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In the shadow of Italy’s Vesuvius, a lesser-known volcano rumbles: Campi Flegrei. An eruption could endanger the millions of residents of the city of Naples. Scientists gain new insights into what happened in nearby Pompeii, and dig into the unique geology of Campi Flegrei. How will they know if the ever-shifting ground is reaching a breaking point? And can an innovative eruption warning system prevent Naples becoming the next Pompeii?

This episode contains several stories I tell my students, although I learned new things about nearly every one of them to update my lessons. The first one I describe to my geology students is the principle volcanologist Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo states, that processes that happened in the past are likely to repeat in the future, so understanding the past is essential for preparation. This is a key takeaway from uniformitarianism, the concept that everything we see in nature is the result of everyday processes occurring over sufficient time, which is boiled down to "the present is the key to the past." It also means that the past is the key to the future.*

The second story I show is of the Macellum of Pozzuoli, the Roman marketplace with the three columns containing holes from boring clams showing that they had been submerged and then lifted out of the sea. These appear in the frontispiece of Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell, the first geology textbook, as examples of processes acting over sufficient time lowering and then raising the ground the pillars stood on. I had never seen photographs of them, but I recognized them instantly from the illustration.

Both of the above appear in the second lecture of my geology course. The rest appear three lectures later, when I discuss volcanoes, beginning with my describing calderas. I use Mount St. Helens, Crater Lake, and Yellowstone as examples, but Campi Flegrei works just as well for explaining the mechanism of caldera formation. I also describe pyroclastic flows and Plinian eruptions, employing Mount Pinatubo and Mount Pelée as examples. In fact, I recognized some of the clips of vehicles fleeing pyroclastic flows as videos of Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1992. I also recognized the cause of the earliest deaths in Pompeii from Mount Pinatubo, as the roofs collapsed at U.S. military bases nearby from the weight of the ash. At least there, the Navy and Air Force had evacuated everyone.

Finally, using seismic waves to map the interior of the planet is a topic I include in my lecture about earthquakes. Using the sound of crashing waves to do so is something I may have encountered before, but it didn't stick. I'm sure it stuck this time, meaning I learned something new. It's always a good day when I learn something new, especially when I can share it with my students. Speaking of which, I will recommend this video to them. I hope they, along with my readers, find it as fascinating as I did.

I close with Garbage's cover of Siouxie and the Banshees song about the eruption of Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii I embedded in Two songs about Pompeii and a volcano drink for the Ides of March six years ago, Cities in Dust.

The official video for Garbage's cover of “Cities in Dust” by Siouxsie and the Banshees, off their ‘Witness To Your Love’ EP.

One of the comments reads "Garbage covering Siouxsie and the Banshees is essentially a life-long dream come true." I agree. As soon as I heard this, I penciled it in for today's post.

Stay tuned for a non-holiday entry tomorrow, followed by St. Patrick's Day on Sunday, the Vernal Equinox on Tuesday, Happy International Day of Nowruz and the 13th birthday of Crazy Eddie's Motie News on Thursday, World Water Day on Friday, and Purim followed by Holi on Saturday and Monday. Busy, busy, busy!

*This reminds me of "Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past" from 1984. Now I wonder if George Orwell had taken a science course that mentioned uniformitarianism and that later inspired him. File that under things that make me go "hmm."