The Volcano That Won’t Quite Sleep: Vesuvius’ Eruption History

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In this Volcano Minisode, Laura and Katy dive into the dramatic, deadly, and never-quite-dormant history of Mount Vesuvius, one of the most iconic volcanoes on Earth. From burying Pompeii in ash and pyroclastic waves to raining debris across the Mediterranean during WWII, Vesuvius has earned its title as the angriest volcano in history.

🌋 What makes Vesuvius so volatile?
 🏛 What actually happened in 79 AD—and why didn’t anyone leave?
 🔥 How has it erupted 31 times since forming only 17,000 years ago?
 🌲 And why might trees be our new secret weapon in predicting eruptions?

From Roman cities turned to ash to trees tipping us off from space, this episode is a molten-hot blend of science, history, and nature’s chaos.

👉 This is episode 5 of 6 in our Volcano Minisodes series—bite-sized, bizarre, and bubbling with explosive facts.

🎧 Listen now and meet the volcano that refuses to hit snooze.

Transcript

Laura: Hello and welcome to Wildly Curious, a podcast that tells you everything you need to know about nature, and probably more than you wanted to know.

I'm Laura,

Katy: And I'm Katie, and we are going to continue. These blinds. I just got like blown

Laura: you just blasted by the sun.

Katy: ha. Hold on. Wait, hang on, hang on. Okay. That should be normally

Laura: Only a little bit. Yeah.

Katy: this is so much.

Laura: You're like, it's too sunny. I, I only record at night.

Katy: No. Normally we do, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Were sitting there talking for like several minutes and it wasn't an issue. Then all of a sudden the

Laura: I guess the sun came out.

Katy: to be out. Like,

Laura: You guys are ready to start.

Katy: Did you, did I hear someone needed some sunlight and just

Laura: We are gonna talk about volcanoes, but not sun.

Katy: it's already going away.

All right. See, [00:01:00] look. Are you kidding me right now? Okay, continue.

Laura: Well, you were about to say, and we're back to talking about 

Katy: Mini sos. So we're having two more weeks of the Mini SOS before our regular season kicks off. So yeah, volcanoes. We're talking about volcanoes. Things that have what Made. Created and made cooler. Made destroyed, created, made coal.

I feel like I'm

Laura: It's been a couple weeks, guys for us. So I, it's definitely made cooler or found or destroyed, I'm pretty sure. Okay.

Katy: Okay.

Laura: But one of them, I just, so let's do, let's do this next one. This is n hmm. All of the, this one I just felt focused on the volcano itself because. It has gone through a lot and I just couldn't stop myself from going down the rabbit hole.

Katy: This poor

volcano. 

Laura: So I wanted to talk about the Angry Mount Vesuvius, which is one of the most well-known volcanoes, but even though it's super well-known, [00:02:00] it's, I still didn't know it's whole history.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: So a little bit about it, and we've talked about this in a couple past episodes, but. Real quick. Mount Vesuvius is in southern Italy.

It is a straddle volcano on a subduction zone. And for those of you that don't know what those words mean, you should go back and listen to our volcano episode.

Katy: Great plug.

Laura: But a subduction, you know, one plate going under the other, and that's where the most active volcanoes are found. It's just really volatile.

It's also called, I've never heard this term, a Soma volcano, meaning it formed within the crater of an even older volcano.

Katy: Oh. Oh geez.

Laura: Which I had no idea. Yeah,

Katy: Double

Laura: the older volcano was called Mount Soma. So I guess that's named after when this happens

Katy: Okay. Okay.

Laura: as of 2013. 'cause you never know, it could always be changing here.

So 2013 it was 4,203 feet tall, but changes every time it erupts. And it has a large ridge like on the north face 'cause it's almost like in two tiers, kind of [00:03:00] still because of a volcano within a volcano.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: So between the Big Ridge on it and the tip top cone is the val, the Vale Delante, the Giants Valley, which is pretty cool sounding.

And at the tip of the cone is a large crater

Katy: call, are you gonna say why? It's called

Laura: No, they didn't say, I, I just assume it's just because it's so big and it's like a small valley before you hit the top.

Katy: Yeah, yeah.

Laura: At the top is a large crater, about 2000 feet across and a thousand feet deep. It's like pretty typical volcano. Like when you picture one, scientists think it formed only about 17,000 years ago.

So it's relatively young. That's a baby volcano. 17,000 years.

Katy: go, that's pretty

Laura: Yeah, it's a baby. People have always lived near volcanoes, especially near here. Today more than 10 million people live on or near the volcano.

Katy: Again,

Laura: lot of people living on an active [00:04:00] volcano.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: Yeah. 'cause last we talked in our volcano episode about, you know, the fact that volcanoes have very fertile soil.

So like it's a great place to farm. You can grow some great grapes for wine. There's just a big risk,

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: and particularly Mount Vesuvius, which has a no, a history of being extremely volatile. So here's where we start talking about the drama. It is a series of cataclysmic eruptions over time. So the volcano had been dormant for the first, like 79.

No wait at this point. It would've been like 77,000 years. Or no, wait, no wait. You said it was 17, right? 17,000. It's about 15,000 years of dormancy, about 2000 years ago in 79. Ad that was the first time when it blew up? Yeah. I don't know. It was like, it formed, which probably was pretty, extreme.

But after that tickles,

Katy: Just cat.

Laura: just buttoned right in my face. [00:05:00] That is when the most cataclysmic eruption happened to date, which was Pompeii, which is what everyone knows this volcano for. But years of earthquakes had been happening before. 79 a d There was like the rumblings. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody was like, I guess putting two and two together that like earthquake might equal volcanic eruption.

But the res.

Katy: all like, we all just shook a little. Okay.

Laura: Yeah. Well, and who knows, at that time they might still have been like, say, like thinking it was like the Gods who knows

Katy: Yeah. Somebody's doing something

Laura: something,

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: but the resulting eruption buried the cities of Pompeii, which most people know about. But it also buried a Alanis and, Staber. Or Staber under, yeah. And that was just under Ash and Herculaneum with mud.

So just multiple cities taken off the map and they know exactly what happened with this eruption because there is, a, [00:06:00] an actual record, like there's a first eye witness of what happened for the, most, mostly first eye. So just after midday, like when this, when the eruption first happened, just after midday ash rock and other debris rained down, covering the city nine feet deep.

At a rate of 10 to 15 centimeters per hour. So it's pretty significant.

Katy: yeah. That's terrifying though.

Laura: But enough time that, like at first you'd think that that first eruption actually probably people could have started to get out in time.

Katy: Like, Hey guys, something bad is

Laura: Yeah. Like ash and rock is happening by evening. The roofs are collapsing. And larger stones are falling and they can no longer see the sun.

That's when absolutely you needed to have gotten out of dodge.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: But what then it just gets even worse because, so like the main eruption it happened, but it took time for that debris to fall over the next seven hours. So from mid, from like evening to the next morning, pyroclastic [00:07:00] surges. So pyroclastic, fire surges of gas ash and volcanic glass.

Blasted through the city reaching temperatures of 570 degrees Fahrenheit. So it was like pulses, like these, like pulses of heat ash and glass. Just

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: We've talked about it, even in a past episode, I think it was in one of our, nature news that they found a human brain that had turned a glass.

It happened so quickly under such a insane heat. So most people died within 15 minutes due to suffocation, thank goodness. A total of 19 to 23 feet of ash and rock covered the city and in just Pompeii, over 2000 people died. But they think that overall the casualties are much higher because of those other cities.

They didn't have accurate records at the time, at least very much of who was found and who was injured and things like that. 

Katy: Yeah. Those death Pulses though. Great band name.

Laura: yeah, that is a great band name.

Katy: , Even if for some reason you even remotely survived, can [00:08:00] you imagine that first one coming through like

Laura: No, , because it'd be like, I'm imagining you'd see it 'cause it'd be a wave of heat and ash. I've have you. So my mom and I went to go see the movie Pompei and Movie in the theaters. Like I think we were in high school when it came out. No, actually it was probably older than that. 'cause had Harrington in it, which is basically where we went to see it.

And, no spoilers, but pompei blows up,

Katy: yeah,

Laura: and the surge of the heat is, I can't even imagine how terrifying.

Katy: Gosh.

Laura: The firsthand account is, what's it, what was his name? Pliny the younger is the one who wrote this because he was on a boat and he could see what was happening. And then people were coming who had survived and were like telling him his dad actually died in this because his dad was part of the fleet that were close by and the boats got even taken, I mean taken out.

Katy: Gosh

Laura: was the first and the worst, but over the next 1000 years, erupted another nine times.

Katy: dang.

Laura: The one in 512 was so devastating that the locals weren't required to pay [00:09:00] taxes that year be, which is significant because it means they had nothing left to give.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: So there the government was like, okay, fine.

This year no taxes, and we all know how the government is about taking taxes. It doesn't matter how poor you are,

Katy: So the, yeah, so the fact that they were like, let's just put a pause on this for a year,

Laura: it was a bad one. Yeah. In December of 1631, a series of earthquakes led to another huge eruption that killed 3000 people, which is more than Pompeii, but less, less cataclysmic overall. But we're also starting to get more populated now,

Katy: yeah,

Laura: and then it goes into this weird,

Katy: point, they should , yes, it doesn't happen often, but it happens often enough that you should weigh your chance. But again, it could not happen in your lifetime. You know

Laura: 'cause it didn't happen for 15,000 years. So you know,

Katy: but then from one to another. 'cause how many, how many years was it

Laura: nine times over a thousand, I mean it's happening every a hundred years. Like it's

Katy: I mean, because of back then

Laura: true.

Katy: living as long it [00:10:00] could

Laura: You might have skipped you, but for your own children's sake you'd be like, you guys should go.

Katy: yeah.

Laura: Yeah. This is not a family business, I promise. But then something weird happens again, and we still don't really know about volcanoes a lot as in far as like when do they erupt and why do they happen?

It's, I mean, it's secrets under the earth. We're really never gonna know some things. But after the eruption in 1631, it goes, it starts to go through a series of what's called it's of cycles. And the cycles are quiescent, which means when the lava, the mouth of the volcano is obstructed and eruptive when the mouth opens up.

But it is basically always active. Now. It was like dormant active, dormant active. It is now always active. So since 1631, the volcano has never slept. It's just sometimes blocked. Sometimes open leaking. So these cycles can last for [00:11:00] years. There is no pattern to this. It's not like it's every 20 years, it's Yeah, these cycles.

So over the next 300 years, so from 1631 to the early 19 hundreds, there were 21 eruptions.

Katy: Geez.

Laura: in just 300 years it escalated insanely. The last, eruption in 1944, so Right. You know, when the world is falling apart. Anyway, with World War ii, then there's this giant, there's a volcanic eruption.

Katy: Let's add to this.

Laura: Ash rained down in Albania, which is across the Mediterranean.

Like, I mean, it's significant.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: So in total, that volcano that we know of has had 31 eruptions, eight of which were considered major eruptions and killed lots of people, and it's still not sleeping. It just has erupted since 1944, so we are certainly do, I hope it doesn't for everyone's sake, but

Katy: doing, ah,

Laura: yeah, not to make everyone who's living in and near Mount Vesuvius's panic

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: on the plus side, though in Nature news directly [00:12:00] relevant to this and so that all of you who live in Italy don't panic.

We have just discovered that we can now perhaps predict volcanic eruptions due to trees because the trees are always trying to tell us stuff. So apparently the scientists have, can have seen from satellites when there is a lot of CO2 under the ground. The trees grow quickly and their leaves actually change angles to work to do with like absorption of carbon dioxide and all that stuff, and the amount of trees that are turning their leaves.

It can be seen from satellites in space. And so we think that we could, that is the earliest warning sign. So if insane.

Katy: on the growth of trees, which is already extremely slow, then, you know, like you said, like something's, something is coming

Laura: But how, how ironic is it that Right. We're like relying on the plants to tell us we still haven't figured out as human beings. Yeah. Yeah. [00:13:00] But.

Katy: that the trees are just like, let me just look away.

Laura: Or it's like slowly waving. There's Dayton. I, it's,

so, once again, thanks to the trees, they're always trying to tell us things that we don't know and, uh, now, thankfully, hopefully we can use that knowledge to predict vol kind of corruptions,

Katy: That's awesome. I need to go down that rabbit

Laura: right?

Katy: and my tree. So I really wanna go down that and a bower about that.

Laura: Yeah. And that is angry Vesuvius.

Katy: Guys, we have one more week of a mini sode, and then after that we'll be kicking off our season 12. So make sure you go check us out on YouTube, subscribe to us there and Patreon, and we will talk to you next week.

Laura: See ya.