Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Image not available - no digital rights
only the slow deliberate suffocation of the town under millions
of tons of clinker . . . the whole process was strangely quiet.'³ By
contrast, the constant flow of lava in Hawaii was described by
Ilana Halperin in 2009 thus: 'The amount of lava that has come
out of the Kilauea volcano since 1984 . . . could pave a road to
the moon and back again at least five times . . . Lava moving as
if a normal body of water - like the Hudson, only blood red.'4
The terms given to volcanoes to describe their current state
are active, dormant (or quiescent) and extinct. None of these terms
are wholly satisfactory, as volcanoes exist in a time frame so much
longer than that of humans. While 'active' is clear enough, 'extinct'
may be a matter of opinion, or of hope. Volcanoes thought to have
been extinct for thousands of years have suddenly come to life,
indicating that we just do not know enough about them. An
example here is Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska, thought to
have been extinct for 10,000 years, which erupted in 2006. Thus
it was dormant all along, not extinct. The same for Vesuvius:
Pliny the Elder gave no consideration to Vesuvius in his account
View of the
great eruption of
Vesuvius in 1872,
wood-engraving.
